President of the Republic of Lithuania Visits YIVO

(New York, NY) – On March 12, 2019, the President of the Republic of Lithuania H.E. Ms Dalia Grybauskaitė visited the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York and met with YIVO Executive Director Jonathan Brent, the Chairman of the YIVO Board Ruth Levine, and YIVO Board Member Ed Blank and his partner Marta Gucovsky. Harry and Myra Wagner and the Chairwoman of Lithuanian Jewish Community Faina Kuklansky were also present at the visit.

President Dalia Grybauskaitė’s visit was the first ever Presidential visit to YIVO, highlighting the importance of YIVO’s mission and activities and underlining the valuable ties between Lithuania and YIVO.

During the meeting, the President of the Republic of Lithuania H.E. Ms Dalia Grybauskaitė and Representatives of YIVO discussed further ways to expand current cooperation and the implementation of joint projects in 2020.

According to the President, YIVO’s invaluable collection not only highlights Jewish cultural and historical heritage, but also tells about the spiritual strength and courage of those – Lithuanians and Jews – who saved these precious documents.

In light of the fact that 2020 will mark 300 years since the birth of Rabbi Elijah ben Solomon Zalman, an outstanding Lithuanian rabbi and the Litvak Misnagdim religious leader, known as the Vilna Gaon, the Parliament of Lithuania (Seimas) has designated 2020 as the Year of the Vilna Gaon and the History of the Jews of Lithuania.

To mark the 2020 celebration, YIVO will loan to Lithuania the precious Pinkas (register) of the Vilna Gaon’s synagogue. The Pinkas records the legal and financial transactions of the synagogue, including references to the Gaon’s children and his students. It is a key document about the history of the Jewish community of Vilna.

In 2015 YIVO began an important partnership with Lithuania, called the Edward Blank YIVO Vilna Online Collections project, with Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania, the Lithuanian Central State Archives, and the Wroblewski Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences. The aim of the project is to preserve, digitize and virtually reunite YIVO’s pre-war archives located in New York and in Vilnius, and to digitally reconstruct the Strašūnas library in Vilnius, one of the greatest prewar libraries in Europe.

The YIVO Institute was founded in Berlin, Warsaw and in Vilnius (Vilna) in 1925 as the Yiddish Scientific Institute with the support of leading intellectuals and scholars. Its mission was to document, study and preserve Jewish life in all its forms. World War II forced YIVO to relocate from Vilnius to New York City, where it has continued its mission since 1940.

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