The records of many landsman organizations (of Jews and other immigrant
groups) have been lost over the years when Supreme Court judges ordered the
liquidation of assets. Standard "boilerplate" language in the past seemed to
mandate the destruction of any assets that did not generate revenue to be
divided up, which would have included membership registries and other
genealogically-important records.

YIVO now has a handshake agreement with New York County (Manhattan) Supreme
Court to turn over non-revenue generated records in liquidation cases.
However, when I and another researcher discussed this with YIVO officials
recently, they seemed unaware that landsman organizations based in the
other four boroughs were not covered by an agreement with New York
County-based courts.

The best answer may be state legislation which clarifies the situation and
requires that historical records of liquidated organizations be offered to
YIVO or other appropriate museums or historical organizations as standard
procedure in liquidation cases.

Michael Miller