Printing history is a rich albeit arcane subject. This is true in general and particularly so for Hebrew printing. Nevertheless, the allure of this obscure subject for many is that it is a microcosm of Jewish history and culture, reflecting the varied conditions and events of Jewish life, although from a somewhat narrow perspective. Hebrew presses, located in both the centers and peripheries of Jewish communities, published books that met the spiritual and intellectual needs of various and varied Jewish societies. They served both local Jewish communities and, through marketing, those further afield, with other groups, such as Christian-Hebraists, also benefiting from their output.
At one point in time, interest in Hebrew printing was more often than not primarily restricted to bibliophiles and antiquarians. This was the case until relatively recently, when professional scholars started investigating the genesis of the Hebrew book and the nature of its production. However, not a few modern scholarly studies have managed to miss a few important details. For example, as noted in an article on the Benveniste pressmark, there is a detailed scholarly work on the van Sichem woodcut artists—one of whom designed the widely used Benveniste book frame—that omits any discussion of this Hebrew book frame.1 This lacuna is not a singular occurrence, for, as L. Fuks and R. G. Fuks-Mansfeld note, “it is a remarkable and regrettable fact that most of the historians of book and booklore from the oldest times to the present day neglect completely the history of the Jewish book. Most of the handbooks do not even mention the existence of the Hebrew booklore with its ancient and influential history.”2 But this just goes to show that professional and non-professional academics have much to learn from one another when it comes to this field.
Aside from the fact that Hebrew printing as a topic has often been overlooked, even within the broader field of book history, there is a second matter of concern—and this is true not only in the Jewish community. Apart from the above-mentioned bibliophiles and antiquarians—and now professional academics—there is a general lack of interest in what to many is a recondite subject. And this is also true of many other obscure subjects. This situation is reminiscent of H. G. Wells’s “The Country of the Blind.” In that story, a mountaineer from the country near Quito, named Nuñez, falls into a valley where all the inhabitants, for generations, have been blind and sight is now unknown. Nuñez’s sight is of no advantage to him, as the valley’s residents cannot appreciate what he relates to them, what he has seen, and indeed they think his accounts of his visions are folly.3
A somewhat similar Hasidic Baʾal Shem Tov story concerns a violinist who came to a town. Standing on a street corner, he began to play. The town’s residents, hearing him, gather around him, forming a large crowd. Enthralled by the music, they begin to dance and sway in joy. A deaf man, coming to the town for the first time, unable to hear the music, thinks that the townspeople have gone mad.4 So the intricate details of how books were made and knowledge disseminated in the early modern period cannot be appreciated and understood if nobody can see them.
On a number of occasions when citing an obscure, but to me a relevant and most interesting fact, I have been the recipient of the response of “why do you have to know that?” Hebrew book history is a fascinating and indeed an intriguing subject for those interested and willing to take the time to look into the subject. Obscure facts often bring the past to life, humanizing its contents and thereby enriching our knowledge of people and events. Indeed, the printer of the first complete edition of the Talmud (1519/20–23), Daniel Bomberg, son of the Antwerp merchant Cornelius Van Bombergen and Agnes Vranex, was a non-Jew.5 This one piece of information alone is useful for understanding the relationship between Jews and non-Jews in the sixteenth century, and for looking at European naming traditions. In the essays that I can gather here in this collection, I look at many such details—the who, what, where, why, and how—to bring to light a valuable cross-section of European Jewish daily life. Here in one place, the reader, be they a scholar or layman, can learn about the dynamics of family-owned and partnership presses (who); the various formats and types of books published and the economic factors involved in such decisions (what); the towns, villages, cities, and regions that housed Jewish presses (where); the educational, liturgical, and religious purposes of various kinds of texts (why); and the mechanical and fiscal means of printing books (how).
Fortunately, there appears to be a growing interest in the subject, which is indicated by the increase in the number of internet websites and of auctions devoted to Hebrew books and booklore. And this resurgence, as it were, is quite timely. We live in a world increasingly influenced by digital and electronic publishing technologies, which have become even more important since the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic. So it is even more important that work on the history of printing and publication be available. And given that the leader of the free world is trying to block the publication of a book as I write this preface, it is vital to keep in mind the history of political interference in book printing.
