Building the Jewish future.

Dear Friend,

Among the 24 million documents, sound and music collections, theater and art collections, communal and personal records, photographs and films, manuscripts, diaries, memoirs, personal correspondence, and other materials in the YIVO Archives is the fascinating history of the Hebrew Actors’ Union.

On October 21, 1888, Yiddish actors walked out on the Poole’s Theatre and the Oriental Theatre in New York City to protest against low pay and unstable working conditions. This was the first actors’ strike in the United States.

Today, the YIVO Archives contains materials in over a dozen languages from countries around the world. Our holdings include everything from the largest collection of Yiddish materials; to records documenting American immigration; to the organizational records of Grossinger's; to the most comprehensive collection of primary source documents on the Holocaust in North America.

The Hebrew Actor’s Union was officially established in 1899 with the help of the United Hebrew Trades, a federation of Jewish labor unions. The Hebrew Actors’ Union implemented many strategies that later became common among U. S. labor unions, such as striking to achieve policy changes and instituting a set pay scale in which members received a guaranteed minimum salary.

Boris Thomashefsky, the famed Yiddish actor and theater owner, opposed the Hebrew Actors’ Union at first but soon changed his mind. “We simply acted the way every factory owner acts … I am pleased to say that I was the first to feel regret for wishing to fight the union,” he said years later.

Many considered the Hebrew Actors’ Union heavyhanded because it controlled who could perform in the Yiddish theater – aspiring actors needed to pass the union’s auditions, which were so difficult that even people who later went on to become famed stars, such as Stella Adler, failed them. And some theaters had to close their doors because they could not meet the union’s salary demands. The issues faced by the HAU are still making headlines today.

This is but one example of the fact that the history out of which YIVO comes—its collections, activities and goals—remains a living and dynamic part of contemporary life, whether in the area of U.S. social and political organizations, the nature of modern antisemitism, the development of Yiddish literature and theater, or the history of Jews in Eastern Europe over 600 years.

The digitization of the Jewish Labor and Political Archive at YIVO—an eight-year, $8.5 Million endeavor—now underway, encompasses some 3 million documents, including the entire extant archive of the Jewish Labor Bund, where records of the United Hebrew Trades and materials relating to the Hebrew Actors’ Union —along with many other documents pertaining to Jewish social and political activism in Europe and the United States—are found. It will help put the story of Jewish labor unions in America—which were instrumental in promoting reforms such as the eight-hour workday, the regulation of child labor, and the abolition of sweatshops— into historical, political, and social perspective, while illuminating a crucial aspect of the social history of the United States.

All of this will become available and accessible to a world public free of charge for the first time.

Thank you for being part of the YIVO community.

!מיר װינטשן אײַך אַ פֿרײלעכן און אַ ליכטיקן חנוכּה

We wish you a happy and bright Hanukkah.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Brent Executive Director & CEO

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