Episode 3153
Algemeyne Entsiklopedye
Mon, 2025-Dec-22 00:31 UTC
Length - 3:09
Direct Link
Welcome to featured Wiki of the Day, your daily dose of knowledge from Wikipedia's finest articles.
The featured article for Monday, 22 December 2025, is Algemeyne Entsiklopedye.
The Algemeyne Entsiklopedye (Yiddish: אלגעמיינע ענציקלאפעדיע, lit. 'General Encyclopedia') is a Yiddish-language encyclopedia published in twelve volumes from 1934 to 1966. It is divided into two subseries: five volumes of the Normale series, covering general knowledge, and six volumes of the Yidn series (initially planned as a single supplementary volume) covering Jewish history and culture through a series of essays. The encyclopedia's early volumes emphasize leftist history and politics, although the project shifted in tone in response to Nazi persecution, and became increasingly focused on covering Jewish topics. After the destruction of Jewish communities throughout Europe—the encyclopedia's main audience—in the Holocaust, it transformed from a general-purpose resource into an effort to commemorate what was lost.
After decades of failed attempts to compile a Yiddish general encyclopedia, the Vilna-based Jewish cultural organization YIVO formed the Dubnov Fund (Dubnov-fond, named for historian Simon Dubnow) in 1930, which organized and fundraised for the encyclopedia. A large group of Jewish scholars centered in Berlin contributed to the project, often part-time alongside other jobs. The socialist politician Raphael Abramovitch served as the project's chief editor for most of its history. A small sample volume (the probeheft) was released in 1932. Its editors fled to Paris due to the rise of the Nazi regime in 1933, delaying the release of the first volume until 1934. There, they published four volumes of the Normale series and two of Yidn. The outbreak of World War II again forced the editors to flee, and the project regrouped in New York City. Financed by the postwar Claims Conference, work on the encyclopedia continued into the 1960s; the final volume, Yidn Zayen, was released three years after Abramovitch's death in 1963. Two additional volumes (one of each series) were planned, but never finished. In the years following the war, a four-volume English-language encyclopedia titled The Jewish People: Past and Present was compiled, largely based on the early volumes of the Yidn series.
Press coverage of the probeheft and the first volumes of the encyclopedia was very supportive, although it faced some ideological opposition due to its largely anti-Zionist leaning in its early years. The encyclopedia has received limited academic attention, although a book detailing the history of the project by Barry Trachtenberg entitled The Holocaust and the Exile of Yiddish was published in 2022.
This recording reflects the Wikipedia text as of 00:31 UTC on Monday, 22 December 2025.
For the full current version of the article, see Algemeyne Entsiklopedye on Wikipedia.
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