About the Lexicon

Beginning with Zalmen Rejzen’s pioneering publications from 1914 through 1929, numerous extensive biographical dictionaries of Yiddish writers, known as "lexicons", were created. They are in Yiddish in relatively rare and (with two exceptions) out-of-print editions. The Congress for Jewish Culture (CJC) is sponsoring digitization and compilation of several of these lexicons as listed below. This project enables users everywhere to read and research these volumes in both Yiddish and English at no cost. These web-based publications are fully searchable in both languages and also feature metadata and subject tagging. The search capability is already functional, but we are still adding many of our Yiddish & English texts and metadata. All material must be checked, corrected, formatted, updated, and translated. There are many ways you can help.

The later lexicons update the earlier ones, but none of the Yiddish volumes have been updated for over a decade. The CJC is updating all of the entries with more research and will be creating new entries for contemporary generations of writers. Our questionnaire for adding and updating information for Additional Writers may be filled out at any time -- we invite applicable persons to please complete this form and/or send an email to suggest that we add a Writer to the Lexicon.  Also, we invite public comments directly on every listing in the lexicon.

For the initial phase we are including the following lexicons:

  1. Congress for Jewish Culture, Inc. Biographical Dictionary of Modern Yiddish Literature (Leksikon fun der Nayer Yidisher Literatur). 8 vols. New York: Marstin Press, 1956-1981.
  2. Kagan, Berl. Lexicon of Yiddish Writers (Leksikon fun Yidish-Shraybers). Brooklyn, NY: Berl Kagan, 1986.
  3. Beider, Chaim. Biographical Dictionary of Yiddish Writers in the Soviet Union (Leksikon fun Yidishe Shrayber in Ratn-Farband). New York: Congress for Jewish Culture, Inc., 2011.
  4. Chernin, Velvl. Biographical Dictionary of Contemporary Yiddish Writers (Leksikon fun der Haynttsaytiker Yidisher Literatur), ed. Velvl Chernin and Mikhl Felzenbaum, Tel Aviv: Bibliotek fun der Haynttsaytiker Literatur, 2025.


    In addition and already available in full are:
     
  5. English compilations, translations, and updates of the above sources by Joshua Fogel in Toronto, Canada. This work, performed over years of dedication , is not published anywhere else.
  6. The CJC Shrayberins Reshime, a listing of approximately 900 Women Yiddish Writers which lists various biographical data and resources for each.
  7. Additional writers, as sourced by CJC via our questionaire, etc.

 

Among the volumes not included, at this time, in this project are:

עט
Rejzen, Zalmen. Leksikon fun der Yidisher Literatur un Prese. Warsaw: Central, 1914.

Rejzen, Zalmen. Leksikon fun der Yidisher Literatur Prese un Filologye. Vilna: Kletzkin, 1926-1929. [In 4 volumes with the first two being expanded and republished in 1928 and 1929 respectively.]

Shulman, Elias [written and compiled by]; Weber, Shimon, [editor]. Leksikon fun Forverts Shrayber Zint 1897. New York: Forward Association, 1987.

Leksikon fun der Yidisher Literatur in Erets-Yisroel. Two volumes, Jerusalem: Lund, 2021 and 2023.

 

 

Some Notes about Conventions Used:

  • Digitized Source Book citations maintain the original spelling used in those books.
  • Updated consolidated Yiddish articles use standard YIVO spelling. Exception: Published titles (of books, articles, etc.) attempt to use the original published spelling.
  • Transliterated Yiddish conforms with the YIVO system.
  • Transliterated Hebrew will eventually be updated to conform with the Romanization rules of the Library of Congress. 
  • Primary source references and names of the authors of the biographies are often shortened or abbreviated in the Yiddish versions; but they are expanded in the English versions.
  • Abbreviations in general are retained in the Yiddish versions. We will soon have a system in place (projected for 2026) in which you can hover over a Yiddish abbreviation and usually get a pop-up decoding it into words. Meanwhile, you can find all the abbreviation keys and other reference charts for each volume by links to PDFs from the Lexicon Home Page.
  • Geographical place names have not yet been standardized in any way. If searching for a place, you can use the Advanced Search on the Lexicon home page -- and look for "any of" a list of versions of your place name (different languages, different time periods, different sovereignties).
  • Congress for Jewish Culture is and was the English name for the אַלװעלטלעכער ייִדישער קולטור־קאָנגרעס (Alveltlekher Yidisher Kultur-Kongres). In certain places in the Lexicon, the English translation is literal, but not the one actually used in English. For example, you may see "World Jewish Culture Congress" but it refers to the same organization known as the Congress for Jewish Culture. (Eventually, the names will be conformed in the English versions of the Lexicon.)