YU News

Minhagim books, concise compendia of Jewish laws and customs, emerged as a literary genre in the 1600s. Designed for a popular audience, many of them were written in Yiddish, the vernacular of much of Ashkenazic Jewry. Some editions included illustrations for specific holidays. One such volume ...

First Graduating Class of the Talmudical Academy, 1919. Dr. Shelley Saphire, principal, is seated in the middle. An oral history interview from 1965, which covers groundbreaking events in Yeshiva’s history, has been given a new lease on life. The original fragile reel to reel audio tape was ...

This year, just in time for Passover, Welch’s ®Grape Juice Brand and Manischewitz® are collaborating on the production of kosher grape juice for Pesach, under the kashrut supervision of the Orthodox Union. This venture is not the first time Welch’s has produced kosher grape juice; it revives an ...

The Library recently digitized the early minutes of the Board of Directors of the Yeshiva, which date from the late 1880s through 1922. The minutes, handwritten in Hebrew, with some English and Yiddish mixed in, are available in their entirety on the library’s website (manuscript 765). Many aspects…

“… So that each man may speak the language of his people” is a translation of an excerpt of a verse from Megilat Esther [Chapter 1:22]. Minhagim books, concise compendia of Jewish laws and customs, emerged as a literary genre in the 1600s. Designed for a popular audience, many of them were written…

YC pennant Main Building 1956 Yeshiva University Archives recently acquired three new perspectives on Zysman Hall, which shed light on different periods in the building’s life since its cornerstone laying in 1927. Main Building, 1928 A black and white photograph of the edifice, taken for a news ...

With the arrival and operation of a mobile digitization lab to scan archival materials on site, it was hardly business as usual in the Special Collections Office for two weeks this past January. This project was part of the Metropolitan New York Library Council (METRO) Culture in Transit initiative…

Jewish Relief Day delegation on the steps of the White House after visiting President Wilson, February 17, 1916 Jewish Relief Day certificate Dime pocket bank What if? If there had been no World War II, World War I would have gone down in history as the war which devastated the Jews of Eastern ...

The Elchanite, 1967 Not just yet, but the end may be near for the building that served as Yeshiva University’s Brooklyn High School for Boys (BTA) from 1954-1967. This 1878 building, owned by the City of New York and unoccupied for the past 20 years, is in such dismal condition at present that ...

Just in time for reading week and final exam preparation, December 2015 brought the conclusion of the dramatic revitalization of the Mendel Gottesman Library building. Levels 2, 2A, 3, nd 3A now feature bright, new, efficient, and ecological LED lighting, nine group study rooms (to be opened at the…