The Judaica Reference Award for 2007 goes to Writers in Yiddish, edited by Joseph Sherman (Detroit: Thomson Gale, 2007).  It is volume 333 of the series, Dictionary of Literary Biography.  This alphabetically arranged work contains articles on forty major figures in Yiddish literature.  The earliest is Nahman of Bratslav.    Each article gives a transliterated and translated list of the author’s works and published English translations, including those found in anthologies and periodicals.  The main body of the article discusses the life and writings of the author, including information about relations with other writers, discussions of schools of literature, and brief comments about some of the works.  There is a list of works for further reading.  A useful feature at the end of each chapter cites the location of the author’s papers.

Joseph Sherman is Corob Fellow in Yiddish Studies, Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, University of Oxford.  He was previously Associate Professor in the Department of English, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.  He has published widely on Yiddish literature, specializing in Isaac Bashevis Singer, and has translated his novel Shadows on the Hudson.  His other area of expertise is Dovid Bergelson, whose novella Opgang (Descent), he recently published in a newly redacted Yiddish text and translation.  Sherman’s new translation of Bergelson’s novel Nokh alemen [When All is Said and Done] is scheduled for publication in the fall of 2008.

The 2007 Judaica Bibliography Award winner is Dictionary of Iberian Jewish and Converso Authors by Norman Roth (Salamanca; Madrid: Aben Ezra Ediciones; Universidad Pontifica Salamanca, 2007).  Although published in Spain, all annotations are in English.  The bibliography includes not only Hebrew works, but those written in other languages, especially Spanish as well as translations into other languages.  The arrangement is alphabetical by author’s name in Roman letters.  All Hebrew titles appear in Hebrew and are not transliterated.  Roth includes every edition of which he is aware, including material published in scholarly journals.  One can get a sense of the amount of work that went into this 765 page bibliography by noting that the entry on Maimonides (apparently included because he spent his early years in Spain) is seventy-eight pages long.  This bibliography will serve as a basic research tool for all scholars in the field of Spanish Jews and Conversos.

Norman Roth is emeritus professor in the Department of Hebrew and Semitic Studies at the University of Wisconsin—Madison.  In addition to many articles in English and Spanish, he has published the following works:  Maimonides:  Essays and Texts (1985); Jews, Visigoths, and Muslims in Medieval Spain:  Cooperation and Conflict (1994); Conversos, Inquisition, and the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain (1995).  He also edited Medieval Jewish Civilization:  an Encyclopedia (2003).

Reference Honorable Mention is The Encyclopedia of Jewish Myth, Magic and Mysticism by Geoffrey W. Dennis (Woodbury, Minnesota: Llewellyn Publications, 2007).  There are over 1,000 articles, varying in length from a few lines to more than a page, with extensive cross-references.  All Hebrew is transliterated.  There are numerous references to primary and a few secondary sources in rabbinic and mystical literature.  Among the shorter entries are “Kaf” (the letter); “Kastirin” (a class of demons in the Zohar); “lamps,” and “Names of Impurity.”  Articles of longer length include “Possession, Ghostly;” “Razim, Samael;” and “Summoning.”  The value of this encyclopedia is in the wide range of subjects covered.  It does not replace encyclopedias that cover some of the subjects in great detail.  To the best of my knowledge, however, many of the entries do not appear elsewhere in any organized form in other reference literature.

Geoffrey Dennis is the rabbi of Congregation Kol Ami in Flower Mound, Texas.  He was previously the assistant rabbi at Indianapolis Hebrew Congregation.  Prior to his ordination at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, he was a registered nurse and RN supervisor.

The Honorable Mention in Bibliography is Inventory of Yiddish Publications from the Netherlands: c.1650 – c.1950 by Mirjam Gutschow (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2007).  This work lists 585 publications, all but three of which were published in Amsterdam.  Subjects include narrative prose, plays, humorous literature, textbooks, grammars, religious literature, and regulations of local Ashkenazi communities.  Almost all were published before the twentieth century.  The author has excluded Haggadahs and calendars.  The inventory is based on catalogs and other secondary literature.  It does not claim to be comprehensive, but is a major step toward identifying all of the Yiddish publications of the Netherlands.  It is a valuable tool for the history of Yiddish literature and culture, as well as the history of the Jewish book.

Mirjam Gutschow studied Yiddish in Trier and Jerusalem and recently worked at the Menasseh ben Israel Institute and the Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana in Amsterdam.