Hebrew Printing Research Articles

Maskilische Schriften der Graßischen Druckerei in Breslau

Abstract The article focuses on the history of the Graß or Graß and Barth publishing house in Breslau from the eighteenth to the middle of the nineteenth century. In particular, it tackles the role of women in the management and the involvement of the printing house in the dissemination of Haskalah literature, two chapters that are usually underrepresented in book history. In addition, the commitment of a Christian printer to Hebrew printing and his involvement with the Jewish Enlightenment will be addressed. The hitherto under-researched history of the Graßische Druckerei in Breslau will thus be embedded in cultural-historical questions about booklore, the Central European Haskalah and Gender Studies. Additionally, the paper examines the transfer of knowledge between the majority and minority population.

Tintoretto’s Hebrew book

AbstractIn Tintoretto’s Saint Jerome and Saint Andrew (Venice, Gallerie dell’Accademia), St. Jerome glances at an open book. Some have speculated that the book in the painting is a Hebrew Bible, similar to those published in Tintoretto’s time, and consistent with classic iconography of Jerome and his Latin Bible translation. This study argues that the book can be positively identified as the 1550‐1551 edition of Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah. The timing of the painting coincided with an intensified persecution of the Hebrew printing press which originated with an attack on the same Mishneh Torah edition. Placing the painting in the context of this milieu has led to a new interpretation of the painting and its placement in the Palazzo dei Camerlenghi cycle.

Jewish Ghettos in Sighet and Dąbrowa Górnicza

Jewish Ghettos in Sighet and Dąbrowa Górnicza

The Contribution of Hebrew Printing Houses and Printers in Istanbul to Ladino Culture and Scholarship

Sephardi printers were pioneers of moveable type in the Islamic world, establishing a Hebrew printing house in Istanbul in 1493. Initially emphasizing classical religious works in Hebrew, since the eighteenth century printers have been instrumental in the development of scholarship, literature, and journalism in the vernacular of most Jews of the western Ottoman Empire: Ladino. Although most Jewish males knew the Hebrew alphabet, they did not understand Hebrew texts. Communal cultural leaders and printers collaborated in order to bring basic Jewish works to the masses in the only language they really knew. While some books in Ladino were printed as early as the sixteenth century, their percentage increased since the second quarter of the eighteenth century, following the printing of Me-’am lo’ez, by Jacob Culi (1730), and the Bible in Ladino translation by Abraham Assa (1739). In the nineteenth century the balance of Ladino printing shifted toward novels, poetry, history, and biography, sciences, and communal and state laws and regulations. Ladino periodicals, which aimed to modernize, educate, and entertain, were of special social and cultural importance, and their printing houses also served as publishers of Ladino books. Thus, from its beginnings as an agent that aimed to “Judaize” the Jews, Ladino publishing in the later period sought to modernize and entertain, while still trying to spread Judaic knowledge.

Bibliographical research in the study of Hebrew printing: a bibliometric analysis

The study presents the state of bibliographical research in the discipline of Hebrew printing during a 30-year period, ranging from the latter quarter of the twentieth century until the beginning of the third millennium (1976---2006). Through bibliographical parameters it characterizes the publications dealing with Hebrew printing, examines whether the published material exhibits laws and systematic regularities that are consistent with Bibliometrics, and describes directions in which the field has developed.

The Censor, the Editor, and the Text: The Catholic Church and the Shaping of the Jewish Canon in the Sixteenth Century (review)

