The Bible of the Conversos

Years after being forced to leave Judaism behind, many of the conversos of Spain and Portugal sought to return to their suppressed roots. The Ferrara Bible, which was printed in the 16th century and revised countless times, helped them rediscover their religion. Dozens of copies of this Bible are still scattered around the world today.

Daniel Lipson | 14.08.24

After many years of being cut off from Judaism, the conversos of Spain and Portugal migrated to other countries around the world, with many of them attempting to return to the Jewish faith. They didn’t have much knowledge of Judaism, and they didn’t even know the Hebrew alphabet. However, childhood memories, family stories, and discreetly maintained traditions encouraged these “New Christians” to try to reconnect with their roots in their newly adopted homes.

Throughout the 16th century, converso communities began to print Jewish books in Spanish. Initially, these printed works included the foundational Jewish texts, followed later by works on Jewish philosophy, anti-Christian texts, and books of poetry. A Portuguese grammar book and a play based on the Book of Esther, both printed by conversos during this period, have been preserved. A little later, in the 17th century, conversos published what is considered the world’s first Jewish newspaper, the Gazeta de Amsterdam. The newspaper was published in Amsterdam and was primarily intended for Jewish merchants.

It all began in the city of Ferrara, in northern Italy. Conversos settled there in the 16th century, and established the earliest printing industry dedicated to works of Spanish and Portuguese conversos. The publishing work later moved to Venice, and then in the 17th century to Amsterdam, where it remained for approximately 200 years. During the expulsion from Spain and Portugal in the last decade of the 15th century, there was already a Jewish community living in Ferrara, and the Jewish printing house had been operating there for several years. From 1477 to 1551, it published the Arba’ah Turim (a work dedicated to Jewish religious law) and commentaries on the books of Job and Daniel.

מעיני הישועה — *Ma’ayanei Ha-Yeshua*, a commentary on the Book of Daniel by Don Isaac Abarbanel, Ferrara, 1551 (with the censors’ stamps on the last page)

Against this backdrop, Ferrara attracted many conversos wishing to return to their Judaism, since the location offered them such a comfortable environment. Among those who settled there was Abraham Usque, a converso who had printed Latin books in Portugal. In 1543, he came under suspicion of practicing Judaism in secret and fled from Portugal to Ferrara.

Shortly after the arrival of the conversos in Ferrara in 1552, a Spanish member of the community named Yom-Tob Atias published a siddur (prayer book) and later a book of the Selichot penitential prayers. Usque and Atias met each other and in 1553, they published a complete Bible in Spanish together. According to an inscription found on the inside cover, this was done with the approval of the Duke of Ferrara. The full title of the Bible they published was: “The Bible in the Spanish language, translated word for word from the true Hebrew by very excellent scholars, seen and examined by the office of the Inquisition.” To this day, it is commonly known as “The Ferrara Bible.”

Since it is a very literal translation, it is a bit of a strange read in Spanish; rather than writing the biblical stories in Spanish, the text is translated word for word, sometimes without syntax, exactly as it is written in the original Hebrew. While the Ferrara Bible was printed in Roman letters, some people consider the translation to be written in the Judeo-Spanish language of Ladino, because it adheres strictly to the original Hebrew text.

תנך — The Ferrara Bible, 1553. An inscription reads *Iblia en lengua española traduzida palabra por palabra de la verdad hebrayca por muy excelentes letrados vista y examinada por el officio de la Inquisicion* (“The Bible in the Spanish language, translated word for word from the true Hebrew by very excellent scholars, seen and examined by the office of the Inquisition.”)

The Ferrara Bible was first and foremost intended for conversos who wanted to study the Bible but did not have sufficient knowledge, if any, of Hebrew. The other target audience included Spanish-speaking Christians.

In the past, certain scholars surmised that in order to serve both types of readers, the Ferrara Bible was printed in two similar versions, with the differences reflecting the two target audiences’ respective expectations. In any case, the National Library of Israel has a copy of each version.

