Write and Record! The Yiddish Encyclopedia Project and the Holocaust

FAIN: FT-55969-08

Barry Trachtenberg
SUNY Research Foundation, Albany (Albany, NY 12222-0001)

This monograph-length project traces the history of the first-ever Yiddish language encyclopedia. Di algemeyne entsiklopedye (The General Encyclopedia, 1934-1966) was conceived as a way to bring general knowledge to millions of European Jews. However, it ultimately followed a course that was unimaginable to any of its founders as the rise of Nazism and the Holocaust ultimately forced dramatic changes in its content, readership, and function. The original mission of conveying universal knowledge shifted to the particularistic task of documenting the destruction of European Jewry. In this, it tells the story of the transformation of the task of Jewish scholarship in the 20th century. My research was begun in spring 2006 and its completion is planned for summer 2010. The dates for my research under the 2008 NEH grant are 6/22/2008 to 8/22/2008.

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