Essays on the Making of the Early Hebrew Book is my third collection of essays on various aspects of Hebrew book history and culture. The previous volumes are Studies in the Making of the Early Hebrew Book (Leiden: Brill, 2008) and Further Studies in the Making of the Early Hebrew Book (Leiden: Brill, 2013). Essays on the Making of the Early Hebrew Book consists of twenty-five varied essays on different aspects of the making of the early Hebrew book. As in the previous volumes, most of the essays were published previously both in print and online, here in the Gutenberg-Jahrbuch, Hakirah: The Flatbush Journal of Jewish Law and Thought, Judaica Librarianship, Los Muestros, Printing History, Sephardic Horizons, and the Seforim Blog.
The essays are organized by topic into five parts by subject focus. The first section deals with book arts, consisting of five pieces: three on printers’ mark motifs and two on the entitlement of Hebrew books. The motifs discussed therein consist of the eagle, the lion, and the fish pressmarks. Each of these forms, which were widely used, appear frequently in varied and occasionally unusual forms on the title-pages of Hebrew books. The entitlement of Hebrew books often varies from the more general practice of naming books in a manner that indicates their subject matter. Hebrew books, by contrast, frequently have titles that do not reflect the subject matter but that are thematic in nature. The first of the essays is on books with the title Keter Shem Tov (Crown of a Good Name). The authors’ purpose in so naming their books varies, as noted in the essay. The second essay on book names, “Entitling Hebrew Books from Shir ha-Shirim (Song of Songs),” discusses books printed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries named from verses in the titular text. It shows the varied and widespread usage of a biblical book as a source of Hebrew book titles.
The second section comprises eleven essays on the makers and places of Hebrew books. Both subjects are multifarious, with the latter including such diverse locations as Belvedere and Kuru Tsheshme, suburbs of Constantinople, where a noble lady of distinction, Donna Reyna, daughter of the famous Donna Gracia (Beatrice de Luna) and the wife of Don Joseph Nasi, Duke of Naxos, established a press and published a small number of books. Similarly, Offenbach and Hamburg in Germany and Chieri and Verona in Italy were home to small presses that were of short duration but that served their communities well. Slavuta in the Ukraine, by contrast, was home to an important press that came to a tragic end due to conflict and dispute. That article identifies the printer in question, whose identity is still rather murky.
Makers of Hebrew books are equally varied, among them Benjamin Mussafia—author of Musaf he-Arukh (1655), an important philological work, and of a popular but relatively lesser-known work on the books of the famed Italian rabbi Leone (Judah Aryeh) Modena, Sur me-Ra, this against gambling—and R. Nathan Nata Hannover, who was the author of Yeven Mezulah, the tragic chronicle about the destruction of Jewish communities of Eastern Europe in 1648–1649 (tah ve-tat) at the hands of Bogdan Chmielnicki and the Cossacks.
These essays are followed by a section on Christian-Hebraism, which comprises two essays on that subject, a relatively brief phenomenon in which serious gentile study of Jewish texts occurred. While the Christian study of Hebrew texts both preceded the period addressed here and continues on to the present, the period addressed by the essays in this work was a time in which greater emphasis was placed on the study of Hebrew texts. We are informed about this by Elisheva Carlebach, who writes that by the mid-eighteenth century the interest of Christian-Hebraists in rabbinic literature and studies had diminished.6
During the period when such studies were emphasized, many of them were written for polemical purposes; they were attempts to refute the tenets of Judaism. Other Christian scholars, however, studied Jewish texts to better understand the sources of their religion and came away with a deep respect for Judaism. The first of the essays in this section, “Hebrew Printing in Altdorf: A Brief Christian-Hebraist Phenomenon,” describes the works, primarily polemical, printed at the University of Altdorf. Among the titles printed are also Jewish polemical works, which were composed for the purpose of refuting the claims of the Christian texts. One such volume was R. Yom Tov Lipmann Muelhausen’s Sefer Nizzahon. Also published were works by the famed Christian-Hebraist Christoph Wagenseil, among them his translation of Mishnayot tractate Sotah (on the woman suspected of adultery) with commentary and with the evocative title-page depicting a sotah.
