This profile is part of a series of interviews chronicling the experiences of researchers who use The New York Public Library's collections for the development of their work.

Chana Pollack has been the Forward's archivist for the past two decades, providing research, translation, and production of original Forward archival content with an eye on the contemporary context. The Forward is the most significant Jewish voice in American journalism, featuring outstanding reporting on cultural, social, and political issues with English and Yiddish platforms, building on a century-old legacy maintained in our archives leading to a deeper understanding of what it means to be Jewish in the 21st century. The Forward's archival photos and recent exhibition PRESSED are part of an ongoing digital mapping project with Urban Archive. Chana recently published this essay on archival silences in the Forward archives. Forward archival content, translated from the Yiddish original, is featured as part of the Forward's original podcast based on their historic advice column known as "The Bintl Brief." They were the archivist for A Living Lens, showcasing the Forward's photo collection and a featured translator in Have I Got A Story For You, presenting fiction from the Forward's past century. They were camera operator, editor, and producer for the Forward's video series Yiddish Writers Monologues, featuring interviews with several "last known" Yiddish writers. They recently helped actor David Duchovny recover his grandfather's Yiddish writing.

When did you first get the idea for your research project?

I was reading this essay by David Duchovny inThe Atlantic in 2021, and noticing his mention of his grandfather Moshe Duchovny. I read there that his grandfather, Yiddish writer Moshe Duchovny, was a staff writer for the Forverts, our historic Yiddish daily, and found the name to be unfamiliar, but I was able to find his obituary in our back issues, correct the historical record (he wrote for the Tog-Morgn Zhurnal), and the idea to conduct further research took off from there.

What brought you to the Library?

I have been researching in the Dorot Division for over two decades now and consider it my place of worship!

What research tools could you not live without?

I would be nothing without Yiddish literary lexicons and dictionaries, encyclopedias, and librarians. And not that you asked about this exactly, but as tech is so important these days and influences research too, I have to tell you that my iPhone is the handiest MacGyveriest tool. Working at a news media outlet, it's really critical that I be able to turn research around fairly quickly. So, I use it to photograph the microfilm screen and often find that a faster way to send back my findings. Also, it reduces the need to scan or order scans. Anything to cut through bureaucracy while maintaining archival integrity of the materials is handy, I find.

What’s the most unexpected item you encountered in your research?

Dorothy Thompson's interview with Hitler.

What’s the most interesting thing you learned from a book recently?

I recently discovered the 1956 (Knopf) children's book by Jean Merrill and Ronni Solbert, The Travels of Marco, in which a pigeon alights atop our historic neon Forverts sign and travels the Lower East Side neighborhood discovering the joys of a diverse NYC while delighting in our history. Finding that book forced me to do further research on the couple that created it and that led me to uncover Ronni Solbert's gorgeous world of illustrations.  Also my spouse bought me the most amazing book for my 60th birthday a couple of weeks ago by Polish Nobel Prize winning novelist Olga Tokarczuk called The Lost Soul. I love art books and this one is formatted with delicate sketches on mylar in between gorgeous illustrations and poetic text. The message I took away from there is that you will likely always find yourself at home. And while I love to travel, if there's one thing we all had a chance to learn this past year or so is that home evokes things beyond the comfort of material possessions. Something like that. I think maybe we all aspire to make home more like a library in a way, as a place for the soul to rest safely while expanding.

Describe a moment when your research took an unexpected turn.

While I knew that Moshe Duchovny had written for the "other" Yiddish daily, I had no idea what type of writer he was. Being able to sit and page through some of the microfilmed back issues of his publication Der Tog-Morgn-Zshurnal/The Day-Morning Journal of the 1950s and 60s, to not only read his pieces and to learn of his being an engaging interviewer and a sensitive reviewer, but to see this writing within the context of the daily news, advertisements, and cultural announcements there, helped recreate a sense of the writer and his time. His obituary listed him as having died suddenly, early in November 1960. Leafing through the back issues showed me his having died shortly after the paper reported on the infamous Eichmann Nazi war crimes trial, something I know to have been deeply captivating and also extremely stress-inducing for many in the community.

How do you maintain your research momentum?

I find it hardest when I have to pivot back to other queries or responsibilities, true, as I had to with the Duchovny item. I would really love to find his serialized novels, said to be published in the Yiddish press, so I am grateful that the Dorot librarians kindly offered me the option to put the microfilm on hold for a few weeks—super helpful. And I think you just have to have faith and keep reaching out to folks who might have known him or read him while he was a living breathing Yiddish writer of New York. Maybe he researched at NYPL too?

After a day of working/researching, what do you do to unwind?

I frequently use social media to express what I've seen while down the rabbit hole of Yiddish journalism research, and to gauge other's reactions and experiences, and I am fortunate to have folks I work with, especially our Innovation Editor Talya Zax, interested in hearing about my findings, my failures, my insights, and imaginary wanderings. I'm married to a poet and Yiddish translator as well, so I am beyond lucky to be able to share the archival and research experience deeply with them too. I try to walk or ride a bike to and from NYPL to kind of get my mind back on the current era! And I try not to eat my way around town, but there are many great eats around 42nd St! 

What tabs do you currently have open on your computer?

• Am constantly on our digitized Yiddish back issues.
• Can't live as a translator without Thesaurus.com .
• Am in the middle of trying to learn more about this old town Slonim so I've got this open.
• I love archival sweaters.
• This item from NARA blew my mind about old seals and fasteners.
• I always have us, Forward.com on call.

Is there anything you'd like to tell someone looking to get started?

Be okay with going slowly and watching yourself get distracted. Pay attention to that off-ramp you just took. For instance, there are some gorgeous illustrated old Yiddish advertisements as well as fascinating classified ads that can really help offer context when researching articles that purport to be the MOST important thing. I started collecting lots of those old ads from our issues and found them so historically relevant and visually interesting, we just made an ebook of them to offer subscribers. Also, I cannot get enough of old obituary notices in the Yiddish press.

Have I left anything out that you’d like to tell other researchers?

Be kind to the librarians. When I was a younger Fulbright researcher in Eastern Europe, I was actually advised to bring gifts to the research librarians there to help facilitate my searches! You bet I did it, and my budget afforded mostly lots of American chocolate bars to help grease the research engines but I really really was moved by how hard it seemed sometimes for them to be able to help researchers. One elderly film librarian marked out sections of archival film I wanted copied by delicately tying thread through the sprocket holes, something I'd normally seen done using a China marker. Times were hard there sure, but libraries everywhere often struggle financially for basics. I still feel that it's really important to show some love to these folks who work very hard for little financial compensation, to free up information for us all.