LibGuides: Judaic Studies: Yiddish

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Judaic Studies Databases

Yiddish Primary Resources

American Jewish Committee Archives
Filled with more than a million documents and hundreds of movies and radio shows, the New York-based American Jewish Committee Archives house an extraordinary range of resources on the past century of American Jewish history.
The Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute - Warsaw
It is named in honor of Emanuel Ringelblum, the leader of the clandestine team gathering materials documenting Jewish life in the Warsaw ghetto under German Nazi occupation.
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Use Google Translate to covert Polish to English or use another translation tool.
International Institute of Social History - Amsterdam
The International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam is an important centre for research in the field of social history: "The International Institute of Social History (IISH) is the world's largest documentation and research centre in the field of social history. Since its foundation in 1935, the institute has dedicated itself to the collection, preservation and availability of the heritage of social movements worldwide. The institute is independent and reliable, which makes it a natural depository of the frequently threatened cultural heritage of the labour movement and other emancipatory groups and currents. The research department of the institute focuses on the history of labour relations and organizes international projects in this field. The collection (archives, library and audio-visual materials) takes up well over 30 miles of shelf room. The IISH is an institute that comes under the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW)."
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Several Yiddish materials: Yiddish Collections Guide, Yiddish Letters, Yidishkayt Catalogue Search
The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives
"The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives is committed to preserving a documentary heritage of the religious, organizational, economic, cultural, personal, social and family life of American Jewry. The Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives, located on the Cincinnati campus of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, houses over ten million pages of documentation. It contains nearly 8,000 linear feet of archives, manuscripts, nearprint materials, photographs, audio and video tapes, microfilm, and genealogical materials."
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The Archives was founded by the late Dr. Jacob Rader Marcus in 1947 in the aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust. It was created at a time when the Jews of America, now the largest and best educated Jewish community in history, faced the awesome responsibility of preserving the continuity of Jewish life and learning. For over a half century, the American Jewish Archives has been preserving American Jewish history and imparting it to the next generation.
U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) "is America’s national institution for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust history, and serves as this country’s memorial to the millions of people murdered during the Holocaust".
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"Online catalogs provide partial access to some of the Museum’s collections. Please note that new material is being added to the online catalogs on a continuing basis. Currently, web users may search the following online catalogs:

Photo Archives (including historical photographs, photographs of the Museum and its programs, and images of the Museum’s collection of original artifacts.)
Library and Archival Collections (including oral history, art and artifacts)
A combined catalog of the Library’s published materials (books, serials, historical newspapers, feature films and documentaries, CDs, DVDs, and other media), and the Archives unpublished materials (collections on paper or microform, personal artifacts, video and audio tapes, artwork and three-dimensional objects.)
Archival Guide to the Collections
A general overview of the collections of textual records available in the Museum’s Archives.
Archival Finding Aids
Detailed inventories and finding aids that have been produced for selected collections in the Museum’s Archives.
Steven Spielberg Film and Video Archive
This catalog provides access to the Museum’s comprehensive collection of historical films documenting the Holocaust and World War II. Locate film clips and shot descriptions of over 1000 hours of footage.
Holocaust Name Lists Catalog
A database of lists of Holocaust-related names searchable by place of persecution not by individual.
International Tracing Service Inventory
Contains an overview of the 21,000 historical collections of documentary materials contained within the archive of the International Tracing Service."

The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe
The only resource of its kind, this encyclopedia provides the most complete picture of the history and culture of Jews in Eastern Europe from the beginnings of their settlement in the region to the present. This website makes accurate, reliable, scholarly information about East European Jewish life accessible to everyone
Alexander Harkavy's Yiddish Dictionaries
There are various online versions of the classic Yiddish dictionaries of the Russian-born lexicographer Alexander Harkavy.
1. Harkavy's Yiddish-English (6th edition) and English-Yiddish (11th edition) Dictionary (1910): this is a digitised version of the original enhanced with index pages by Raphael Finkel.
2. Yiddish-English dictionary = Yidish-Englisher verṭerbukh (1910): from the Yiddish Book Center's Digital Yiddish Library.
3. Yidish-English-Hebreyisher ṿerṭerbukh = Yiddish-English-Hebrew dictionary (1925): from the Yiddish Book Center's Digital Yiddish Library.
4. Yidish-English-Hebreyisher ṿerṭerbukh (1928): from the Yiddish Book Center's Digital Yiddish Library.
5. Ṿerṭerbikhl fun noenṭe ṿerṭer in English un Yidish (1939): from the Yiddish Book Center's Digital Yiddish Library.
JNW - Jiddisch-Nederlands Woordenboek - Yiddish-Dutch Dictionary
The JNW is a project of Justus van de Kamp. It has about 90.000 entries, sources are provided for each entry. Furthermore, the pronunciation of each word is given (for Dutch readers). Since the dictionary is work in progress, it is updated (enlarged and revised) on an almost weekly basis. The direction is Yiddish to Dutch, it can best be searched in Hebrew letters without diacritics, though search with diacritics, by PRONUNCIATION and Dutch to Yiddish are also possible.

Jiddischen Drucke
Searchable full-text of 800 rare Yiddish imprints found in the collections of the Library at Frankfurt University (Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany).
National Yiddish Book Center
The National Yiddish Book Center (Amherst, MA) is a comprehensive source of out-of-print Yiddish books – and a major force in translating Yiddish literature into English. Through this site, Yiddish books may be read online or downloaded free of charge. The site includes supplementary information on the history of Yiddish literature
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Yiddish has been the language of Ashkenazi Jews for over a thousand years. It was used by writers and artists to create great works of fiction, plays, and music. It was also the language used to document the ordinary and extraordinary moments of daily life. Browse below to learn about Yiddish writers, read translated Yiddish works, listen to our podcasts, read our curated selections, join our book club, and discover how new generations are being inspired through Yiddish.
Yiddish Playscripts
Produced by the Hebraic Section of the Library of Congress for the Library's American Memory project.
Di Forverts
Online edition of the Yiddish daily newspaper founded in New York City by Jewish immigrants. Includes an online archive of issues back through 1999.

Golden Age of Yiddish Radio
Listen to audioclips of classic Yiddish radio programs of the 1930s through 1960s. A joint project of the Dora Teitelboim Center for Yiddish Culture and the Yiddish Radio Project.
Yiddish Sheet Music
A searchable collection of nearly 700 titles from the extensive Vaxer collection of Yiddish sheet music at the John Hay Library.
Itzik Gottesman's Yiddish Culture in America
Online exhibition about the context for Yiddish culture in the United States, examining its development through literature, education, press and theatre.
The California Institute for Yiddish Culture and Language
The Uriel Weinreich Program in Yiddish Language, Literature, and Culture of Bard-YIVO Institute for East European Jewish History and Culture offers peerless instruction in the Yiddish language and an in-depth exploration of the literature and culture of East European/American Jewry.