The “Christian” version states that it was printed by Jerónimo de Vargas and Duarte Pinel. The first page includes a long dedication to Duke Ercole II d’Este, who ruled Ferrara at the time of publication and granted Jews equal rights. The Jewish version was printed by the same two publishers, but in this version, they appear under their Hebrew names—Yom-Tob Atias (who some claim was Jerónimo de Vargas’ father) and Abraham Usque. In this version, the dedication is to Doña Gracia Nasi, the famous Portuguese converso and Jewish philanthropist. Doña Gracia may have funded the project or supported it in other ways.

הקדשה דונה גרציה — The dedication to Doña Gracia Nasi in the Jewish version of the Ferrara Bible

In the colophon – the final note attached to a book or manuscript summarizing its production process—some copies have the year written as 1553, while others have it written as the corresponding year in the Hebrew calendar, 5313.

קולופון — In the colophon at the end of this version of the book, the year is written in its Hebrew form – 5313.

However, the differences between the two versions of the Ferrara Bible don’t stop there. For example, they were printed in two different sizes and on different types of paper.

In the 1950s, Professor Stanley Rypins, a scholar of English literature, conducted a thorough examination of the existing copies of the Ferrara Bible. He found 49 different copies around the world and demonstrated that there were many differences among them, though most of these differences were small and insignificant.

Contrary to the assumptions of past scholars that the Ferrara Bible had both a Jewish and a Christian version, Rypins argued that there was in fact no version specifically tailored for Christian readers. On the contrary, over the years, some have even claimed that this Bible is anti-Christian and that the translations of certain verses that have been interpreted as a historical basis for Christianity maintain the original literal text, in an effort to undermine official Christian doctrine.

Nevertheless, in some copies, there is one significant change favoring Christian dogma. One of the verses used in Christianity for missionary purposes appears in the Book of Isaiah, chapter 7, verse 14. In the original, it reads as follows:

“Behold, the young woman is with child, and she shall bear a son, and she shall call his name Immanuel.”

In Christian literature, the verse was translated according to Christian theology, which asserts that Jesus’ mother is the Virgin Mary:

“Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.”

In some copies of the Ferrara Bible, the Hebrew word almah is translated into Spanish as moca (young woman). In others, it is translated as virgen (virgin), and in most cases, the printers simply wrote alma in Roman letters, thus avoiding controversy. In about half of the copies found, the word alma appeared, and Rypins demonstrated that this was how the Bible was originally printed. He claimed that the word was later changed to virgen, likely for political-religious reasons, and after several printings, to moca. Each change required the printer to adjust the font to maintain a uniform length of the row of text. To achieve this, abbreviated words were sometimes expanded to their full forms, and sometimes small spaces were added between words.

Throughout the period of publication, errors in page order and typos were corrected in the various printed copies that were released. Nevertheless, typographical errors can still be found here and there in some of the copies. Rypins viewed all these issues as proof that the different editions of the Ferrara Bible were indicative of an ongoing process of corrections; it wasn’t that there were two versions, each intended for a different audience, rather – all copies of the Ferrara Bible were intended for Spanish and Portuguese conversos in the mid-16th century. In the copies Rypins found, it was also evident that due to the prohibition against writing or pronouncing the name of God unnecessarily, most copies used the capital letter “A” as a substitute for the name. Some copies also included a list of the weekly Haftarah portions read in the synagogue.

God’s name written as the capital letter “A”, from the beginning of the *Va’etchanan* portion in the Ferrara Bible

The illustrated title page of the Ferrara Bible includes a drawing of a ship being tossed about by stormy waters at sea. One of its masts is broken, and it is surrounded by waves, gusts of wind, and sea monsters. The illustration alludes to the situation of the Jewish People in general and the conversos of Spain and Portugal in particular. The printers were hinting at the eternal nature of Judaism, which is forced to fight against its spiritual enemies but manages to survive and persevere despite it all.

שער פררה — The title page of the Ferrara Bible. The ship being wrecked at sea symbolizes the Jewish People.

The ship is also depicted with an armillary sphere, an instrument that serves as a model of objects in the sky and which was used in maritime navigation. The armillary sphere was the symbol of Abraham Usque’s printing house and appears in other books he printed as well.

Masotav — An armillary sphere, Abraham Usque’s trademark, which appears on the title page of a travel journal by Benjamin of Tudela

Usque published over 25 books before his printing house was closed in 1558. One of his books, Shiltei Giborim (“The Signs of Heroes”) by Rabbi Yaacov Ben Yoav Elia of Pano, included a lamentation for 24 conversos who were executed in Ancona in 1556. News of this lamentation reached the ears of Bishop Antonio Ghislieri (later, Pope Pius V), who then demanded that the book be burned and Usque be punished.

