Browse Items (141 total)

So central was Amsterdam to Hebrew printing that books published elsewhere still sought to link themselves to Amsterdam in the hope that it would increase respect for the product and improve sales. This Talmud commentary by Levi ben Shelomoh (Sefer…

Manuel (also Immanuel) Benveniste was another Sephardic printer in 17th century Amsterdam. He was born in Venice in 1608 and died in Amsterdam ca. 1660.

Here we see his 1654 edition of Solomon ibn Verga’s Shevet Yehudah, a history of the…

Pe’er Ha-Dor (“glory of the generation”) contains the responsa of Maimonides, the great 12th Jewish scholar and philosopher. Responsa are answers to specific questions of Jewish law. Maimonides left over 250 such answers, but they were never…

David de Kastro (also de Castro) Tartas (1630-1698) worked for the printer Manasseh ben Israel in Amsterdam before setting up his own press in 1662. In 1678 he became a member of the Amsterdam Printers' Guild, competing with Uri ben Aaron ha-Levi,…

Manasseh (also Menasseh) Ben Israel (1604-1657) was the first publisher of Hebrew books in Amsterdam, setting up shop in 1626. Like Benjamin Franklin a century later, Manasseh was not only a printer, but a writer, community leader, and diplomat.…

Samuel Proops founded his press in 1704. At first, he printed mainly prayer books for Sephardic and Ashkenazic rites. Proops was the first to bring out a sales catalog of Hebrew books. His press became the most important printing house in 18th…

This is the signature of Shmuel Meier (also Samoil or Samuel) Schon, a Romanian merchant.

Schon was born in Nagyvarad, Romania on October 20th, 1881 to Yosef (Herman) and Miriam (Maria) nee Hoffman. He married Nekha (Nina) nee Porges and they had…

This is the bookplate of To'elet (Tongeleth in the Dutch Jewish pronunciation), a Hebrew literary society founded in Amsterdam in 1815 by Samuel Mulder and Mozes Loonstein. The society was created as part of the Dutch Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment)…

This is the bookstamp of Shmuel (also Samoil, Samuel) Meir Schon, a Romanian merchant. Schon was born in Nagyvarad, Romania on October 20th, 1881 to Yosef (Herman) and Miriam (Maria) nee Hoffman.

He married Nekha (Nina) nee Porges and they had…

This is the bookplate of Rabbi Aharon Mosheh Schwartzchild (or Schwarzschild), (1841-1912), a dayyan (member of the local rabbinical court) and moreh tsedek (rabbi who makes decisions pertaining to Jewish Law) in the Jewish community of Frankfurt am…