Reviewed by: The Censor, the Editor, and the Text: The Catholic Church and the Shaping of the Jewish Canon in the Sixteenth Century Paul F. Grendler The Censor, the Editor, and the Text:The Catholic Church and the Shaping of the Jewish Canon in the Sixteenth Century. By Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin. Translated by Jackie Feldman. [Jewish Culture and Contexts.] (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 2007. Pp. viii, 314. $69.95. ISBN 978-0-812-24011-5.) This is a study of Catholic Church censorship and expurgation of Hebrew literature in sixteenth-century Italy. It is the English translation of a book first published in Hebrew in Jerusalem in 2005, and it appears under the auspices of the Center for Advanced Judaic Studies of the University of Pennsylvania. The book examines the burning of the Talmud in 1553, the development of Catholic ideas of censorship of Hebrew books as expressed in the various indexes of prohibited books, the Council of Trent, and debates in Roman congregations. Raz-Krakotzkin then discusses the structure of Hebrew book expurgation, pointing out that it involved Christians, Jewish converts to Christianity, and Jews working together in Hebrew printing establishments. He argues convincingly that a major goal of expurgation was to safeguard Hebrew books for Christian readers. The author has read very widely and well in the literature of sixteenth-century printing and Catholic censorship generally, and he avoids polemics. He sometimes gives the papacy and the Church the benefit of the doubt by noting additional, less objectionable explanations for some brutal anti-Jewish actions. Raz-Krakotzkin also points out that Hebrew printing involved both editing and censorship, with sometimes blurred lines between them. A key term was zikkuk (to refine) often found in the colophons of Hebrew books: it meant both correcting and censoring texts. Chapter 5 is the most important. Raz-Krakotzkin lists and analyzes the principles of expurgation for Hebrew books based on a document probably drafted by a convert who became a censor. The goal was to prepare texts that could be used by Christians and Jews alike, a notion of a common heritage. Although the author does not emphasize it, those who have studied Catholic censorship will notice that the approach and some of the principles of Hebrew censorship were the same as the expurgation rules used to eliminate anti-Catholic words and ideas from books written by Protestants that were otherwise acceptable. Censorship's heaviest impact fell on Hebrew biblical commentary, as the expurgators eliminated or rewrote anti-Christian passages found in the biblical commentaries of such famous medieval scholars as Rashi and David Kimchi. On the other hand, expurgation of Hebrew books of codification (halakha), i.e., texts that explained and interpreted the laws that governed Jewish life, was light. The irony is that although the Talmud was not permitted, the books that contained the commandments and interpretations of the Talmud were. The effect, in the view of Raz-Krakotzkin, was to affirm Jewish autonomous life, that is, "explicit recognition of the Jews' right to maintain their separateness from Gentiles in the basic areas of life" (p. 161). The book is based on a wealth of secondary literature on censorship and the examination of numerous copies of censored Hebrew books. One merit of [End Page 825] the book for readers (like this reviewer) who do not read Hebrew is to summarize a great deal of recent Hebrew scholarship on these issues. On the other hand, the author is enamored of Foucault, reception theory, and the notion of negotiation. Hence, like almost all scholarship written under this ideological sky this book has excess verbiage that wanders around the topic (especially in the long introduction and conclusion) plus repeated buzzwords. It exhibits a sometimes slippery chronology, and it substitutes the politically correct but chronologically vague "early modern" for the historical "Renaissance," thus leading to misleading expressions as "early modern Hebraism." It employs the first person singular and often omits the pagination of articles in collective volumes in the bibliography. The English reads smoothly, although a few Italian names have been mangled. Despite these faults, the central five chapters offer a balanced and quite intelligent examination of the expurgation of Hebrew books along...

Goldman, Yosef. Hebrew Printing in America, 1735-1926: A History and Annotated Bibliography. Research and editing by Ari Kinsberg. Brooklyn, NY, 2006.

Goldman, Yosef. Hebrew Printing in America, 1735-1926: A History and Annotated Bibliography. Research and editing by Ari Kinsberg. Brooklyn, NY, 2006.

Early Hebrew Printing in Canada

Early Hebrew Printing in Canada

Early Hebrew Printing in Canada

Early Hebrew Printing in Canada

Apostasy, Fraud, and the Beginnings of Hebrew Printing in Cracow

One of the most unusual episodes in the annals of Hebrew printing involved the first Jewish printers in Poland—Samuel, Asher, and Elyakim Helicz—who began to print in Cracow or, more likely, in neighboring Kazimierz, in 1534.1 Within a year of opening their business, the brothers had produced five relatively short titles, all of which were first editions and four of which were the first Yiddish books ever printed. After about a year of work, the Helicz brothers gave up publishing only to return to the trade about three years later, when they published several classic—and more substantial—rabbinic works in quick succession. However, it was not Samuel, Asher, and Elyakim Helicz who returned to the Hebrew publishing business in Cracow in 1538 but rather Paul, Andreas, and Johannes Helicz, neochristiani.2

Hebrew Printing in America 1735-1926: A History and Annotated Bibliography (review)

Hebrew Printing in America 1735-1926: A History and Annotated Bibliography (review)

A Little-Known Chapter in Hebrew Printing: Francesco dalle Donne and the Beginning of Hebrew Printing in Verona in the Sixteenth Century

A Little-Known Chapter in Hebrew Printing: Francesco dalle Donne and the Beginning of Hebrew Printing in Verona in the Sixteenth Century

Second Supplementary Catalogue of Hebrew Books in the British Library, 1893-1960 (review)

