YIVO’s Online Community Grows Exponentially

As the COVID-19 is affecting life and societies around the world, everyone has been forced to adjust to a new way of life. Living in a socially distanced world can be isolating and it is clear that in these difficult times, our connection to the past, our collective memory, our common traditions and beliefs, and our communities are more important than ever.

Since physically distancing in mid-March, the YIVO staff has been working tirelessly to launch new online initiatives and to make new programs that can reach a global audience. Our goal is to be a virtual online community and offer everyone an opportunity to learn, enjoy, and find comfort and inspiration together as millions of people carry out the essential task of staying home.

In an effort to accomplish this, YIVO has made the courses from the Shine Online Educational Series free, including the newest course, A Seat at the Table: A Journey into Jewish Food, which went live on Friday, May 1 YIVO hosts regular Live Facebook and YouTube updates and mini-lectures, as well as free Live programs and classes via Zoom. We have hundreds of public programs, from lectures and conferences to book talks and concerts, featuring award-winning scholars, writers, and artists, available to watch on YouTube. The annual summer program, which has been held in New York City for over 50 years, will be going digital this year so that our world-class faculty – teaching from New York, Montreal, and Israel – will be able to join students across the globe.

YIVO also launched a new archival initiative, Share Your Story, which asks the Jewish community to share its stories and experiences during this pandemic. The YIVO Archives is built from the stories and experiences of the Jewish community. Our materials record all aspects of Jewish life around the world and, as the COVID-19 pandemic affects the world in unprecedented ways, we are looking to record the experiences of the Jewish people, so those stories will be available to future generations.

The response to these and other initiatives that we have launched since mid-March has truly been humbling and inspiring:

• Over 13,000 people have signed up for our online courses since mid-March, from 59 countries around the world and every state in the United States. This brings the total signups for the course to over 18,000, coming from 68 countries worldwide.
• Nearly 1,500 new likes and 2,500 new followers on Facebook, bringing the total number of likes to over 20,000.
• Over 850 new subscribers on YouTube.
• ~40,300 minutes of video have been viewed on Facebook.
• ~1.6 million minutes of video viewed on YouTube.
• Our websites have seen a jump of 250% in Unique Visitors when compared to the same period last year.
• The Share Your Story initiative has had responses from Australia, Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, England, Israel, Lithuania, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Scotland, Sweden, the United States, and Vietnam.

We hope people will continue to make use of our many online resources and programs and that they will take comfort in all that YIVO and the YIVO community have to offer.

For any media inquiries please contact:

Shelly Freeman
Chief of Staff

YIVO

The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is dedicated to the preservation and study of the history and culture of East European Jewry worldwide. For nearly a century, YIVO has pioneered new forms of Jewish scholarship, research, education, and cultural expression. Our public programs and exhibitions, as well as online and on-site courses, extend our outreach to a global community. The YIVO Archives contains 24 million unique items and YIVO’s Library has over 400,000 volumes—the single largest resource for the study of East European Jewish life in the world. yivo.org / yivo.org/the-whole-story