Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Harold Holmyard <hholmyard AT ont.com>]

Dear Yonah and Shoshanna,

> I never even heard of it - at first I thought he meant Encyclopedia Judaica
>
> Shoshanna
>
>
>
> *Even* the Jewish Encyclopedia?? Why is it that I never see a Jew
> citing this as his authority for anything? We cite law codes and
> commentaries. We do not cite the Jewish Encyclopedia. It is simply not
> the authority on these matters.
>
> Yonah
>  

HH: Perhaps the reason the Jewish Encyclopedia is not cited as an 
authority is because it is old. It was done in 1906, but the advantage 
of it is that all 25,000 articles by over 400 scholars are online. It is 
solid scholarship; here are online links:

www.jewishencyclopedia.com
www.jewishencyclopedia.com/about.jsp

HH: There is an article about it in Wikipedia that has this note:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Encyclopedia

Jenny Mendelsohn, of University of Toronto Libraries, in an online guide 
to major sources of information about Jews and Judaism says of this 
work, "Although published in the early 1900s, this was a work highly 
regarded for its scholarship. Much of the material is still of value to 
researchers in Jewish History." [1] Reform Jewish rabbi Joshua L. Segal 
calls it, "a remarkable piece of Jewish scholarship" and adds, "For 
events prior to 1900, it is considered to offer a level of scholarship 
superior to either of the more recent Jewish Encyclopedias written in 
English."

Yours,
Harold Holmyard