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The Algemeyne Entsiklopedye (Yiddish: אלגעמיינע ענציקלאפעדיע, lit. 'General Encyclopedia') is a Yiddish-language encyclopedia published in twelve volumes from 1934 to 1966. After calls for a Yiddish language encyclopedia grew in the 1920s, the YIVO central committee organized the Dubnow Fund in Berlin alongside various Jewish intellectuals for work on the encyclopedia. Scholar and politician Raphael Abramovitch served as the project's chief editor for most of its existence. After several early rifts and setbacks, the editorial staff fled to Paris to continue their work, releasing the first four encyclopedia volumes and first volume of the Yidn supplement on Jewish culture. World War II led the team to flee again, settling in New York City, where all other volumes would be published. As much of the Yiddish-speaking community was killed during the Holocaust, the encyclopedia became increasingly focused on commemorating and memorializing Jewish culture and history in the Yidn series. Although funds from the postwar Claims Conference let work continue into the 1960s, progress halted shortly after Abramovitch's death in 1963.

History and publication

With the rise of national encyclopedias such as the Encyclopædia Britannica in the 18th and 19th centuries, some Jewish intellectuals and scholars envisioned encyclopedias to cover the history and culture of the Jewish people. The Britannica's articles on Jewish topics were primarily written by Jewish converts to Christianity and were seen as inadequate and biased. After several failed projects in the preceding decades, Isidore Singer's English-language Jewish Encyclopedia was the first Jewish encyclopedia, published in 1901–1906. The Russian Evreiskaia Entsiklopediia [ru] followed in 1908–1913 and the Hebrew Otzar Yisrael [he] in 1906–1913. Ten volumes of an incomplete German-language Encyclopedia Judaica were published in 1928 to 1934 under the direction of philosopher Jakob Klatzkin.

Berlin

In March 1930, the editor Nakhmen Meisel published a call for a "great Yiddish encyclopedia" in the literary weekly Literarishe Bleter, arguing that the success of the YIVO, a major Yiddish academic institute, could lay the groundwork for a general-purpose Jewish encyclopedia where previous attempts had failed. Later, the YIVO central committee launched the Dubnov Fund (Dubnov-fond) in Berlin to organize and raise funds for the encyclopedia, naming the organization for Simon Dubnow, a historian who served as an editor for both the Jewish Encyclopedia and the Evreiskaia Entsiklopediia. YIVO co-founder Elias Tcherikower was named the head of the working group, while Moshe Shalit outlined a detailed proposal for the encyclopedia.

A February 1931 meeting of various prominent Jewish intellectuals in Berlin (including Meisel, Dubnow, Tcherikower, and Shalit) convened to evaluate the plans for the encyclopedia. This group agreed that the encyclopedia would include ten volumes on general knowledge, with one volume reserved for Jewish topics. They predicted that the work would take six or seven years to finish, estimating a rate of two volumes per year. At the behest of Shalit, it was agreed that only Jewish writers would be allowed to contribute. While the YIVO would administrate the project in Vilnius, the Dunbow Fund would manage day-to-day operations in the center of the Hebrew and Yiddish publishing industries, Berlin.

The former Menshevik and Bund organizer Raphael Abramovitch was named the chief organizer of the project. Intense political and organizational rifts emerged over its development. Editors and contributors debated the proportion of the encyclopedia to be focused on Jewish topics; some suggested 30% of the encyclopedia while others (including YIVO co-founder Max Weinreich) supported only a single volume on Jewish topics out of 11 total. These disputes led YIVO to withdraw from the Dubnow Fund, although many YIVO staff continued to work on the encyclopedia. A 36-page probeheft (sample volume), containing 56 entries, was released and distributed to supporters of the project in 1932. It predicted the final project would consist of 5000 double-sided pages and 25 million characters, with 40,000 search terms ranging from lengthy articles to short descriptions and translations. This was less than most general encyclopedias in other languages, which typically ranged from 160,000 to 200,000 entries. A slightly larger second edition of the probeheft, published in January 1933, contained edits to existing articles, new images, and some additional articles. The new entries included an article on Hebrew writer Yosef Haim Brenner, likely made in response to criticism over the lack of material on Hebrew authors in the initial edition.