Ushka — From the lamentation for the martyrs of Ancona, *Shiltei Giborim*, Ferrara 1556.

In 1996, literary and theater scholar Moshe Lazar published an accurate facsimile edition (that is, a new print completely identical to the original) of the Ferrara Bible, with a print run of 1,000 copies. Earlier, in 1992, to mark the 500th commemoration of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, Lazar released a critical edition (one that traces all known editions) of the Ferrara Bible. In the introduction, Lazar wrote that to prepare this edition, he located some 60 copies of the Bible. These copies and others, which might still be circulating and unaccounted for in remote parts of the world, helped the conversos of Spain and Portugal return to Judaism in the 16th century.

Fax — The facsimile (above) and the critical edition (below)

What We Do Isn’t Written, What Is Written Isn’t Done: The Story of the Oral Torah

The Bible may be the Book of Books, but when you look closely, you can see there’s an enormous gap between what is written in it and what the Jews actually practiced. This gap is part of the basic operating system of Judaism. How exactly does it work?

Bar Nativ | 29.07.24

Jewish Culture Judaism

Sabbath Der Sabbathe (Shabbat of Shabbats), 1900, by Ephraim Moses Lilien, the National Library of Israel collections

See this table?

These are all the things Halakha (Jewish religious law) says Jews are not allowed to do on Shabbat.

39+melacho — Credit: Anshie Kagan, anshie.com

Actually, these aren’t all the prohibitions – just the categories, under which innumerable additional prohibitions are gathered.

But the Torah simply says general things like “Observe the Shabbat day to sanctify it.” How did we go from such a simple verse to the enormous and unreasonable pile of laws we know today?

Here’s how:

Lilien Sinai — Mount Sinai, by Ephraim Moses Lilien

Desert. Sand stretching out for miles and blowing in the wind. Under a small, nondescript mountain a loud group of people, children, and livestock gather. These are the Children of Israel, who have been wandering this place for close to two months.

While everyone’s getting ready below, Moses ascends the mountain.

Clouds, lightning, fire, drama!

It’s not entirely clear what’s going on but when Moses comes back down, he’s holding the Torah.

Sorry – the Torahs. Both of them.

The Jewish sages tell us that at Mount Sinai, two Torahs were brought down from on high: the one we’re familiar with from Bible class, and the Oral Torah.

They are described as bride and groom, salt and pepper, wheat and flour…you get the idea.

In other words – they complement each other, or at least one serves as the raw material from which a finished product is made.

But what’s wrong with the written Torah? Why do we need another one?

Well, the Torah on its own is not entirely practical and not entirely clear.

The Oral Torah is there to bridge those gaps.

Lilien Moses — Moses, by Ephraim Moses Lilien

Let’s examine this concept with the help of a well-known verse:

“An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a hand for a hand, a foot for a foot.”

To understand what the Oral Torah does, we need to do a little thought experiment:

It’s a strange question, sure, but try and think of the advantages of “an eye for an eye”.

From my perspective: The principle of “an eye for an eye” contains an element of justice. Revenge is a powerful human emotion, one that is best regulated by authority, with this sort of practice likely to deter wrongdoers.

Bu that about the drawbacks?

In my view, the justice achieved here is not true justice. A person who has just lost an eye gains nothing from taking another eye out, and revenge does not generally lead to a better society.

So perhaps…this specific commandment should be changed?

Maybe, but if you look at the Torah from a traditional point of view, you’ve got a problem.

After all, according to Jewish tradition, everything written in the Torah is sacred, and the rules of the game mean no changes are allowed.

What can be done? – Interpret the heck out of the verse!

And that’s precisely what the Oral Torah does.

Since this verse was written, Jews have never literally practiced “an eye for an eye”. Never. It doesn’t exist. Not in reality or in written Halakha.

The transition appears to happen in the Mishnah – a sort of screenshot of the Oral Torah at a particular moment in time. The sages of the Mishnah state that if you took someone’s eye out, that person doesn’t get to take yours out, too. Your obligation as the one causing harm is to pay *monetary compensation* to the one you harmed. Or as the sages put it: “An eye for an eye – [means] money.”

