Jonathan Brent Interviewed by Richard Ovenden

Historian and publisher Jonathan Brent explains why the nearly 100-year-old YIVO Institute for Jewish Research remains relevant and important today and talks about the efforts to reunite its pre-war archive.

The institute’s archive was split apart during World War II and ended up partly in Vilnius, Lithuania, and partly in New York. Brent, executive director and chief executive of the institute, talks about efforts to reunite it, about some of the 24 million items it contains, and about current projects.

Brent is a historian, publisher, translator, writer and teacher. He has headed the YIVO since 2009 and recently received the Cross of the Knight of the Order for Merits to Lithuania in recognition of his work promoting co-operation between Lithuania and YIVO and for the preservation of the Jewish archives of Lithuania. Here he talks to Bodley’s Librarian Richard Ovenden.

Presented by the Bodleian Libraries