Describes the extraordinary success of the restitution of the collections of YIVO (Yidisher Visnshaftlekher Institut) - the prestigious research institution of the Yiddish language and culture. A Drama in Acts traces the fragments of post-Second World War YIVO (which meanwhile moved from Vilna to New York): its successes in restoring its cultural property in the West and in the American occupied zone, and its bitter failure in the Soviet-occupied territory in the East. The book explores, through the question of cultural property ownership, a range of historical issues: the development of modern Jewish culture in Eastern Europe, the advance of Yiddish as a modern literary language, the history of Jewish culture under communist regimes, and its extermination under Nazi rule. Other issues addressed are the demise of Jewish culture in Eastern Europe following the division of Europe and the Cold War, and lastly--the conflict between Israel and the Diaspora over the inheritance of Jewish European culture. (Adapted from publisher's website.)