This is one of the starker examples of the gap between the Written and Oral Torah. But there are also many simpler cases of issues which are simply not understood. Which takes us back to the question of observing Shabbat.

In all, we have but a few fairly simple verses speaking about Shabbat. But when you examine them closely, they’re not actually all that clear.

What does it mean to “observe” Shabbat? Seriously – what does that mean?

We as modern people have a general idea, but there was a moment in history where this wasn’t so clear.

To answer this question, the sages would use a technique that can be translated as “a matter learned from its subject” (דבר הלמד מעניינו). They looked at the verses dealing with observing Shabbat and when the verses weren’t clear they did what any bright student does: attempt to understand the context.

Take a look at the verses below:

“Six days work may be done, but on the seventh day is a Sabbath of complete rest, holy to the Lord; whoever performs work on the Sabbath day shall be put to death.”

“You shall not kindle fire in any of your dwelling places on the Sabbath day.”

These verses reside within a Torah portion dealing entirely in the matters of the Mishkan or Tabernacle, the earlier and mobile version of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem.

So the sages took a look at the surrounding verses and said “Hey! Maybe it’s not clear exactly what observing Shabbat means, but it’s certainly related to the Mishkan.”

How is it related? While English translations of the above verse have often used the word “work”, the text of the Hebrew commandment regarding Shabbat uses the word melacha (מלאכה) , which generally indicates “craft”.

The verses covering the Mishkan use the same term – melacha (craft) – in reference to all the things done in order to keep the Mishkan in operation – sowing, sewing, writing, lighting a fire, etc. The sages concluded that these were the crafts (or “work”) referred to in the commandment, and that what was done in the Mishkan is precisely what may *not* be done on Shabbat.

Das Stiftszelt — The Mishkan, by Ephraim Moses Lilien

Sound credible? Hmmm… I’m not sure about that. But this was acceptable logic for the sages.

Sound exaggerated? They also thought so. In a moment of self-awareness, they said: “The rules of the Sabbath […] are like mountains hanging on a hair, few verses and many rules.” In other words, not much is actually written here and a very large number of Halakhic rulings came out of it.

So what do we have here? Unclear or impractical verses, alongside an Oral Torah clarifying the unclear, adapting what needs to be adapted and maintaining dynamism. And it does all that without breaking the rules.

The books documenting the Oral Torah are the Mishnah, Tosefta, Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmud, midrashic books like the Mekhilta, the Sifre, Midrash Rabbah, and Midrash Tanhuma. You can also add the responsa literature which continues to be written to this day as part of the Oral Torah.

A Rare Document: When Haredim Proposed That Religious Zionists Join Their Draft Exemption

A fascinating piece of correspondence found in the archive of Rabbi Moshe Tzvi Neria tells the story of the beginnings of the historic debate between Haredim and religious Zionists regarding enlistment in the IDF.

Arik Kitsis | 23.07.24

Archives History of Israel IDF

Photo: Rabbi Moshe Tzvi Neria, courtesy of the family. Background: Letter from Rabbi Meir Karelitz to Rabbi Neria, the Moshe Tzvi Neria Archive at the National Library of Israel. This record was made available thanks to the generosity of the Morris and Beverly Baker Foundation.

It was the beginning of 1948, just over a month since the fateful UN vote on partitioning the Holy Land into Jewish and Arab states. The Jewish public in the Land of Israel was busy preparing to establish the state, preparations which were taking place while the early battles of the War of Independence were already underway. It was in this historic moment that Agudat Israel and Poalei Agudat Israel – the two most prominent Haredi political movements – called for enlisting Haredi and religious youth in the national army (the IDF) that was just coming into existence. Except, that is, for women and yeshivah students.

997001542890405171 — Agudat Israel calls on Haredim to report to recruitment offices, December 1947. The Pevzner Collection, the National Library of Israel

Both within the Haredi community itself and between the Haredim and the religious Zionist community, the main debate revolved around the following issues: Would women be exempt from mandatory enlistment or from any sort of enlistment whatsoever? Would yeshivah students be exempted or be forced to serve part-time? Would yeshivah students be sent into combat? Or perhaps only receive training with service limited to auxiliary forces? And who would be considered a yeshivah student?