The other article in this section, indicative of a more positive Christian approach to Jewish studies, is reflected in the title, “Christian-Hebraism in England: William Wotten and the First Translation of the Mishnah into English.” Wotten, a prodigy and a polymath, and a Protestant vicar, made the first translation of Mishnayot into English, that of Shabbat and Eruvin in 1718.
The fourth section in this volume, “Book Varia,” consists, as the title suggests, of varied and unrelated essays on different aspects of early Hebrew book printing history. The subjects covered include medieval halakhic compendiums, book errors, conflicts between publishing houses, and descriptions of early editions of Megillat Esther and the first editions of the Haggadah.
As I have written previously, I am fortunate to have Brill as my publisher. Not only do they have a well-deserved reputation for the quality of their books, but the individuals with whom I have had the pleasure of working with over the years have been, without fail, not only professional but also personable. In this instance, I have worked with and would like to express my appreciation and thanks to Dr. Joshua Holo, editor of Brill’s Series in Jewish Studies; the anonymous peer reviewers; Katelyn Chin, Acquisitions Editor; Erika Mandarino, Assistant Editor, Ancient Near East and Jewish Studies; and Kayla Griffin, Production Editor.
The editor and proofreader, who did very fine work, for which I am thankful, was Michael Helfield. And the indexer was Heather Dubnick. My thanks and appreciation go out to both of them and to my good friend Eli Genauer who read most of these articles prior to their publication, making most helpful suggestions and comments.
My family, beginning with my wife, Shoshanah (Reizel), our children and their spouses, Michal Gittel and Yehudah Marcus, Hayyim Avigdor and Karina, Rabbi Mordecai Jaʾir and Bracha Leah, Meir Leib, and Hannah Eta Rachel and Rabbi Moshe Shemuel Tepfer, and their children all have, as noted in the prefaces to the previous volumes, willingly and otherwise, participated in my ongoing passion (obsession) for an obscure activity in a bygone era. I hope this book, as well as the others, past and perhaps future, justifies their patience and tolerance.
Marvin J. Heller, “The Printer’s Mark of Immanuel Benveniste and Its Later Influence,” Studies in Bibliography and Booklore 18 (Cincinnati: Library of Hebrew Union College, 1994), 3–20, reprinted in Studies in the Making of the Early Hebrew Book (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 18–32. The work on the van Sichems is Hellmut Lehmann-Haupt, An Introduction to the Woodcut of the Seventeenth Century (New York: Abaris Books, 1977).
L. Fuks and R. G. Fuks-Mansfeld, Hebrew Typography in the Northern Netherlands 1585–1815 1 (Leiden: Brill, 1984), 1. They add that “all kinds of ancient writings and prints, as far away as China, Korea and Japan have been dealt with, but not even a mention of the existence of a Hebrew alphabet, let alone Hebrew handwritten and printed books are mentioned.”
H. G. Wells, “The Country of the Blind,” The Strand Magazine, April 1904, and since frequently reprinted in collections of Wells’s short stories. A more recent take on this trope is the Amazon original series See (Steven Knight, 2019–), which takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where humans have long lost the sense of sight. This is true for all save for a few, who have for some genetic reason retained the ability to see. But they are generally frowned upon and viewed with suspicion by the majority.
For the story and its source, see Eliezer Steinman, “The Dancing Jews,” Chabad.org, N. D.,
Further afield, that Johannes Gutenberg’s mother and family name were, respectively, Else Wirich and his father Friele Gensfleisch zur Laden. See John Man, Gutenberg: How One Man Remade the World with Words (New York: John Wiley, 2002), 25–26.
Elisheva Carlebach, “The Status of the Talmud in Early Modern Europe,” in Printing the Talmud: From Bomberg to Schottenstein, ed. Sharon Lieberman Mintz and Gabriel M. Goldstein (New York: Yeshiva University Museum, 2005), 85–86.