YIVO Institute for Jewish Research was founded in 1925 in Vilna, Poland (now Vilnius, Lithuania) and is dedicated to the history and culture of Ashkenazi Jewry and to its influence in the Americas.

Headquartered in New York City since 1940, today YIVO is the world's preeminent resource center for East European Jewish Studies; Yiddish language, literature and folklore; and the American Jewish immigrant experience.

YIVO has facilitated the publication of numerous books on behalf of a host of Jewish writers: HISTORY OF THE YIDDISH LANGUAGE, Vols. I and II, by Max Weinreich (Yale, 2008); YIDDISH-ENGLISH-HEBREW DICTIONARY by Alexander Harkavy, a reprint of the 1928 expanded second edition with a new introduction by Dovid Katz (Yale, 2005); THE LAST DAYS OF THE JERUSALEM OF LITHUANIA: Chronicles from the Vilna Ghetto and the Camps, 1939-1944 by Herman Kruk (Author), Benjamin Harshav (Editor) (Yale, 2002); AWAKENING LIVES: Autobiographies of Jewish Youth in Poland Before the Holocaust by Jeffrey Shandler (Editor) (Yale, 2002); and A CENTURY OF AMBIVALENCE: The Jews of Russia and Soviet Union 1881 to Present by Zvi Y. Gitelman (Indiana University Press, 2001).

YIVO also offers a series of cultural events and films, adult education and Yiddish language classes, various scholarly publications, research opportunities and fellowships.