Hebrew Studies 40 (1999) 401 Reviews on-line into its ALEPH catalogue. There the records are being updated in accordance with data provided in the Supplement of Addenda and Corrigenda , where they are available for reference on an international plane. Jay Rovner Jewish Theological Seminary New York, Jv.Y 10027 jarovner@jtsa.edu SECOND SUPPLEMENTARY CATALOGUE OF HEBREW BOOKS IN THE BRITISH LIBRARY, 1893-1960. Prepared for publication by Diana Rowland Smith based on the work of David Goldstein, Cyril Moss, and others. Vol. 1, pp. xi + 588. Vol. 2, pp. 5891136 . London: The British Library, 1994. Cloth, $450.00. The British Library's collection of Hebraica has been built up over some two hundred and fifty years, dating back to the founding of the British Museum in 1753. This collection achieved world class status in 1848, with the acquisition of the library of H. J. Michael of Hamburg, and so it has remained since then. The strength of the collection and the quality of J. Zedner's Catalogue ofHebrew Books in the British Museum (London, 1867; reprinted 1964) have made a catalogue of the collection an indispensable bibliographical tool. S. von Straalen provided the first supplement, the Catalogue of Hebrew Books in the British Museum Acquired During the Years 1868-1892 (London, 1894; reprinted 1977). Despite the attempts of several scholars subsequently associated with the Hebrew Book Collection (von Straalen among them), a second supplement was never published until the appearance of these magnificent volumes which were prepared for publication by Diana Rowland Smith. A flurry of British Library publications over the last few years has been fortuitous for the provision of access to the Hebrew books and manuscripts of the Library. Among them are J. Leveen's List ofHebrew. Aramaic. and Arabic Manuscripts Believed to be Derived from the Cairo Genizah (1994); Catalogue ofHebrew Printers (ca. 1500-ca. 1900) as represented in the holdings ofthe British Museum •..reproduced from the unpublished manuscript...compiled by S. von Straalen, with indexes by Brad Sabin Hill (1995); The Catalogue of Gaster Mss. in the British Museum reproduced ...by Jacob Leveen, Joseph Rosenwasser, and David Goldstein (1996); Books Printed on Vellum in the Collections of the British Library compiled by R. C. Alston with a Catalogue of the Hebrew Books Printed on Hebrew Studies 40 (1999) 402 Reviews Vellum compiled by Brad Sabin Hill (1966). Amongst these, the Rowland Smith Catalogue, two massive volumes of detailed bibliographic descriptions of about 9000 items acquired between 1893-1960, stands out as a magnificent bibliographic guide to Hebrew printing. The chronology of this catalogue does not do justice to the dates of the books themselves. Among them are twelve incunabula, including one item printed in Rome between 1469 and 1472. Six were printed in Spain or Portugal before the Expulsion. The Library's collection of Hebrew incunabula is unrivaled in Europe today. About twelve items acquired after 1960, mostly liturgies, were snuck into the Catalogue because of their importance . In its devotion to the Hebrew book, the Library also collects non-Hebrew titles which contain a sizable quantity of matter in Hebrew or which relate directly to the books and manuscripts of its Hebrew Section. The bibliographic descriptions include the following data: the title, the title in romanized form, additional titles found on separate pages, a description of the contents, languages used where this has not been indicated in the description, pagination, publication information, size, and shelf number. The catalogue is organized according to authors' names or uniform title headings for anonymous works. Secondary access is provided by title indexes, one for Hebrew titles, another for non-Hebrew titles. The organization of the catalogue and its indices are valuable for author and title searches. Its usefulness for scholars in general would have been enhanced by the provision of a subject index. Bibliographers would have benefited from indices of publishers/printers, places, and dates. One may wonder, why, in this time of computerized bibliographies, online shared access to the collections of many libraries (in the utilities, OCLC and RLIN, the latter of which now has Harvard University Library 's records, albeit in romanized form only, and provides for searching on Hebrew text-strings and will, in...

Hebrew Printing and Publishing in Germany, 1650-1750: On Jewish Book Culture and the Emergence of Modern Jewry

Hebrew Printing and Publishing in Germany, 1650-1750: On Jewish Book Culture and the Emergence of Modern Jewry

Hebrew Printing and Bibliography (Book Review)

Hebrew Printing and Bibliography (Book Review)

אטשוקב ידבעה סופדה חודלוח אטשוקב ידבעה סופדה הב וספדנש םידפסה חמישדו הינשה םלועה חמחלמ ץודפ דע וחישדמ. (Hebrew Printing at Constantinople: Its History and Bibliography)YaariAbrahamאטשוקב ידבעה סופדה חודלוח אטשוקב ידבעה סופדה הב וספדנש םידפסה חמישדו הינשה םלועה חמחלמ ץודפ דע וחישדמ. ( Hebrew Printing at Constantinople: Its History and Bibliography ): Supplement to Kirjath Sepher JerusalemThe Magnes PressThe Hebrew University,

אטשוקב ידבעה סופדה חודלוח אטשוקב ידבעה סופדה הב וספדנש םידפסה חמישדו הינשה םלועה חמחלמ ץודפ דע וחישדמ. (Hebrew Printing at Constantinople: Its History and Bibliography)YaariAbrahamאטשוקב ידבעה סופדה חודלוח אטשוקב ידבעה סופדה הב וספדנש םידפסה חמישדו הינשה םלועה חמחלמ ץודפ דע וחישדמ. ( <i>Hebrew Printing at Constantinople: Its History and Bibliography</i> ): Supplement to <i>Kirjath Sepher</i> JerusalemThe Magnes PressThe Hebrew University,

Edward Pococke and the First Hebrew Printing in Oxford

Edward Pococke and the First Hebrew Printing in Oxford

A Gazetteer of Hebrew Printing. Aron Freimann

Previous articleNext article No AccessReviewsA Gazetteer of Hebrew Printing. Aron Freimann Judah RosenthalJudah Rosenthal Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Library Quarterly Volume 17, Number 1Jan., 1947 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/617335 Views: 1Total views on this site PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Hebrew Printing in the East

Hebrew Printing in the East

Adler's 'Gazetteer of Hebrew Printing'

Adler's 'Gazetteer of Hebrew Printing'