A fascinating document from the archive of Rabbi Moshe Tzvi Neria kept at the National Library of Israel provides a glimpse into the beginnings of the historic debate between Haredim and religious Zionists regarding service in the Israeli army – a debate which continues to this day.

The Protagonists

Rabbi Moshe Tzvi Neria was born in Lodz, then part of the Russian Empire, in 1913. He studied in his youth in yeshivahs in the cities of Shklov and Minsk, in an era when yeshivah studies were considered subversive in the formally atheist Soviet Union. He made Aliyah to the Land of Israel before his 18^th birthday with the aid of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Hacohen Kook, and began studying at Yeshivat Merkaz Harav. At the same time, he was also one of the leaders of the religious Zionist Bnei Akiva youth movement.

In late 1939, Rabbi Neria established the yeshivah in Kfar Haroeh, the first such yeshivah in the Bnei Akiva educational network. In the early years, the sole focus at Kfar Haroeh was on religious studies, just like Haredi yeshivot. Rabbi Neria’s views on education at the yeshivah were famously summed up in his quip: “Hairs will grow on the palm of my hand before secular studies are taught at the yeshivah.” However, by the end of the decade, pressure from parents of students who joined forces with Rabbi Avraham Zuckerman, another member of the yeshivah’s leadership, led to secular studies such as math and English being taught as well.

The yeshivah at Kfar Haroeh was run like a typical and traditional yeshivah, but it was also part of the Bnei Akiva movement and followed its principles and ideals: In addition to religious study, yeshivah students also worked in agriculture. The yeshivah even sent one of its rabbis, Rabbi Mordechai Breuer, to the British detention camps in Cyprus, where Jews caught while attempting to immigrate covertly were detained, to establish an extension of the yeshivah there. The yeshivah’s internal atmosphere was much the same: Students enjoyed broad autonomy, which included the right to receive new students. They frequently conducted meetings and assemblies, and the student council was partner to administrative decisions.

Capturekharoe — Yeshivah students working in gardening at the Bnei Akiva yeshivah at Kfar Haroeh. This item is part of Archive Network Israel, and is made available that to the collaborative efforts of Yad Yitzhak Ben Zvi, the Ministry of Jerusalem and Heritage, and the National Library of Israel

Rabbi Meir Karelitz was born in 1875 in Kosava in Belarus. He studied in Lithuanian yeshivahs, married the daughter of the elder Rabbi of Vilna and served as a Rabbi in the town of Lechovitch.

He was the brother of the Chazon Ish, had close ties with the leading Haredi rabbis of Europe in the period leading up to WWII, and was among the founders of the Vaad Yeshivot (yeshivah committee) of Poland.

Just before the war broke out, he made Aliyah to the Land of Israel with his entire family, where he continued to be very active in leading the Haredi public and establishing its main institutions – the independent education stream, the Moetzet Gedolei Hatorah (council of leading Torah scholars), and the most important institution for our story – the local Vaad Yeshivot in what would soon be the State of Israel.

“We have come to an agreement with the institutions”

On January 1, 1948, Rabbi Meir Karelitz sent a letter to the head of the yeshivah at Kfar Haroeh, Rabbi Moshe Tzvi Neria. In his letter, Rabbi Karelitz spoke of a temporary arrangement formed with the Zionist national institutions regarding the draft of yeshivah students, an arrangement which was valid for 1948. At the end of the letter, Rabbi Karelitz suggested Rabbi Neria send him – if he was interested – a list of his yeshivah students, so that they could be included among those exempted from the draft.

Capturemeirkarelitz — Rabbi Meir Karelitz

Rabbi Meir Karelitz

7 Shevat 5708

My friend the Rabbi R. M.Tz. Neria, may he live a good long life, amen

[…] I wish to inform [you] that we have come to an agreement with the institutions, regarding the draft of the yeshivah students according to the following formula: The yeshivah students appearing in the lists approved by the three leaders of the yeshivot, are exempt from service in the army (in full or partial drafts).

b. The management of the yeshivot must provide capable students with training in self-defense, according to the orders and instructions of the high command.

c. This arrangement will be considered a temporary arrangement for the [Hebrew] year of 5708 and will come for renewed discussion at the beginning of the year of 5709. It may not be cancelled but by a new agreement.

