Library Resources

Yiddish Holdings and Collections at UW-Madison

In addition to the Mayrent Collection, UW-Madison Libraries hold several important collections that document Yiddish life in Wisconsin, the United States, and the world. Some examples include:

• The Yiddish Sheet Music Collection (Mills Music Library)
  Over 300 individual songs published between 1897 and 1971 in Yiddish or Hebrew, almost entirely popular songs, and songs from musicals or motion pictures.
• The Allan Nadler Spinoza Collection (Memorial Library)
  A wide-ranging collection of nineteenth- and twentieth-century works about the seventeenth-century philosopher Bento (Baruch) Spinoza (Amsterdam 1632-The Hague 1677). The collection was created by Professor Alan Nadler (Emeritus, Drew University) and was acquired by University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Mosse/Weinstein Center for Jewish Studies in 2018. Included are a variety of rare volumes as well as materials in Hebrew, Yiddish, and German.
• The Howard Weinshel Scrapbooks, 1921-1988 (Wisconsin Historical Society)
  Photocopied scrapbooks of a leader of the Perhift Players (Peretz Hirshbein Folk Theatre), a Yiddish theater company formed in Milwaukee in 1920 as the Young Literary and Dramatic Society, which in 1931 became the Yiddish Drama League; containing programs, clippings, letters, photographs, and minutes documenting Weinshel’s performances and activities with the Perhift Players, the Milwaukee Players, and the Center Players of the Jewish Community Center of Milwaukee. Some clippings in Yiddish.
• מילװאקער װאכענבלאט Milwauker wochenblat (Wisconsin Historical Society)
  A Yiddish weekly newspaper from Milwaukee, WI, established in April 1914. In Yiddish and English.
• Horwitz family papers, 1911-1955 (Wisconsin Historical Society)
  Papers, many in Yiddish and Hebrew, of the Milwaukee family of Isador Horwitz, publisher of the Jewish Daily Press and the Milwaukee Wochenblat (an English and Yiddish newspaper). Most of the letters were written to Isadore and Mae Horwitz by their children, mainly Hayim Horwitz; some are in recorded form. Also includes a scrapbook of news articles by Horwitz, photographs of family children, and greeting cards kept by a daughter, Rita.
• Bureau of Jewish Education records, 1939-1949 (Wisconsin Historical Society)
  Records of an organization formed in 1944 to promote and coordinate Jewish education in Milwaukee, and of its predecessors, the Joint Committee on Jewish Education and the Milwaukee Talmud Torah Association. The files are those of George Laikin and contain articles of incorporation, by-laws, correspondence, minutes, and reports. Records document the origins of the bureau and the 1947 consolidations of its affiliated schools: the Beth Israel and United Hebrew Schools, and the Milwaukee Talmud Torah and the Yiddish Folk Shule. Also included is a comprehensive survey and evaluation of Jewish education in Milwaukee conducted in 1941 by the Chicago Board of Jewish Education.