YIVO to sell landmark building in expansion

Real Estate Weekly, Nov 10, 1993

The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, a scholarly institution for the study of the Jewish civilization of Eastern Europe, has contracted to sell its landmark building at 1048 Fifth Avenue to the Serge Sebarsky Foundation for an undisclosed sum.

The building's purchaser plans to establish a museum at 1048 Fifth Avenue, specializing in Austrian and German Expressionist art.

With the ongoing expansion of YIVO's library and archives, the institute had outgrown the 25,000 square foot, Louis XIII-style mansion on Museum Mile that has been its home since 1955, and plans relocation to quarters many times its present size. YIVO is currently evaluating several sites in New York City.

In moving to new quarters, YIVO intends to improve the environmental conditions under which its collections are housed, allow room for future acquisitions, provide greater access and comfort to its patrons and researchers, and reintegrate within its main collections those materials being kept in warehouse storage due to current lack of space. YIVO also seeks additional space to accommodate its growing roster of classes, lectures, exhibitions and public programs.

"The sale of YIVO's building represents the institute's first major step into the 21st century," says YIVO Chairman Bruce Slovi. "We are tremendously excited by the prospect of expanding and modernizing YIVO's facilities in support of the institute's critical mission

the research, documentation, and teaching of the history and culture of East European Jewry, which today comprises the heritage of the vast majority of American Jewry."

For its new location, YIVO is seeking to bring the institute in proximity of other major Jewish studies departments and institutions of higher learning. YIVO currently co-sponsors academic programs with many leading universities, and looks forward to increasing such joint educational ventures as part of the institute's plan for expansion. Current joint academic programs include Project Judaica, a pioneering Moscow-based, five year program to train Judaica archivists, teachers and scholars in Russia, co-sponsored by YIVO, the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, and the Russian State Humanities University; a course in Eastern European Jewish Civilization, taught at Cornell University by Dr. Allan Nadler, YIVO's director of research; and the Uriel Weinreich program in Yiddish language, literature and culture, co-sponsored each summer by YIVO and Columbia University.

YIVO is also in discussion with a number of independent Jewish scholarly institutions, with the objective of inviting them to join YIVO in its new home. Among the institutions with whom YIVO is exploring the possibility of colocation is the Leo Baeck Institute, America's outstanding organization dedicated to preserving the history and achievements of German Jewry. In outlining this historic plan, both YIVO and Leo Baeck are laying the groundwork for a proposed academic center that would be the place, second to none, for the research and documentation of Ashkenazic Jewry, both European and American, and for scholarly teaching in the field of Jewish studies.

While each institution would retain its organizational autonomy and distinct geographic, historic and linguistic focus, the joint location and enhanced cooperation of these two important sources of scholarship would create a unique campus encompassing the totality of Ashkenazic Jewish culture.

"Uniting these two great Jewish institutions has implications not only for scholars, but for the entire Jewish community," says Dr. Allan Nadler, director of research at YIVO. "It will serve to break down some of the archaic barriers that still linger between Eastern and Western European Jewry, by bringing together scholars from both cultures. Symbolically, such a move represents an intellectual and spiritual ingathering of the exiles of European Jewry into one home."

To cover the outfitting and operational costs of the new center, a national capital fundraising campaign, supported by individuals, Jewish federations, and foundations, will be launched.

The YIVO Institute of Jewish Research, established in Vilna, Poland in 1925, provides graduate and post-doctoral training in East European Jewish specializations, and presents the results of its scholarship through publication, exhibitions, lectures and conferences. With more than 350,000 volumes, and over 22,000,000 archival items, the YIVO library and archives together comprises the world's largest collection of Yiddish books and archival materials relating to the history and culture of Eastern European and American Jewry.