Paris

In 1933, the rise of Adolf Hitler's regime in Germany forced the editors of the encyclopedia to flee the country. Many regrouped in Paris, although other contributors were in other European countries. Although the organizers had enough material written for the first two volumes, financial difficulties delayed the release of the first volume to December 1934. To reduce publication costs, the encyclopedia was reorganized into twenty smaller volumes, with the last predicted to release in 1941. Poet and encyclopedia contributor Daniel Charney celebrated the sample, writing in a New York literary magazine, "If the forthcoming Yiddish encyclopedia will indeed have this elegant an appearance ... we will really not have anything to be ashamed of in comparison to the other nations of the world."

Although the fund predicted four volumes per year, only one was released every year from 1934 to 1937. The Dubnow Fund experienced severe funding issues in 1936, impairing work. In 1939, the Yidn alef supplementary volume was released, stated as an "enlightening of the sum of Jewish problems that matter to the day-to-day Jewish man and which he can find in no other place". The volume featured material covering Jewish organizations, statistics, and history. A second volume of the supplement was announced, which would cover cultural and religious topics. Historian Barry Trachtenberg described the encyclopedia as functioning as a "make-work project" for its editors and contributors. The poet Sholem Schwarzbard was employed for the encyclopedia, lending it greater prestige and credence among the Jewish left.

New York City

The outbreak of World War II again forced editors to flee in 1940, immediately after the second volume of the Yidn was published. Most copies of this volume were lost — possibly due to a German U-Boat on the ship carrying them — but a small number arrived in the United States and Canada and were reprinted. They bore a preface noting their publication amidst a "fury of global war". Many editors and contributors settled in New York City, with organizational and publishing work carried on by the Central Yiddish Culture Organization. Many contributors still in Europe were killed over the following years, including Dubonov and linguist Noach Pryłucki. With the mass destruction of Jewish culture and the Yiddish language in Europe due to the Holocaust, the organizers of the encyclopedia placed increasing focus on covering Jewish culture and history for future generations. As many of the earlier volumes of the encyclopedia were scarce, they were republished in New York.

A third volume of the Yidn supplement, entitled Yidn Gimel, was published in 1942, followed by another installment of the Normale series in 1944. This would be the last such volume; the dwindling editorial corps (multiple editors, including Tcherikower, had died in New York) and the mass genocide of the encyclopedia's readership forced an increasing turn away from general knowledge towards fully capturing Jewish culture, religion, and history. The editorial staff of the encyclopedia had grown increasingly sympathetic towards Zionism over the course of its production; however, they still faced criticism from Zionist academics. Historian Bernard Dov Weinryb [de] criticized the Yidn editions' focus on the culture of the diaspora the growing Jewish community in Palestine, calling on the editors to recognize that most readers would be "more or less sympathetic toward Hebrew and Zionism or, in any case, not opposed to the movement".

Following the war, focus shifted towards a four-volume English version of the encyclopedia entitled Jewish People: Past and Present, which had been initially conceived before the war. This version, although heavily based off the first three Yidn volumes, was not a direct translation. Its main editors included historian Salo W. Baron and Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan.

The first postwar volume of the Yiddish edition was released in 1950. Financed by the Claims Conference, three more followed, released in 1957, 1964, and 1966. Abramowitz died in 1963, and administration of the project passed to Iser Goldberg. Two additional volumes — a sixth volume of the general series and a supplement on Israel — were planned but never finished.

Content

Many articles within the encyclopedia have bibliographies, although this is inconsistent; some have none whatsoever, drawing criticism from reviewers. The inclusion threshold for biographical articles is inconsistent throughout the work. While many obscure men are given biographies, only a small portion of extremely notable women are featured in the encyclopedia.

