Best known as the editor in chief of the 22-volume second edition of the Encyclopaedia Judaica[1][2] winner of the 2007 Dartmouth Medal and hailed by the Library Journal as a "landmark achievement," he is also the author of four novels and over a hundred stories and essays.
Among the renowned international scholars serving as editors were Michael Berenbaum (Holocaust, United States, as well as executive editor), Israel Prize laureates Menachem Elon (Jewish Law), Aviezer Ravitzky (Jewish Philosophy), Moshe Idel (Kabbalah and Hasidism), Jacob Landau (Islam and Muslim Countries), and Ziva Amishai Maisels (Art).
In its award citation the Dartmouth Committee called the new Judaica "an authoritative, interdisciplinary and comprehensive examination of all aspects of Jewish life, history and culture."
It unfolds in a dreamlike atmosphere where ancient and modern mythologies are woven together as the unnamed hero seeks to evade his pursuers and escape his destiny.
Skolnik also published two novels under his Fred Russell pen name in 2014: Rafi's World (Fomite Press), dealing with Israel's emerging criminal class, and The Links in the Chain (CCLaP), a thriller set in New York against an Arab-Israel background.