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Genealogy Guide: Resources at the Center for Jewish History

Yizkor Books

Yizkor books are memorial books that commemorate Eastern European Jewish communities. Most were created by landsmanshaftn (societies of immigrants from the same town) after the Holocaust, and are written in Hebrew or Yiddish. They often list families and individuals, and contain vivid descriptions of the town and its Jewish community. YIVO Library holds the largest collection of these books in the U.S. To find out whether YIVO holds a Yizkor book pertaining to your town(s) of interest, please consult the printed inventory of this collection in the Ackman & Ziff Family Genealogy Institute, or use one of these references:

  • Bibliography of Eastern European Yizkor (Memorial) Books with Call Numbers for Five Judaica Libraries in New York.  Appendix B in Guzik, Estelle M. Genealogical Resources in New York. New York: Jewish Genealogical Society, 2003.
    Genealogy Institute  Z 5313 .U6 N524 2003

For additional resources on Yizkor books, please see our online Yizkor Books research guide.

Other Sources

  • YIVO’s reference collection (browseable in the Lillian Goldman Reading Room) includes gazetteers, or geographical dictionaries, for many Eastern European countries and historical atlases that explain the many border changes that have occurred in Eastern Europe.  For example:
    Sienkiewicz, Witold. Atlas Historii Żydów Polskich. Warszawa: Demart, 2010. [Polish]. An atlas of the history of Polish Jewry. Reading Room  DS 134.53 .A87 2010
  • Pinkas Ha-Kehilot. Jerusalem: Yad Vashem.  [Hebrew]. A series of historical encyclopedias about Jewish communities throughout Europe, Libya, and Tunisia.  Reading 3Room  DS 15 .E81
  • Spector, Shmuel, and Wigoder, Geoffrey. The Encyclopedia of Jewish Life before and during the Holocaust. Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2001.  An abridged 3-volume English version of Pinkas-Ha Kehilot. Genealogy Institute  DS135.E8 E45 2001

Contact Information

YIVO Institute for Jewish Research
15 West 16th Street
New York, NY 10011
(212) 246-6080
libraryinquiries@yivo.cjh.org

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