At the assembly of the yeshivot leaders last Thursday it was decided: A yeshivah student is anyone that is a regular student at the yeshivah and whose Torah is his craft, as it has always been in the yeshivot, and who studies and observes all the orders of the yeshivah.

The leaders of the yeshivot from Petah Tikvah, Ponevezh and Slonim were chosen to the committee of the three yeshivot leaders. The yeshivot must provide notification if any student leaves the yeshivot – to the aforementioned committee of yeshivot leaders. If the management of Yeshivat Kfar Haroeh has in mind to join the aforementioned, may forgive me … and immediately send a list of students of draft age to that committee to the address: Tel Aviv, Montefiore 39, Poalei Agudat Israel, for … the committee.

His friend, respectfully,

Meir Karelitz

Whatsapp Image 2024 07 09 At 09.13.09 1 — Letter from Rabbi Meir Karelitz to Rabbi Neria regarding the draft of yeshivah students, the Moshe Tzvi Neria Archive, the National Library of Israel. This record was made available thanks to the generosity of the Morris and Beverly Baker Foundation.

“We are interested in including them in the campaigns of the armies of Israel”

In many cases, archives only contain the letters received by the owner of the archive and not their own response, but in this case Rabbi Neria wrote the draft of his response on the back of the original letter, preserving it for posterity.

In his response, Rabbi Neria rejected Rabbi Karelitz’s proposal politely but firmly. Rabbi Neria did agree that yeshivah students needed to be exempt from a full draft, but when it came to part-time drafts, his view was the opposite:

For

The Gaon Muvhak [the outstanding genius]

My teacher and mentor Meir Karelitz, may he live a good long life, amen

Blessings and greetings to you,

[…] forgive me for the lateness of my response to his letter. Illness and distractions delayed me until now.

As to the actual matter, while we indeed agree that yeshivah students should be exempted from a complete draft, regarding a partial draft it seems that we ourselves should to be interested in including them. Both for internal spiritual reasons and also for the sake of raising the honor of Torah and sanctifying the name of Heaven in public.

Procuring a list of our students at draft age is therefore unnecessary since as noted we are interested in including them in the campaigns of the armies of Israel, and in their war [against] the hand of an enemy poised against them.

Many thanks [for your] appeal and interest.

With great respect and honor

Letterback660 — Draft of Rabbi Neria’s response to Rabbi Karelitz regarding the draft of yeshivah students, the Moshe Tzvi Neria Archive, the National Library of Israel. This record was made available thanks to the generosity of the Morris and Beverly Baker Foundation

Rabbi Neria’s archive contains no sign of any continued correspondence between the two, and we don’t know if they continued to discuss the draft issue. We do, however, know that with the escalation of the War of Independence, many members of the religious Zionist community enlisted in the army – some in separate religious units and others in regular IDF units.

Rabbi Neria’s yeshivah at Kfar Haroeh sent most of its graduates to serve in the army. Rabbi Neria accompanied them and supported them, even writing the anthem of the 7^th Brigade in which the students served.

76 years have passed since that correspondence, but the worldviews reflected therein have hardly changed.

Things You Never Knew About the Printed Bible

When was the first Jewish Bible printed? How did the annotated Bible we are familiar with today first come about? What competition took Bible publishers by storm in the 19th century? How does one handle a Bible that is over a foot and a half tall? Here's a deep dive into the history behind the printed Bible.

Daniel Lipson | 27.06.24

Jewish books Rare Jewish Books

Kehilot Moshe, Amsterdam, 1724. On display in the permanent exhibition of the National Library of Israel – "A Treasury of Words"

We’ll begin with an unsurprising fact: The first book ever printed was a Latin version of the Bible, including the New Testament. It was printed in Germany around the year 1455 by Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor of the printing press. Somewhat more surprising is the fact that when Jews first began printing books, the Bible was not their first choice. Jewish printers started out by investing their time and money in printing Bible commentaries by Rashi and Nachmanides (Ramban), the Arba’ah Turim collection of Halachic rulings, and other books.