Probeheft

The probeheft, a 36-page soft-cover sample of the encyclopedia, contains 56 entries and around a dozen images. Ten of the entries were related to Jewish culture, including articles on Hirsh Lekert, Cantonists, and the Khazars. An entry on Jews simply directs readers to the forthcoming Yidn volume. Some articles are quite short — an entry on Easter Island is only two sentences long — while others span multiple pages, such as Dubnow's two-page entry on Hasidism. A single color plate is included in the sample volume to illustrate the article on ceramics. Of its ten biographies, one brief article covers a woman, the Italian educator Maria Montessori. Its second edition cut three short entries and added two longer articles.

Normale series

Volume One, published in Paris in late December 1934, contains around 1,100 entries, covering topics alphabetically from Aleph to Atlantic City. Its contents are similar to other general-purpose encyclopedias of the period, including coverage of technological innovations, the natural world, geography, and a large number of biographies. Topics related to the political left are often written by socialist authors; one of the longest entries is an article on agrarian socialism by Menshevik Petr Garvi [ru]. The preface to the volume includes a statement of purpose for the encyclopedia as a whole. Noting that many Yiddish speakers lacked formal education, the editors declared that the encyclopedia had to form "a source of knowledge and a tool for study" rather than just a means to refresh existing knowledge.

Relative to the first volume, the 1935 Volume Two (covering Atlantic Ocean to interference) contains relatively few entries on Jewish topics, while those that do exist (such as an entry on the Wandering Jew by poet David Einhorn) are quite short. The last quarter of the volume contains almost a hundred international labor movements and socialist internationals, together presenting a very detailed picture of labor history. Many of these articles were written by Abramovitch himself. The first two volumes are strongly influenced by diaspora nationalism, rebuking both Zionism and the rising antisemitic movements across Europe. The following editions, released in environment where European Jews were in intense danger, abandon diaspora nationalism as an ideology.

Volume Three (covering "intra" to antisemitism) was released in 1936. It largely follows the previous two volumes in content, featuring a heavy emphasis on leftist history and politics (including lengthy entries on anarchism and anarchist movements). The final article, "Antisemitism", is larger than any previous entry in the encyclopedia, stretching fifty columns and five subsections covering the origins, ideology, evolution, and organization of antisemitism, as well as its opposition movement. Unlike other articles, it was written collaboratively. Abramovitch wrote its majority with support from writers Ben-Adir (Avrom Rozin) and Tcherikower. Volume Four (beginning with antiseptic) was released the following year. Like its predecessor, it ended with a lengthy essay, "Erets-yisroel" ("Land of Israel"), in collaboration between four authors. Although not overtly Zionist, the section prioritizes information of Jewish activity in the region; the opening subsection on the demographics and economics of the region almost entirely excludes Arabs.

The fifth volume of the Normale series, released in 1944, finishes the last of the topics beginning with aleph, and moves on to the second letter of the Yiddish alphabet, Bet. Although it represented a last edition of the series in-between volumes of Yidn, it still primarily features Jewish topics, with a number of expansive biographies on Jewish subjects alongside short entries on general knowledge subjects.

Yidn series

The Yidn subseries focused on Jewish life, culture, history, and religion. Yidn Alef, the first of these volumes, consists mainly of essays introducing various Jewish topics written by experts in the respective field. Essays within the volume include entries on Jewish anthropology, archaeology, colonization, cooperatives, demography, history (divided into separate ancient, medieval and modern entries), historiography, and statistics. Yidn Bey follows a similar format, but focuses mainly on Jewish religious and cultural matters, with articles such as a four-part essay on the history of Jewish art by art historian Rachel Wischnitzer. Compared to Alef and earlier volumes of the Normale series, Yidn Bey featured more contributors from outside of Europe, as well as from a greater ideological range.

Yidn Giml, initially thought as the last volume of the Yidn series, features essays on Jewish literature and publications, as well as Jewish ideological, labor, and political movements. The largest essay in the volume is a 100-column article by Shmuel Charney entitled "Yiddish Literature from the Mid-eighteenth Century until 1942". The volume also includes one of the last writings from Ben-Adir, "Modern Social and National Currents among Jews", who died shortly after the volume's publication.

