In short

You can see the memorial plaque of the YIVO Institute of Jewish Science at A. Vivulskio Street 18.

This commemorative plaque gives meaning to YIVO after the building and its institutions in Lithuania were gone in 1940, though YIVO still exists today. At that time, the world’s most prominent Jewish scholars and public figures were members of the YIVO Institute's Honorary Presidium, including Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Edward Bernstein, and Šimonas Dubnovas. One of the organisers behind the institute and its leader was Maksas Vainraichas, the most famous Yiddish philologist of the time and the first Yiddish professor in America (living in the US since 1939).

Since 1933, the most important Eastern European centre for the study of Jewish culture and history operated on A. Vivulskio Street. It was the premier institute studying both Litvak and Lithuanian history. 

During the Second World War, when work in Lithuania was no longer possible, the US branch became the centre of YIVO. The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York continues to function as one of the most important centres for Yiddish cultural research.

The Jewish Science Institute founded in Vilnius had a library with more than 40,000 books and about 10,000 magazines published in various countries in its press archive.

Brief History

The Jewish Science Institute founded in Vilnius had a library with more than 40,000 books and about 10,000 thousand magazines published in various countries in its press archive.

The Institute had four science departments: philology, history, economics and statistics, and psychology and pedagogy. The most famous scholars from Vilnius, Warsaw, Berlin, Riga, Paris, and New York worked there.