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What Is a Jewish Book?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 December 2010

Yaacob Dweck
Yaacob Dweck*
Affiliation:
Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey
*
jdweck@princeton.edu
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Extract

Moritz Steinschneider opened the greatest monument in the study of Hebrew bibliography, his Catalogus Librorum Hebraeorum in Bibliotheca Bodleiana, with the following statement:

Our catalog, which we have designated “The Catalog of Hebrew Books in the Bodleian Library” because it is best, contains a concise and detailed overview of the majority of Hebrew books, as well as some that pertain in a way to Jewish literature.

Type
Symposium: The Jewish Book
Information
AJS Review , Volume 34 , Issue 2 , November 2010 , pp. 367 - 375
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Jewish Studies 2010

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References

1. Steinschneider, Moritz, Catalogus Librorum Hebraeorum in Bibliotheca Bodleiana (Berlin: Ad. Friedlander, 1852–1860)Google Scholar; photographic reprint (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1964), i: “Catalogus noster, quem a potiori, ‘Catalogum librorum hebraeorum in Bibliotheca Bodleiana’ denominavimus, recesnionem exhibet maxima ex parte concisam et pressam librorum stricte hebraicorum atque nonnullorum, qui ad literaturam Judaicam quodammodo pertinent.”

2. For Levita, entry 4960, p. 934; for Spinoza entry 7262, p. 2650; for Da Fano entry 6342, p. 1719.

3. Entry 7271, p. 2653.

4. Kant, Immanuel, The Metaphysics of Morals, trans. and ed. Gregor, Mary, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 71CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On Kant and piracy see Johns, Adrian, Piracy: The Intellectual Property Wars from Gutenberg to Gates (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), 54–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5. Werblowsky, R. J. Zwi, Joseph Karo: Lawyer and Mystic (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962)Google Scholar; Rabbi Yosef Karo, ed. Raphael, Isaac (Jerusalem: Mossad ha-Rav Kook, 1969)Google Scholar; Benayahu, Meir, Yosef Behiri (Jerusalem: Yad ha-Rav Nissim, 1990)Google Scholar; Twersky, Isadore, “The Shulhan ‘Aruk: Enduring Code of Jewish Law,” Judaism 16 (1967): 141–58Google Scholar; Ruderman, David B., Early Modern Jewry: A New Cultural History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010), 99–103Google Scholar.

6. Kant, Metaphysics of Morals, 72.

7. Schechter, Solomon, “Safed in the Sixteenth Century—A City of Legists and Mystics,” in Studies in Judaism: Second Series (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1908), 202–306Google Scholar.

8. Raz-Krakotzkin, Amnon, “From Safed to Venice: The Shulhan ‘Arukh and the Censor,” in Tradition, Heterodoxy, and Religious Culture, ed. Goodblatt, Chanita and Kreisel, Howard (Beer Sheva: Ben Gurion University of the Negev Press, 2006), 91–115Google Scholar.

9. For a general survey, see Amram, David Werner, The Makers of Hebrew Books in Italy (Philadelphia: J. H. Greenstone, 1909)Google Scholar. For Safed, see Raz-Krakotzkin, “From Safed to Venice.” For Yiddish, see Turniansky, Chava and Timm, Erika, Yiddish in Italia: Yiddish Manuscripts and Printed Books from the 15th to the 17th Century (Milan: Association of the Italian Friends of the Hebrew University, 2003)Google Scholar. For the Bible, see Jordan S. Penkower, “Jacob Ben Ḥayyim and the Rise of the Biblia Rabbinica” (Doctoral dissertation, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1982). For the Talmud, see Heller, Marvin J., Printing the Talmud: A History of the Earliest Printed Editions of the Talmud (Brooklyn: Im Hasefer, 1992)Google Scholar.

10. On the burning of the Talmud, see Stow, Kenneth, “The Burning of the Talmud in 1553 in Light of sixteenth-century Catholic Attitudes toward the Talmud,” in Jewish Life in Early Modern Rome (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), 1–25Google Scholar. On Hebrew printing in Italy prior to the burning of the Talmud see Sonne, Isaiah, “Tiyulim be-historiyah u-bibliografiyah” [Journeys through History and Bibliography] Alexander Marx Jubilee Volume (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1950), 209–35Google Scholar; Bonfil, Robert, Rabbis and Jewish Communities in Renaissance Italy (Oxford: Littman Library, 1990)Google Scholar.

11. On the censorship of Hebrew books, see Raz-Krakotzkin, Amnon, The Censor, the Editor, and the Text: The Catholic Church and the Shaping of the Jewish Canon in the Sixteenth Century (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007)Google Scholar.

12. Lowry, Martin, The World of Aldus Manutius: Business and Scholarship in Renaissance Venice (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1979)Google Scholar.

13. Naftali Ben Menahem, “Ha-defusim ha-rishonim shel ‘ha-Shulḥan ‘arukh’” [The First Editions of the Shulhan ‘arukh], in Rabbi Yosef Karo, ed. Raphael, 101.

14. Reiner, Elchanan, “The Ashkenazi Elite at the Beginning of the Modern Era: Manuscript versus Printed Book,” Polin 10 (1997), 85–98Google Scholar; Davis, Joseph, “The Reception of the Shulḥan ‘Arukh and the Formation of Ashkenazic Jewish Identity,” AJS Review 26 (2002), 251–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

15. Twersky, ‘The Shulhan ‘Aruk: Enduring Code of Jewish Law,” 146.

16. Ḥayim ben Bezalel leveled a range of criticisms against Isserles, including his opposition to the principle of codification. However, he clearly articulated his opposition to the category of “Ashkenaz” as one that had obliterated any variation in custom among Jews who hailed from distinct geographic areas. See principle 9, Ḥayim ben Bezalel, Vikuaḥ mayim ḥayim (Amsterdam, 1711), 6a. On this figure, see Reiner, “The Ashkenazi Elite at the Beginning of the Modern Era,” 86 n. 2.

