6 9 0 D O C . 4 8 7 O N Y I D D I S H S C I E N T I F I C I N S T I T U T E 487. Statement on the Yiddish Scientific Institute[1] [Berlin, 8 April 1929] Die durch die grossen politischen Ereignisse bewirkte Verarmung Osteuropas hat bekanntlich zu einem ganz schweren wirtschaftlichen Depression bei den jüdi- schen Massen geführt.[2] Gewiss war es das dringendste Erfordernis, zunächst, so gut es ging, für die Erhaltung der nackten Existenz zu sorgen. Aber der Mensch lebt nicht von Brot allein, und der Jude schon gar nicht. Wenn sich da nun ein Häuflein Menschen der geistigen Elite zusammengetan haben, um die geistige und morali- sche Tradition unseres Volkes aufrecht zu halten und womöglich weiter zu entwic- keln, so verdient diese Bestrebung Sympathie und tatkräftige Hilfe derer, die es vermögen Für die gute Verwendung der Mittel bürgt der Name der verantwortli- chen Männer.[3]— Mit ausgezeichneter Hochachtung A. Einstein TLS. Published in News of the YIVO 150 (September 1979): 3. [75 438]. On personal letterhead. Ad- dressed “An das Organisationskomitee des Jiddischen Wissenschaftl. Instituts z. H. von Herrn Prof. S. Dubnow. Berlin-Grunewald Charlottenbrunnerstr. 3.” [1] The establishment of the Yiddish Scientific Institute as a center for Yiddish scholarship was ini- tiated by a group of Eastern European Jewish émigrés in Berlin in 1924. Its most notable founders were the Yiddish linguist Nokhem Shtif, the philologist Max Weinreich, and the historian Elias Tscherikower. The institute was officially established at a conference in Berlin in March 1925. Its planned headquarters were to be located in Vilna. The institute aimed to raise Yiddish “from a spoken vernacular to a modern tongue of high culture” and “provided a haven where [Jewish scholars] could carry out their research, disseminated their findings, and trained a young generation of researchers and teachers.” (Kuznitz 2014, pp. 1–2, 48, 51). In Abs. 1086, the leading figures of the Yiddish Sci- entific Institute had asked Einstein for a statement on the institute in advance of a planned fundraising campaign in the United States. [2] Severe economic crises afflicted Eastern European countries in the second half of the 1920s. These crises led to runaway inflation, mass unemployment, production cutbacks, and, in some places, to the population being on the verge of starvation. The crises had a particularly harsh impact on the Jews of these countries. Many were affected by discriminatory legal measures, high taxation, boycotts of Jewish businesses, and bankruptcy. Large-scale philanthropic efforts, especially from the Joint Distribution Committee and the American Joint Reconstruction Foundation, provided crucial aid to impoverished Jews (see Curti 1988, p. 373, and Rozett and Spector 2000, pp. 5–6, 9). [3] The appeal to Einstein was signed by the honorary chairman of the institute’s historical section, Simon Dubnow the head of its historical section, Elias Tcherikower and the head of its economic- statistical section, Jacob Letschinsky (see Abs. 1086).