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[...] though that kind of high-culture thoroughness might be expected, we also meet flyweight Stanislaw Rotholc (1912-1996), the first Jewish boxer to become a Polish national champion, and Zishe Breitbart (1883-1925), a Yiddish-speaking circus strongman who, \"flanked by the Zionist flag,\" regularly \"bent rods into horseshoes, bit through chains, and pounded nails into boards with his fist\" not to mention balanced a platform of motorcycles on his stomach.

The publication of the YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe is a monumental achievement. It is the type of text that can transform a discipline, providing easily accessible and reasonably accurate answers to common reference questions and summarizing the state of the field in an evenhanded and inclusive manner. As one of the nearly 450 contributors to the encyclopedia, I personally feel a great deal of pride in its outcome. The two-volume, 2,400-page encyclopedia includes more than 1,800 entries, almost 1,200 illustrations, 57 color plates, and 55 maps. Editor in chief Gershon David Hundert of McGill University has succeeded in producing, as YIVO claims, “the definitive reference work on all aspects of the history and culture of Jews in Eastern Europe from the beginnings of their settlement in the region to the present.”