The Congress for Jewish Culture to Celebrate Diamond Jubilee With Website Launch

Yesterday, the Congress for Jewish Culture unveiled their exciting, revamped website in honor of their 75th Anniversary: http://www.CongressForJewishCulture.org. Beginning in October, they 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 website 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 works with some of the finest writers, translators, composers, and performers in the field of Yiddish today. They cultivate the living language in all its manifestations, be it spoken or sung, in the classroom, on the page or on the stage. The Congress has a distinguished publishing history in both Yiddish and English; and a regular calendar of memorials, concerts and plays; runs classes and literary reading circles; and fields Yiddish-related questions. They provide guidance in finding materials for reading groups or research and provide synagogues and community centers with Yiddish programming. They have presented theatrical works worldwide, including the Off-Broadway smash TEVYE SERVED RAW (hailed as ‘Poignant and funny' by the Jewish Standard), and most recently Yelena Shmulenson's NIGHT OF THE MURDERED POETS. The Congress for Jewish Culture was founded in 1948 by luminaries of Yiddish letters at that time, including poet and dramatist H. Leivick (author of THE GOLEM), novelist Joseph Opatoshu (author of ROMANCE OF A HORSETHIEF, basis for the 1971 film starring Yul Brynner) and 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 website development, a colossal literary and technical undertaking starting in October, will begin to provide previously unavailable functionality for a new Library and Leksikon section of the site, including access to 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 thousands of entries on Yiddish writers, making up the most comprehensive reference source for Yiddish literary research. 

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, and other classics of the Yiddish theater in clear, modern Yiddish texts.

The Leksikon will appear side by side with Professor Joshua Fogel's massive Leksikon translation project which has already received one million views, and will 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, Comparative Literature, to 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 consultant Rokhl Kafrissen (playwright & cultural critic for Tablet Magazine).

Says Professor Barry Trachtenberg of Wake Forest University regarding the Leksikon Project: "Since its publication beginning in the 1950s, the Leksikon has been an indispensable guide to students and scholars of modern Yiddish culture. A digital version of this work - which remains the most comprehensive guide to the world of Yiddish literature and scholarship - would not only make this work available to future generations of researchers but would open new avenues of research and make possible new ventures in Digital Humanities for Yiddish."