One possible explanation relates to the diacritics of the text. Diacritics (niqqud) in the Hebrew Bible are extremely important. Indeed, many biblical manuscripts contained these small glyphs which indicate how Hebrew letters and vowels are to be vocalized. Printing these diacritic symbols must have been a challenge when the printing industry was just starting out, and what’s more, manuscripts of the Bible were relatively common, so Jewish printers may have simply preferred to print other texts. Two decades later, the Book of Psalms became the first book of the Bible to be printed by Jewish printers, along with commentary by Rabbi David Kimchi (The Radak), which was published in Bologna in 1477. In this book, each verse appears followed by the commentary for that verse, unlike the more commonly used method of printing two blocks of text next to each other, one being the source and the other the commentary. The early sections of the book contain diacritics, but the printers soon stopped printing the symbols after a few sections, as it proved too complicated a challenge.

תהילים רדק — The Radak’s commentary on the Book of Psalms, the first of the Bible’s books to be printed by Jewish printers, Bologna, 1477

A complete Hebrew Bible containing diacritics was only printed 11 years later, in 1488, by the Soncino family printing house in the Northern Italian city of Soncino. Over the following 30 years, about 60 books of the Pentateuch and Bible were printed, most of them only partial versions.

A version of the Pentateuch was printed, with the Targum Onkelos (a famous Jewish Aramaic translation) and commentary by Rashi, by the famous printer Daniel Bomberg in Venice, apparently in 1511. The original cover had of course stated the year of publication, but this page was lost over time. So how do we (ostensibly) know the year of publication? A copy of this edition was sent to the National Library of Israel, and its cover page states the year 1511 alongside the coat of arms of King Henry IV of France. This page was not the original but was prepared for the King, who ruled France from 1589 to 1610. Whoever printed it believed that the original year of publication was 1511.

The Pentateuch, i.e. the five books of the Torah, Venice, approx. 1511. From the private collection of King Henry IV of France (according to the symbol in the center of the page)

In 1515, Bomberg received a license to print a complete Hebrew Bible. In 1517, Bomberg and his partner Felix Pratensis, a Jew who converted to Christianity, printed a complete Bible in two almost identical editions. One was intended for Jewish readers, and the other included a dedication to the Pope and was intended for Christian use. For the first time since the invention of the printing press, a complete Hebrew Bible was published, alongside an Aramaic translation, and at least one commentary for each book. Rashi’s commentary, for example, accompanied the books of the Torah and the Radak’s commentary appeared in Prophets. Pratensis was meticulous about comparing old biblical manuscripts to ensure that he was printing an accurate Bible. The Hebrew title that appears on the cover of the book, similar to many manuscripts before it, reads Four and Twenty, named for the 24 books of the Bible. Pratensis’ Bible included two innovations that are used to this day: the division of the text into chapters (based on a Christian division), and the division of the books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles into two parts each.

24 1518 — *Four and Twenty*, the complete Hebrew Bible (in four volumes), Venice 1517

Seven years later, in 1524, Bomberg was working on a new edition that he called Sha’ar HaShem HaChadash (“The New Gate of the Lord”). This time, he recruited an editor named Jacob Ben Hayyim Ibn Adonijah, a learned Jew who came to Venice from Tunisia. Ben Hayyim strove to print a more accurate edition than that of Pratensis. To accomplish that goal, he mainly based his work on Middle Eastern Jewish manuscripts, which were considered more accurate. One of the most important aspects for Ben Hayyim was the addition of the Masoretic text, a set of instructions and rules for writing the biblical text according to the tradition passed down from generation to generation. The purpose of the Masora is to maintain accuracy and uniformity for all Torah books in the world. This is reflected in its meticulousness concerning diacritics, cantillation, words that are pronounced differently than they are spelled, special use of smaller or larger letters, etc. Ben Hayyim edited this new Bible according to the instructions of the Masora, printing the rules of the Masora alongside the text, while also including Ibn Ezra’s commentary for some of the sections. He was able to convince Bomberg that printing this version was worthwhile, in large part due to the inclusion of the Masoretic text, which was a key feature of the edition. The Masora is of great value to Jewish Kabbalah, and this interested Bomberg as well as other Christian scholars at the time.

