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''Leksikon fun yidishn teater'' ( yi, לעקסיקאן פון יידישן טעאטער ''Lexicon of Yiddish Theatre'' or ''Encyclopedia of the Yiddish Theatre'') is a
''Leksikon fun yidishn teater'' ( yi, לעקסיקאן פון יידישן טעאטער ''Lexicon of Yiddish Theatre'' or ''Encyclopedia of the Yiddish Theatre'') is a Yiddish language
Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...
reference encyclopedia compiled by Zalmen Zylbercweig
Zalmen Zylbercweig (Yiddish: זלמן זילבערצווייג ; Ozorkow, 1894-Los Angeles 1972) was a historian of Yiddish theater. He is best known as the author of the six-volume ''Leksikon fun yidishn teater'' (Lexicon or Encyclopedia of the Y ...
, assisted by Jacob Mestel on two volumes.
The six-volume 3,066 page work contains biographies of more than 3,000 individuals, as well as articles on theatre troupes and plays. The compiler published the first volumes in New York and Warsaw before World War II. Later volumes were published in New York and Mexico City from 1959 to 1969. A seventh volume was prepared for publication, but on Zylbercweig's death it was unable to be completed.
Early on Zylbercweig received support for his project from the Hebrew Actors' Union
The Hebrew Actors' Union (HAU) was a craft union for actors in Yiddish theater in the United States (primarily in New York City), and was the first actors' union in the United States. The union was affiliated with the Associated Actors and Artiste ...
, which sponsored a 16-page prospectus for the lexicon in 1928; with the Union's help Zylbercweig mailed out a questionnaire to all of its members, the responses to which served as a basis for entries. The first volume of the lexicon appeared in New York in 1931, and the second in Warsaw, in 1934.Jones (2012), p. 257-258; notes p. 272. Zylbercweig raised money for the publication of these volumes through a number of routes, such as banquets, fundraiser performances, pre-sales, and the sales of his other books.{{Cite journal, last=Jones, first=Faith, date=2006, title=The Fate of Yiddish Dictionaries: Zalmen Zylbercweig's Leksikon fun Yidishn teater, journal=Journal of Modern Jewish Studies, volume=5, issue=3, pages=323–342, doi=10.1080/14725880600957914, s2cid=142592794
The nature of the ''Leksikon'' changed significantly between the second volume and all further volumes. The early volumes were edited so that length of entry reflected the stature of individuals, and attempted to limit information given to the most meaningful details. In the post-War years, however, Zylbercweig understood his mission to be the dissemination of any and all information he could gather, to prevent it being lost to history. Thus, in later volumes the entries are generally longer, and the length of entry does not correspond to the importance of the individual but to the amount of material available about them. Volume 5 is titled ''kadoyshim band'' artyr's volumeand consists entirely of entries for individuals murdered in the Holocaust. Some entries are very short; most lack dates of death.
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