More than 70 scholars and professors in over a score of universities in the U.S., Israel and Europe are compiling the new ten-volume Encyclopaedia Judaica, it was announced here today, The announcement was made by Dr. Nahum Goldmann, honorary president of the encyclopaedia and Joseph Meyerhoff, president of the Encyclopaedia Judaica Press. The announcement said that according to the present estimates the ten volumes will be completed at a total cost of $1,500,000.
The Editor-in-Chief of the Encyclopaedia is Dr. Benzion Netanyahu, Prof, of Medieval and Modern Hebrew literature at Dropsie College in Philadelphia. Prof. William F. Albright of Johns Hopkins University is chairman of the Editorial Council. Professors Abraham Neuman, president of Dropsie College, and Benzion Dinur of Hebrew University, formerly Israel’s Minister of Culture and Education, are co-chairmen of the board of editors.
“Plans for the encyclopaedia were first initiated at a meeting of founders in New York on December 9, 1961. Within the past two years close to one-half of the manuscript has been completed by the staff of editors and writers,” the announcement stated. “The staff consists of departmental editors working at their respective universities and colleges which head a group of some 400 leading scientists, researchers, writers and artists, Jews and non-Jews from many lands. There are two editorial centers currently at work on the encyclopaedia in Philadelphia and Jerusalem.” The encyclopaedia’s ten volumes will cover a total of more than 5,000 pages with some six million words and 2,000 illustrations and maps.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
