This project has been led by Professor Rachel Lichtenstein of Manchester Metropolitan University. She would like to express her gratitude to all who have contributed to the creation and development of this website and the related projects shared here. Firstly, to Stencl for his perseverance and dedication to Yiddish language and life, which has been the inspiration for this work as has his commitment to producing his literary Yiddish magazine Loshn un Lebn even when most of his readers had long since disappeared.
The support of a British Academy Leverhulme Small Grant has made the research for this project possible, and the project team are all very grateful for this opportunity. We are also extremely grateful to Dr Martin Kratz and The Manchester Poetry Library for hosting the Yiddish residency and for the many individuals and organisations who have contributed here particularly Miriam Becker, Stencl’s great-niece and her husband Roy for their permission to explore and share Stencl’s work in this way. Many thanks to Lena Watson for her excellent translations of all the content pages, to research assistant Dr Paul Darby, to Jonathan Juniper for website design, to Evan Wilson for video editing and to all the Yiddish speakers who joined the in person and online events discussing Loshn un Lebn including: Arndt Beck, Dr Helen Beer, Colin Bloom, Guli Dolev-Hashiloni, Dovid Katz, Dr Vivi Lachs, David Mazower, Derek Reid, Jake Schneider, Joanna Zofia Spyra, Andy Stowman, Dr Heather Valencia, Stephen Watts, and other scholars, historians, and native Yiddish speakers, both young and old, from across the world who engaged with this project and shared their stories, memories and translations.
We are particularly grateful to the Tower Hamlets Local History Library and Archives for generously allowing us to digitise and share all their 285 copies of Stencl’s journal Loshn un Lebn.This is one of the most extensive collections held in a British archive, along with large collections also held at SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies) and the British Library. However, none of these archive collections are complete. We have made every attempt to gather on this website the most complete digital collection of these magazines from around the world and would like to add a special thanks to the following archives and individuals for their permission to digitise and share extremely rare copies from their private and public collections. Many thanks to David Mazower for issue numbers 1-19, 21-23, 27, 28, 71, 281-4, 421-23 and 424-25; to Dovid Katz for issue numbers 3, 6, 15, 25, 26, 1942 November, 30, 1942 December, 482-485 and to the Archiv Bibliographia in Frankfurt, Germany, for issue numbers 397-399, 406-409 from the Elisabeth Wöhler collection. We are still missing a few issue numbers. If you have any of these remaining volumes and would be willing to share them for this project, please get in touch .