Yidn Daled, the first volume composed after the war, follows the format of previous volumes of Yidn. Trachtenberg likened the volume to a Yizkor book—a memorial book on communities destroyed in the Holocaust—as many of the essays in the book focus on Jewish communities and life in Europe prior to the Holocaust. Essays detail Jewish communities in different European countries. The largest essay in the volume, Avrom Menes's 150-column "The Eastern European Age in Jewish History", is a broad overview of Jewish history in Eastern Europe since the medieval period. The shortest, a history of the Jews in Luxembourg, is only four columns. Yidn Hey expands Daled's scope to Jewish communities in the Americas. Over three-quarters of the entries in the volume are focused on the United States, most of which were translated from Jewish People: Past and Present, likely including essays that were previously translated into English from Yiddish. Beside the United States coverage, Hey features three essays on Jews in Argentina, two essays on Jews in Canada, and three short essays on Jewish history and culture in Mexico, Brazil, and Cuba.

Yidn Nov and Yidn Zayen, the final two volumes of Yidn series (and of the encyclopedia as a whole), consist of a combined twenty-eight essays on topics related to the Holocaust. These essays, written by a variety of influential scholars (many of whom had not previously contributed to the encyclopedia), are generally organized by country, and give a history of the persecution of Jews before and during the war, life under occupation, and details on how Jews survived or engaged in armed resistance. While Nov is well-illustrated with photos and maps, Zayen lacks photos entirely, likely due to the financial difficulties of the project during the 1960s.

Contributors

Contributors to the encyclopedia worked part-time on the project and struggled to support themselves financially. In order to support themselves while they worked on the encyclopedia, many had additional jobs as teachers, journalists, or writers. Contributors spanned the political spectrum – generally communists or Zionists – although political participation was even wider for the Yidn volumes. Anarchist Alexander Berkman drafted an article on anarchism for the first volume of the encyclopedia; this was rejected by the editors as overly political.

• Raphael Abramovitch, socialist
• H. G. Adler, writer
• Chil Aronson, art critic
• Grigori Aronson [ru], political organizer
• Salo Baron, historian
• Mordechai Wolff Bernstein, journalist and writer
• Yankev Botoshansky [ru], writer
• Leon Bramson, politician
• Julius Brutzkus, historian and politician
• Nathan Chanin, labor organizer
• Daniel Charney, journalist
• Shmuel Charney, literary critic
• Boaz Cohen, Talmudist
• Simon Dubnow, writer and activist
• David Einhorn, poet and journalist
• Filip Friedman, historian
• Joseph Gar, historian
• Petr Garvi [ru], Menshevik politician
• Abraham Golomb, educator and writer
• Shloyme Gilinsky, educator
• Liebmann Hersch, demographer
• Raul Hilberg, historian
• Alice Jacob-Loewenson, pianist and music critic
• Judah Joffe, philologist
• Samuel Kahan (Franz Kursky [de]), Bundist organizer
• Zelig Kalmanovich, historian and philologist
• Adolf Kobler, rabbi and historian
• Mordecai Kosover, journalist and librarian
• Jacob Lestschinsky, demographer and statistician
• Claude Lévi-Strauss, anthropologist
• Elye Lipiner, writer and journalist
• Tuvye Mayzel, activist and Bundist
• Avrom Menes, historian and Bundist
• N. B. Minkoff, writer and activist
• Michael Molho, editor, rabbi, and scholar
• Alexander Mukdoni [ru], theater critic
• Léon Poliakov, historian
• Noach Pryłucki, linguist and folklorist
• Leyzer Ran, historian
• Simon Rawidowicz, Hebraist and philosopher
• Zalman Reisen, lexicographer and literary historian
• Avrom Regelson, poet
• Abraham Revusky, writer
• Shmuel Rozansky, writer
• Louis Rosenberg, demographer
• Avrom Rozin (Ben-Adir), demographer and socialist
• Arthur Ruppin, Zionist activist and sociologist
• Gershom Scholem, philosopher
• Aharon Leib Schussheim, journalist and activist
• Sholem Schwarzbard, poet and assassin
• Isaac Schwarzbart, Zionist activist and politician
• Jacob Shatzky, historian
• Leyb Shpizman, journalist
• Louis Sigal, labor organizer
• Aaron Steinberg [de], activist and translator
• Isaac Steinberg, socialist politician and lawyer
• Eleazar Sukenik, archaeologist
• Aryeh Tartakower, politician and historian
• Elias Tcherikower, historian
• Riva Tcherikower, wife of Elias
• Victor Tcherikover, historian
• Joseph Tenenbaum, activist, writer, and urologist
• Isaiah Trunk, archivist and historian
• Max Weinreich, linguist
• Sam Weiss, socialist organizer
• Mark Wischnitzer, historian
• Rachel Wischnitzer, architect and art historian
• Chaim Zhitlowsky, philosopher
• Szmul Zygielbojm, politician

