Articles


Jewish encyclopedia is long overdue for an overhaul

Posted On 11/09/04
By: Arnold Ages

There is a wonderful device mentioned by Stanislaw Lem (arguably the world’s best writer of science fiction) in a marvelous novel he wrote before the computer age, which distills the latest information available in all disciplines and displays it minute by minute on a wall mounted electronic slate which continually updates it. Thus information mutates as the observer watches it.
This device came to mind while perusing the 16-volume Encyclopedia Judaica, which was published in 1972, one of Israel’s greatest international publishing ventures. This monumental anthology of Jews and Judaism appeared only after great financial and editorial difficulties.
Geoffrey Wigoder who became editor-in-chief of the encyclopedia after the untimely death of Cecil Roth (the great Jewish historian who had steered the project originally), talked of the anxieties he had been experiencing in bringing the work to its completion.
He mentioned two major problems – getting contributors to limit themselves to the small number of words assigned to each article and working with some very difficult academics. He mentioned one of the latter, a specialist in Jewish philosophy, who told him that he would be happy to contribute a new article, providing he was first paid for an article he had written for the German-Jewish encyclopedia that Nahum Goldman had published in the 1930s!
The other criticism that was leveled at the Judaica was the unevenness of the individual entries. Gershom Scholem, the world’s foremost expert on Jewish mysticism, said during a visit to Toronto in the early 1970s, that aside from the longest article in the Encyclopedia Judaica on Jewish Mysticism (which he noted slyly that he had written), many of the others lacked scholarly depth. That remark may have been an example of “kinat sofrim,” – scholarly envy.
Be that as it may, it is obvious that we now need a new Jewish encyclopedia because the Jewish and non-Jewish world have changed radically since 1972 and while some of those changes have been recorded in the supplements, which the Judaica people have published, few libraries and private individuals have those supplements – which means that 1972 collection is the basic source for Jewish knowledge to which people turn.
It has been 32 years since the Judaica appeared and for its time it served admirably as a major source for data on the Bible, Talmud, Jewish history, the Holocaust and, of course, the state of Israel. Its articles on every single city, town, hamlet and region of Eretz Israel were illuminating. The survey of the fate of European Jewry during the Hitler years was recorded in graphic prose and equally important photographs. The entries on Jewish art, music and synagogue architecture were magisterial.
However, from the vantage point of 2004, it becomes increasingly obvious that huge gaps in Jewish history and life have not been registered because of the accelerating pace of modern times. The following are a few examples of what, for self-evident reasons, could not be included in the Encyclopedia Judaica.
* The collapse of the Soviet Union and the huge exodus of Russian Jews toward Israel and North America have reconfigured the shape of Jewish life in both precincts.
* The fall of communism in general has triggered an amazing resurgence of Jewish life behind what was previously called ‘The Iron Curtain.’ Jewish communities have now re-established themselves in many parts of eastern Europe where, as a result of the Holocaust, there are more Jews underground than above ground.
* In the early 1970s female rabbis were an aspect of liberal Judaism only. In the 21st century there are now cadres of women rabbis serving both Reform and Conservative congregations.
* Jewish studies programs at North American universities were in their infancy when the Judaica was first published. Today there are more than 400 universities and colleges in North America offering programs, courses and lectures on various aspects of Jewish thought.
* The 1973 Yom Kippur War, 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the two Intifadas have plagued Israel since the period of the publication of the Judaica and their aftermath has been recorded only in supplementary volumes.
* One of the most startling lacunae is the absence of any real in-depth treatment of the Islamist antisemitism that now fuels the crudest form of this non-filterable virus. Osama bin Laden wasn’t a threat in 1972 and hate-filled ‘suiciders’ had not initiated their adaptation of Moloch worship during that epoch.
* The Judaica does have an entry on Isaac Bashevis Singer but misses his Nobel Prize for literature. Elie Wiesel’s Nobel Prize for peace is also absent. As for Hannah Senesh, that incredibly brave Hungarian-Jewish would-be-rescuer of her people, there is no entry on her at all.
The preceding represent just a modest sampling of the people, events and developments that have no echo in the pages of the 1972 Encyclopedia Judaica. It’s time, therefore, for a new Jewish encyclopedia.
However, there is a caveat for those who might be motivated by these observations, to start lobbying for that new enterprise. Whether it is published in 2010 or 2020 or 2030, it will be out of date one day after publication.

Arnold Ages is "Distinguished Professor Emeritus," University of Waterloo [Ontario] and Scholar-in-Residence at the Beth Tzedec Synagogue, Toronto