A program of large-scale activities designed to lead to the establishment of a central archive of documents and materials on the history and problems of the Jewish community in America was launched here today by the Yivo, Yiddish Scientific Institute.
The project was undertaken with a view to recording various aspects of Jewish life in the past 80 years–from the beginning of the mass immigration of East European Jews to the present–since this period marked the steady rise of American Jewish communities to a position of central prominence in Jewish life.
In a statement issued by the Yivo, it was pointed out that American Jewish historiography has been limited hitherto largely to studies of Sephardic Jews who played an important role in colonial days, or to German Jewish immigrants who arrived prior to 1880. “The two million-odd East European Jews who arrived at these shores in the past 80 years have aroused but little interest among Jewish historians in America, notwithstanding the fact that their economic and cultural achievements fairly rival those of their German or Sephardic predecessers,” the statement added.
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