Sadly, dr Rena Fuks-Mansfeld passed away on 27 November 2012. Thanks to her the rich Yiddish collections of the IISH were made accessible. In October 2012 Rena Fuks (*1930), professor emerita of Jewish history at the University of Amsterdam, said goodbye to the IISH.
She had finished her magnum opus with a database of Yiddish letters in various IISH archives.
In 1995 Rena Fuks, one of the very few people in the Netherlands who knew Yiddish, joined the IISH staff as a volunteer. Her first job was to catalogue the Yiddish books and periodicals. These printed materials were classified in the so-called Yidishkayt collection, to be found as such in the IISH catalogue. In 2002, Rena Fuks completed the arrangement of the archive and documentation of the Algemeyner Yidisher Arbeyter Bund, the very first collection accessed by the IISH. Thereafter she inventoried the archives of James Guillaume, Charles Rappoport and Boris Yelensky.
More than once, she wrote about highlights she found in the archives, on the IISH website and in On the Waterfront, the magazine of the Friends of the IISH.