Reception and legacy

Critical reception to the Algemeyne Entsiklopedye in the Yiddish press began after the publication of its probeheft in 1932. Journalist Yeshayahu Klinov, reviewing the probeheft, noted the great potential for the project, writing that if completed, the encyclopedia would "justify our entire Eastern European Jewish Diaspora in Berlin" but questioned whether ten volumes would be enough to provide a proper overview of general knowledge. Klinov, a committed Zionist, criticized the encyclopedia's ideological direction, disapproving that the article on Zionist leader Max Nordau was written by the anti-Zionist socialist Ben-Adir. Press coverage of the first full volume was extremely positive and supportive, with many hailing the project as a landmark in the history of Yiddish literary culture.

Historian Koppel Pinson praised the Yidn volumes while critiquing the last volume of the Normale series for what he described as poor editorial policy, writing that the encyclopedia's selection of historical figures for biographical articles appeared arbitrary and inconsistent. Historian Nachman Blumental criticized a variety of historical inaccuracies and errors regarding Jewish ghettos in the final Yidn volume, as well as hedging and other informalities.

The encyclopedia has received limited academic attention. In 2022, Barry Trachtenberg published a history of the Algemeyne Entsiklopedye entitled The Holocaust and the Exile of Yiddish.

References

1. Veidlinger 2009, pp. 379–380.
2. Trachtenberg 2006, p. 286.
3. Trachtenberg 2022, pp. 10–15.
4. ^ Blumental 1966, p. 26.
5. Trachtenberg 2022, pp. 31–33.
6. Trachtenberg 2022, pp. 20, 33–34.
7. Trachtenberg 2022, p. 35, 43–44.
8. Trachtenberg 2022, pp. 46–50.
9. Trachtenberg 2006, pp. 287–288.
10. ^ Kuznitz 2014, pp. 164–165.
11. Trachtenberg 2022, pp. 57–58.
12. ^ Trachtenberg 2022, pp. 67–68.
13. Trachtenberg 2006, pp. 73, 289–292.
14. ^ Trachtenberg 2006, pp. 289–292.
15. ^ Trachtenberg 2022, p. 65.
16. Trachtenberg 2006, pp. 98, 289–292.
17. ^ Ivry & Trachtenberg 2022.
18. ^ Trachtenberg 2006, pp. 292–293.
19. Blumental 1966, p. 27.
20. Trachtenberg 2006, pp. 291, 294–295.
21. Trachtenberg 2006, p. 291.
22. Weinryb 1942, pp. 85–86.
23. Trachtenberg 2006, pp. 295–296.
24. Trachtenberg 2006, pp. 296–297.
25. Pinson 1945, p. 77.
26. ^ Pinson 1945, pp. 76–77.
27. Trachtenberg 2022, pp. 61–64.
28. Wolfthal 2020.
29. Trachtenberg 2022, pp. 73, 83–86.
30. ^ Trachtenberg 2022, pp. 94–97.
31. Trachtenberg 2022, p. 98.
32. Trachtenberg 2022, pp. 99–103.
33. Trachtenberg 2022, pp. 106–110.
34. ^ Trachtenberg 2022, p. 153.
35. ^ Trachtenberg 2022, pp. 119–122.
36. ^ Trachtenberg 2022, pp. 124–127.
37. Trachtenberg 2022, pp. 145–150.
38. Trachtenberg 2022, pp. 179–180.
39. Trachtenberg 2022, pp. 189–191.
40. Trachtenberg 2022, pp. 193–196.
41. Trachtenberg 2022, pp. 125–126.
42. ^ Trachtenberg 2006, p. 288.
43. ^ Trachtenberg 2022, pp. 193–194.
44. ^ Trachtenberg 2022, pp. 5–6.
45. ^ Trachtenberg 2022, pp. 63, 75.
46. ^ Trachtenberg 2022, p. 190.
47. ^ Trachtenberg 2022, p. 75.
48. ^ Trachtenberg 2022, pp. 80–81.
49. Trachtenberg 2022, pp. 83–86.
50. ^ Trachtenberg 2022, p. 145.
51. ^ Trachtenberg 2022, p. 64.
52. ^ Trachtenberg 2022, p. 180.
53. ^ Trachtenberg 2022, p. 189.
54. Trachtenberg 2022, pp. 38, 80.
55. Trachtenberg 2022, pp. 65–67.
56. Trachtenberg 2022, pp. 89–90.
57. Blumental 1966, pp. 27–30.
58. Krutikov 2022.
59. Spinner 2024.

