Comprehensive English-Yiddish Dictionary

Containing nearly 50,000 entries and 33,000 subentries, the Comprehensive English-Yiddish Dictionary emphasizes Yiddish as a living language that is spoken in many places around the world. The late Mordkhe Schaechter collected and researched spoken and literary Yiddish in all its varieties and this landmark dictionary reflects his vision for present-day and future Yiddish usage. The richness of dialect differences and historical developments are noted in entries ranging from agriculture to zoology and include words and expressions that can be found in classic and contemporary literature, newspapers, and other sources of the written word and have long been used by professionals and tradesmen, in synagogues, at home, in intimate life, and wherever Yiddish-speaking Jews have lived and worked.

Gitl Schaechter-Viswanath is Yiddish language editor for Afn shvel magazine and a published poet whose works include Plutsemdiker Regn/Sudden Rain. She worked with her father Mordkhe Schaechter on his numerous Yiddish publications, including collaborating with him in compiling this dictionary.

Paul Glasser is former Dean of the Max Weinreich Center for Advanced Jewish Studies at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. He spent many years working with Dr. Mordkhe Schaechter as a student and colleague.