Court Jews, Printers, Book Publishing, and the Beginning of the Haskalah in the German Lands: The Life History of the Wulffian Printing Press as a Case-Study

This article presents the history of a printing press that operated at several places near Berlin during the first half of the eighteenth century, culminating in the epoch-making reprinting of Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed in 1742. The press was established in Dessau in 1694 by the court Jew Mo...

Description complète

Enregistré dans:  
Détails bibliographiques
Auteur principal: Freudenthal, Gad 1944- (Auteur)
Type de support: Électronique Article
Langue:Anglais
Vérifier la disponibilité: HBZ Gateway
Journals Online & Print:
En cours de chargement...
Fernleihe:Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste
Publié: Brill 2018
Dans: European journal of jewish studies
Année: 2018, Volume: 12, Numéro: 1, Pages: 1-55
Sujets non-standardisés:B Haskalah Hebrew printing / Jewish court Jews acculturation Guide of the Perplexed Israel ben Abraham conversion Germany
Accès en ligne: Volltext (Verlag)
Description
Résumé:This article presents the history of a printing press that operated at several places near Berlin during the first half of the eighteenth century, culminating in the epoch-making reprinting of Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed in 1742. The press was established in Dessau in 1694 by the court Jew Moses Wulff (1661–1729), and was run by several printers, notably the convert Israel b. Abraham (fl. 1715–1752). Using the trajectory of the Wulff press as a case study, I examine the relations between scholars, patrons of learning (especially court Jews), printers, and book publishing. The inquiry will highlight the considerable role that court Jews played in shaping the Jewish bookshelf, notably by choosing which books (reprints and original) would be funded. Surprisingly perhaps, although court Jews were in continuous contact with the environing culture, they did not usually favor the printing of non-traditional Jewish works that would favor a rapprochement.
ISSN:1872-471X
Contient:In: European journal of jewish studies
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1163/1872471X-11211040