1524 יעקב בן חיים — *Sha’ar HaShem HaChadash* (“The New Gate of the Lord”), Venice, 1524

In the first of the four volumes of “The New Gate of the Lord”, Ben Hayyim wrote a long introduction explaining the importance of the Masora, including the different opinions and the differences between the pronounced and written words. His name is only mentioned at the beginning of this introduction, in the first edition, which was published in 1524.

Ben Hayyim later converted to Christianity, and in subsequent editions, instead of his name he simply wrote “the copyist”. The introduction is important for understanding the Masora, so it was also copied and printed separately several times. It was even translated into English in 1865 and again in 1867 by the Bible scholar Christian David Ginsburg. The translated copy that is kept at the National Library contains a dedication by Ginsburg to the German theologian and scholar Professor Konstantin Schlottmann. For the purpose of this article, we will simply note during the last quarter of the 19th century, Ginsburg and Schlottman were involved in an episode that gained international notoriety when they clashed with Moshe Shapira – a Jewish antiquities dealer in Jerusalem who converted to Christianity and was exposed as an international forger of biblical manuscripts that he claimed to have found. But that’s a story for another article. In any case, the English-translated copy of “The New Gate of the Lord”, from Schlottman’s collection eventually ended up in the hands of the Chief Sephardic Rabbi in London, Dr. Moses Gaster, a scholar of languages and folklore. In the 1950s, the National Library acquired some of Gaster’s books, including this copy.

הקדמה יעקב בן חיים — English translation of Jacob Ben Hayyim’s introduction, London, 1867

Back to the 16th century: In a manner similar to the format he used when printing the Talmud, Bomberg designed the pages of his printed Bible so that a selection of commentaries would appear alongside each portion of the biblical text. This format proved to be very successful and popular and remains common to this day (mainly in Prophets and Writings).

There is no major difference between Bomberg’s Venice print from 1524 and the book I used to study for my high school matriculation exams. Although different commentaries were added, they generally appear at the end of the book, and the general appearance is still quite similar.

יהושע — The Book of Joshua from an edition printed in the 1990s next to a similar book printed by Bomberg in 1524

But that is not where the evolution of the printed Bible ends. In 1724, a Bible with multiple commentaries was published in Amsterdam, which was a major center for Jewish printing at the time. It was called Kehilot Moshe, named after the publisher Rabbi Moshe Frankfurter, who printed many books in Amsterdam. This Bible, which was also published in four volumes, has no less than eight commentaries printed around the text, including Rashi, the Ralbag, Sforno, and the Chizkuni. Some editions even included small colored illustrations. The title written across the cover is Mikra Gedola (“The Large Reading”), alluding to the book’s importance and size. Some argue that “large” refers to the physical size of the books, which are in fact over a foot and a half in length.

קהלות משה — Beginning of the Book of Exodus in the *Kehilot Moshe* Bible, Amsterdam, 1724

The next milestone event occurred in the city of Lviv, or Lemberg as the Jews called it. In 1808, another large edition featuring many commentaries was published in the city. This publication only included Prophets and some books from Writings, leaving out the five books of the Torah – the Pentateuch. This Bible was entitled Mikraot Gedolot (“the Great Readings”) – a name that has taken root and is commonly used nowadays to refer to Bible or Pentateuch editions which have many commentaries attached to the text or printed at the end.

תקסח מקראות גדולות — The first time the phrase *Mikraot Gedolot* was used to refer to a Bible printed with commentaries. Lemberg, 1808.

Throughout the 19th century, Mikraot Gedolot books gained momentum, and more and more editions were printed. Publishers at the time boasted about how many commentators they could cram into their books in what became a sort of open competition, as follows:

In Warsaw in 1860, the first volume of an edition of Mikraot Gedolot with 32 commentaries was published.

In Piotrków, Poland, in 1897, a version of Mikraot Gedolot with the five books of the Torah and 42 commentaries was published.

In Lemberg in 1909, a version of Mikraot Gedolot with the five books of the Torah and 49 commentaries was published.

And in Vilna in 1923, a version of the Mikraot Gedolot was published containing only the Book of Leviticus, alongside 70 commentaries.

Mikaraot Gedolot books are still staples of the Jewish bookshelf. Nowadays, there are many new, more accurate editions, featuring additional commentaries and high-quality printing.

And to think, it all started 500 years ago in Daniel Bomberg’s printing house in Venice.