New Congress for Jewish Culture Website Surpasses One Million Views

The Congress for Jewish Culture recently unveiled their elaborate, revamped website to commemorate their 75th Anniversary: www.congressforjewishculture.org. On October 10th, the Congress kicked off this colossal literary and technical undertaking with their magnum opus, the invaluable eight-volume LEKSIKON FUN DER NAYER YIDISHER LITERATUR (BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF MODERN YIDDISH LITERATURE) and the 2011 supplement on Soviet Yiddish writers, which contains over 7,000 entries on Yiddish writers, making it the most comprehensive and essential reference source for Yiddish literary research. This exhaustive translation by Royal Society of Canada Fellow, Joshua Fogel, has now surpassed one million views! 

Interestingly, one of the thousands of legendary writers represented in the LEKSIKON is Meir Blinkin, great-grandfather of President Biden’s trusted aid Antony Blinken. Secretary of State Blinken is currently at the center of the administration’s internal deliberations concerning the situation in Israel. 

In the upcoming weeks, the Congress for Jewish Culture will be adding a massive number of publications never before available on any digital format, with search features and substantial English translations. These will include highly valuable research materials, works of fiction and plays, as well as photographs, artworks, and archival audio and visual recordings. The site will wed these historic materials to the Congress’s current projects, demonstrating the continuity of Yiddish culture in the 21st century. 

The Congress for Jewish Culture was founded in 1948 to promote Yiddish language and culture, with a philosophy that the printed word is the face of a language, the spoken word its beating heart, the song its soul. The Congress joins artists and individuals to the Yiddish community through live programming, web media, and print publications with resources for all levels of Yiddish understanding. They have presented theatrical works worldwide, including the Off-Broadway smash TEVYE SERVED RAW and most recently Yelena Shmulenson’s NIGHT OF THE MURDERED POETS. The Congress for Jewish Culture was founded by luminaries of Yiddish letters including poet and dramatist H. Leivick (author of THE GOLEM), and novelist Joseph Opatoshu (author of ROMANCE OF A HORSETHIEF, basis for the 1971 film starring Yul Brynner) among others. The current executive director of the Congress is Shane Baker, renowned performer on the contemporary Yiddish stage and acclaimed literary translator of the Yiddish WAITING FOR GODOT. 

The new, ongoing website development provides previously unavailable functionality for a new Library and Leksikon section of the site. This indispensable component made its auspicious debut two weeks ago with the abovementioned BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF MODERN YIDDISH LITERATURE, which esteemed historian Joshua Fogel began translating nine years ago. 

The numerous plays which will be added throughout this project include DER DIBEK (THE DYBBUK) by Sh. Ansky, DOS GROYSE GEVINS (THE BIG WIN) by Sholem Aleichem, MIRELE EFROS (The Jewish Queen Lear) by Jacob Gordin, and other classics of the Yiddish theater in the Congress’s renowned editions featuring clear, modern Yiddish texts. 

The Leksikon appears side by side with Professor Joshua Fogel's LEKSIKON translation project and will continue to incorporate a host of new digital tools allowing them to integrate the latest scholarship and data on these writers. 

The Library will eventually include every work published by the Congress for Jewish Culture and its associates, with several hundred important volumes of not only research materials, but belles-lettres by great Yiddish writers as well. As these materials have never before been offered in digital form, they will represent a major windfall to researchers and Yiddish-lovers of all stripes, from students and academics in the various fields of Jewish Studies and Comparative Literature, literary reading circles, genealogists, and everyday readers of the Yiddish word. 

The new website is created and designed for the Congress for Jewish Culture by Jamie Katz with Shane Baker and consultant Rokhl Kafrissen (playwright & cultural critic for Tablet Magazine). A stunning new logo has been designed by Elizabeth Shulman-Nadolny, which was largely realized through her tireless research of the evolution of Jewish artwork. 

Check out the new and extraordinarily popular translation of the LEKSIKON FUN DER NAYER YIDISHER LITERATUR at 

congressforjewishculture.org/library.

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