Slavuta, Zhytomyr, and Vilna: The Intersecting Stories of the Romm and Shapira Publishing Houses

Abstract

Abstract The article outlines key intersections between two Eastern European Jewish printing businesses during the nineteenth century. The first is the Shapira printing house, located first in Slavuta, and later in Zhytomyr. The second is the Romm printing and publishing house, Vilna, the largest Jewish printing house in Eastern Europe at the time. The first significant interaction between these two printing houses was a fierce disagreement over the printing rights of the Babylonian Talmud. However, they progressed to an economic cooperation in further printings of the Babylonian Talmud. Eventually, Romm’s printing house purchased Shapira’s printing house and closed it as part of preparations for the printing of another edition of the Talmud. The cultural contexts discussed in the article are part of and shed light on predominant tensions within European Jewish society at the time: the dispute between the Ḥasidim and the Mitnaggedim, and the dispute between maskilim and traditionalists.