Encyclopaedia Hebraica

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Stack of books from the Encyclopaedia Hebraica. The large Hebrew letters at the bottom of the spine indicate the volume number in gematria .
Encyclopaedia Hebraica, Sifriyat Poalim Edition, in conventional order

The Encyclopaedia Hebraica ( Hebrew האנצקלופדיה העברית ha-entsiklopediyah ha-ʻivrit ) is a 32-volume encyclopedia in Hebrew . The honorary president of the project was the Israeli President Chaim Weizmann .

History of origin

The Encyclopaedia Hebraica was produced by the Bracha Pelis printing house under the direction of the Russian-Israeli literary scholar , historian and religious scholar Joseph Klausner . The idea of ​​the Encyclopaedia Hebraica took material form in the summer of 1944. An advisory committee was set up to define the objectives of the encyclopedia. At the beginning, they wanted to use the Brockhaus Encyclopedia as a model, but later decided to make the content similar to the Encyclopædia Britannica . Printing of the first volume began in the summer of 1948 at the time of the establishment of the State of Israel . The first volume begins with the entry for the letter " Aleph " (א) and goes to " Australia " (אוסטרליה). The first photo is an illustration of the Israeli Declaration of Independence . The last entry in Volume 32 deals with the month name Tischri (תשרי). Initially only 16 volumes were planned, but by the time it was completed in 1980, the volume expanded to 32 volumes, followed by further updates until the 38th volume appeared in 1996. More than 2,500 writers were involved in the creation of the encyclopedia, including leading Israeli scholars and fifteen Nobel Prize winners . The rights went in 1997 to Racheli Edelman from Schocken Publishers, who were planning a new edition.

content

The encyclopedia covers all general topics, but the focus is on Jewish-Israeli topics, especially in articles dealing with Judaism, Jews, and Israel. Care was taken in the encyclopedia to emphasize the Jewishness of the person in every biographical article, even if Judaism had no meaning in the life of the person who was included in the encyclopedia. The authors of the encyclopedia did not hide their Jewish-nationalist-political views. Therefore, initially the Kingdom of Jordan did not justify an entry, since the encyclopedia did not recognize it as a state. It was only later included in the encyclopedia.

See also

literature

  • ha-Entsiklopediyah ha-ʻivrit (האנצקלופדיה העברית) / Encyclopaedia Hebraica. (1949). Tel-Aviv: Encyclopaedia Publishing Company.
  • (Hebrew) Haaretz obituary for Alexander Plai

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ People Of the Book: The Encyclopedia Project and the Attempt to Create A Knowing Nation, 1944-1991 . Congress of jewish Studies, August 2017. Retrieved July 28, 2020.
  2. ^ Bracha Peli , Encyclopaedia Hebraica. Retrieved July 28, 2020.