Bibliography

• Blumental, Nachman (1966). "The General Encyclopedia in Yiddish and the Holocaust". Yad Vashem Bulletin (18): 26–30.
• Ivry, Benjamin; Trachtenberg, Barry (March 7, 2022). "How a Yiddish Encyclopedia Became a Document of the Holocaust and Jewish Culture". The Forward. Retrieved January 1, 2025.
• Krutikov, Michael (April 14, 2022). "די טראַגישע געשיכטע פֿון דער אַמביציעזער "אַלגעמײנער ענציקלאָפּעדיע" [The Tragic History of the Ambitious Algemeyne Entsiklopedye]. The Forward (in Yiddish). Retrieved January 1, 2025.
• Kuznitz, Cecile Ether (2014). YIVO and the Making of Modern Jewish Culture: Scholarship for the Yiddish Nation. Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9781139013604. ISBN 9781139013604.
• Spinner, Samuel J. (January 23, 2024). "Review of Barry Trachtenberg's The Holocaust and the Exile of Yiddish: A History of the Algemeyne Entsiklopedye". In geveb. Retrieved 9 January 2025.
• Trachtenberg, Barry (2006). "From Edification to Commemoration: Di Algemeyne Entsiklopedye, the Holocaust, and the Changing Mission of Yiddish Scholarship". Journal of Modern Jewish Studies. 5 (3): 285–300. doi:10.1080/14725880600961601.
• — (2022). The Holocaust and the Exile of Yiddish: A History of the Algemeyne Entsiklopedye. Rutgers University Press. ISBN 9781978825451.
• Pinson, Koppel (1945). "Review of General Encyclopaedia Vol. v, Arkadius—Baalei-hayyim". Jewish Social Studies. 7 (1): 76–78. JSTOR 4464634.
• Veidlinger, Jeffery (2009). "From Ashkenaz to Zionism: Putting Eastern European Jewish Life in (Alphabetical) Order". AJS Review. 33 (2): 379–389. doi:10.1017/S0364009409990250.
• Weinryb, Bernard D. (1942). "Review of General Encyclopedia: Jews, Vol. i–ii". Jewish Social Studies. 4 (1): 85–86. JSTOR 4615191.
• Wolfthal, Maurice (April 28, 2020). "My Biography of the World's Greatest Yiddish Encyclopedia". The Forward. Retrieved January 1, 2025.

External links

• Probeheft

• Yiddish-language literature
• European encyclopedias
• American encyclopedias
• Jewish encyclopedias