Vorlage:Italic title Leksikon fun yidishn teater (לעקסיקאן פון יידישן טעאטער Lexicon of Yiddish Theatre) is a Yiddish language reference encyclopedia compiled by Zalmen Zylbercweig assisted later by Jacob Mestel.

The six-volume 3,066 page work contains biographies of more than 3,000 individuals, as well as articles on theatre troupes and plays.^[1] 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.

Early on Zylbercweig received support for his project from the Hebrew Actors' Union, 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.^[2] The first volume of the lexicon appeared in New York in 1931, and the second in Warsaw, in 1934, both from the publishing house Elisheva.^[3]

Vorlage:Reflist

1. ↑ YIVO Zalmen Zylbercweig "The entries for major figures such as Avrom Goldfadn, Y. L. Peretz and Ester-Rokhl Kaminska amount to book-length monographs, including bibliographies of works by and about them; smaller entries are often the only source of information about lesser-known actors, playwrights, composers, and critics; there is a wealth of photographs and graphic material throughout."
2. ↑ Jones, Faith (2012). "Sex and Scandal in the Encyclopedia of the Yiddish Theatre". In: Joel Berkowitz and Barbara Henry (Eds.), Inventing the Modern Yiddish Stage: Essays in Drama, Performance, and Show Business. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. Vorlage:ISBN. p. 251-274; here p. 253.
3. ↑ Jones (2012), p. 257-258; notes p. 272.