17. Stanislawski, Michael, “The Yiddish Shevet Yehudah: A Study in the ‘Ashkenization’ of a Spanish Jewish Classic,” in Jewish History and Jewish Memory, ed. Carlebach, Elisheva, Efron, John M., and Myers, David N. (Hanover, NH: Brandeis University Press, 1998), 134–49Google Scholar.

18. McKitterick, David, Print, Manuscript, and the Search for Order, 1450–1830 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 13–16Google Scholar.

19. Richardson, Brian, Manuscript Culture in Renaissance Italy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009)Google Scholar.

20. Reiner, “The Ashkenazi Elite at the Beginning of the Modern Era,” 98.

21. Trovato, Paolo, Con ogni diligenza correto: la stampa e le revisioni editoriali dei testi letterari italiani (1470–1570) (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1991Google Scholar); Richardson, Brian, Print Culture in Renaissance Italy: The Editor and the Vernacular Text, 1470–1600 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22. Goldgar, Anne, Impolite Learning: Conduct and Community in the Republic of Letters, 1680–1750 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994)Google Scholar.

23. For a study of a later period that might potentially serve as a model for the sixteenth and seventeenth century, see Gries, Zeev, “The Hasidic Managing Editor as an Agent of Culture,” in Hasidism Reappraised, ed. Rapoport-Albert, Ada (Portland, OR: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization, 1996)Google Scholar.

24. Raz-Krakotzkin, The Censor, the Editor, and the Text; Prebor, Gila, “Sefer ha-Ziquq by Domenico Gerosolimitano,” (Hebrew) Italia 18 (2008): 7–93Google Scholar; Baruchson-Arbib, Shifra and Prebor, Gila, “Sefer ha-Ziquq: The Book's Use and Its Influence on Hebrew Printing,” La Bibliofilia 109 (2007): 3–31Google Scholar.

25. Shear, Adam, The Kuzari and the Shaping of Jewish Identity, 1167–1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008)Google Scholar; Huss, Boaz, Ke-Zohar ha-Rakia (Jerusalem: Ben Zvi Institute and Mossad Bialik, 2008)Google Scholar; Nadler, Allan, “The Besht as Spinozist: Abraham Krochmal's Preface to Ha-Ketav ve-ha-Mikhtav,” in Rabbinic Culture and Its Critics: Jewish Authority, Dissent, and Heresy in Medieval and Early Modern Times, ed. Frank, Daniel and Goldish, Matt (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2008)Google Scholar; Daniel B. Schwartz, “The Spinoza Image in Jewish Culture, 1656–1956” (Doctoral dissertation, Columbia University, 2007).

26. Shuger, Debora K., The Renaissance Bible: Scholarship, Sacrifice, and Subjectivity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994)Google Scholar; Sheehan, Jonathan, The Enlightenment Bible: Translation, Scholarship, Culture (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005)Google Scholar. For Moses Mendelssohn's Bible, see Breuer, Edward, The Limits of Enlightenment: Jews, Germans, and the Eighteenth-Century Study of Scripture (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996)Google Scholar.

27. See the remark of Richard Popkin about the Guide of the Perplexed in Buxtorf's Latin translation: “Although one finds it cited all over the place, and although one finds edition of it in many, many private libraries of Christian scholars, there is as yet no study of the impact of Maimonides on 17th-century European thought.” In “Some Further Comments on Newton and Maimonides,” in Essays on the Context, Nature, and Influence of Isaac Newton's Theology, ed. Force, James E. and Popkin, Richard (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, 1990), 2CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28. See Sifriyot ve-osfei sefarim, ed. Yosef Kaplan and Moshe Sluhovsky (Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center, 2006). For the period under consideration here see the articles by Yosef Kaplan, Claude B. Stuczynski, and Avriel Bar-Levav.

29. Okun, Yael, “Ha-yahas she-ben kitve yad le-defusim be-sifriyato shel I”SH G”R” [The Relationship between Manuscript and Prints in the Library of Ish Ger], Asufot 10 (1997): 267–86Google Scholar; Sonne, Isaiah, “Book Lists through Three Centuries,” Studies in Bibliography and Booklore 1 (1953): 55–72Google Scholar; 2, 3–19; Bonfil, Robert, Ha-Rabanut be-Italyah be-Tekufat ha-Renesans (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1979), 295–98Google Scholar lists forty-one published and unpublished book lists from Italy until 1540. The references to Sonne and Bonfil are as cited in Schmelzer, Menachem, “A Fifteenth-Century Book List,” in Studies in Jewish Bibliography and Medieval Hebrew Poetry (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 2006), 83, n. 4Google Scholar; Baruchson, Shifra, Sefarim ve-kor’im (Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1993)Google Scholar; Hacker, Joseph R., “Ha-Midrash ha-Sefardi: Sifriyah Ziburit Yehudit” [“Public Libraries of Hispanic Jewry in the Late Medieval and Early-Modern Periods”], Rishonim ve-Aharonim: meḥkarim be-toldot Yisrael mugashim le-Avraham Grossman, ed. Hacker, Joseph R., Kaplan, Yosef, and Kedar, B. Z. (Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center, 2010)Google Scholar.

30. Chartier, Roger, The Order of Books (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1992)Google Scholar, chap. 3. However, see the discussion of the term midrash in Hacker, “Public Libraries of Hispanic Jewry in the Late Medieval and Early Modern Periods,” 277–81.