RARE CZARIST JUDAICA 1859 The Star of Israel printed by Romm Family LITHUANIA

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RARE CZARIST JUDAICA 1859 The Star of Israel printed by Romm Family LITHUANIA:
$185.00

RARE CZARIST JUDAICA1859The Star of Israelprinted by the Romm Family Printing House, Vilna, LITHUANIA
religious commentary:Abraham AvliShmuel Levi
Two volumes printed 1859 and bound togetherby the Romm Family Printing House,Vilna, Lithuania.approx. 670 pgs. (pgs. 3-6 missing from first book but title pg. intact) see photo.
LARGE FOLIO SIZE VOLUME approx. 9 1/2\" x 15 3/4\"
good condition, some wear. a nice volume to add to your collection. see photos.
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Family ofprinters and publishersinVilna. The Romm family’s printing house, the largest in Eastern Europe in the nineteenth century, operated continuously for more than 120 years. In the central period of its activity, beginning at the end of the 1860s, the printinghouse underwent a process of modernization—overseen by Shemu’el Shraga Feigenzohn, a rabbi, entrepreneur, and administrator—that was a key to its success. Feigenzohn directed the firm for two decades beginning in 1867; he also wrote a history of the Romm printing house under the pseudonym Shafan ha-Sofer.

The founder of the Romm family printing house was Barukh ben Yosef, who began work as a printer in Ozery, nearGrodno. In 1799, he established a printing house in Vilna, meanwhile continuing to work with partners (including one named Simḥah Zimel) in Grodno. Barukh’s son, Menaḥem Mann Romm (Mann), oversaw the work in Vilna, enlisting an expert typefounder, Lipman Mets, who created type exclusively for the press, creating a form known as “Vilna type.” Mann also became the exclusive printer for the Russian authorities in Vilna, which involved his printing, among other things, Christian prayer books, in which his name appeared on the title page as Manis Romm.

In 1834, Mann and Simḥah Zimel decided to print the BabylonianTalmud(together with the Tosefta’ and Alfasi’s code). They hired as editor the scholar Betsal’el Katz, whose name appeared only in the last tractate to be printed,Ḥulin.Their publication of the Talmud led to a controversy with members of theShapira familyin Slavuta, who argued that the Romm house had trespassed on their rights and that they had been harmed economically, since their own edition of the Talmud had not yet been completely distributed.

In 1836, Tsar Nicholas I ordered the closing of all Jewish printing houses except for one in Vilna and another inZhitomir. For 5,000 rubles, the Romm family obtained the right to continue as the only Hebrew printers in Vilna. Subsequently, Menaḥem Mann and Simḥah Zimel issued a proclamation in May 1837, reassuring subscribers to the Talmud andother works (including‘En Ya‘akovand theShulḥan ‘arukh) of their commitment to the printing of these books. But in 1841, before their edition of the Talmud was completed, the printing house burned down. A year later, Menaḥem Mann died; his son Yosef Re’uven (d. 1858) succeeded him and continued to work with Simḥah Zimel. The Polish government, however, forbade the import of books, including fromLithuania, a factor that led to a loss of subscribers; at the same time, governmentcensorshipbecame a major imposition. The censors, mainly converts from Judaism, sabotaged the text of the Talmud mercilessly, reducing its marketability. At the same time, editions of the Talmud were being printed and Vienna (1840–1849). Simḥah Zimel died in 1845, and Yosef Re’uven completed the publication of the Talmud in 1854.

Title page ofMasekhet Shavu\'ot, a tractate of the Babylonian Talmud (Vilna: Widow and Brothers Romm, 1883). (YIVO)

When Yosef Re’uven died, his eldest son, David (1825–1860), inherited the business, though the title pages continued to use the phrase “In the Printing Shop of Yosef Re’uven Romm.” In 1858, publication of a new edition of the Talmud was begun by the Shapira family in Zhitomir; a year later, David Romm also began publication of an edition of the Talmud. The Zhitomir edition was completed in 1864; the Romm edition in 1866. Sales of the latter proceeded slowly. After David’s death, his widow, Devorah (d. 1903), began to manage the company, assisted at first by her scholarly father, Yosef Betsal’el Harkavy (d. 1864). The company’s income was divided among Devorah, who received 40 percent, and David’s brothers, Ḥayim Ya‘akov and Menaḥem Gavri’el, who each received 30 percent. (Menaḥem also took over the Russian-language printing business when the Russian authorities demanded the separation of the Russian and Hebrew printing operations, for purposes of taxation and so that the government could more easily control the number of books published.) From 1871, the title pages of books published by the company carried the words “The Printing House of the Widow and the Brothers Romm” (see image at left).

Alexander II rescinded the limitations on Hebrew printing in 1862: in exchange for an annual tax of 20 rubles for every manual printing press, the industry was open to all. (For rapid, steam-driven presses, the price was 120 rubles for a small press, 240 for a large one.) Three former Romm employees thereupon opened their own, rival press in Vilna together withShemu’el Fuenn. Fuenn wanted to printHaskalahliterature, but the production of daily and holiday prayer books—in direct competition with the Romms—proved more lucrative. In response, the Romm house, which was on a firm financial footing, lowered the prices of their books almost to their cost. Thus, the price of the prayer bookKorban Moshehwas reduced from 2.5 rubles to 0.5 rubles. Romm also began to print Haskalah books, but these generally had poor sales.

Competition with rival printers in Vilna, however, did less harm to the Romm firm than an internal rivalry that broke out in 1866 between the brothers and Devorah. Eventually the business was divided among them, and it dwindled considerably in importance. Devorah turned to Feigenzohn in 1867 and asked him to take over management of the firm. He worked to resolve the differences among the owners and simultaneously to overhaul and modernize the technologies and procedures. Feigenzohn introduced stereotype printing, the process by which pages are cast in sheets of lead, making itpossible to preserve editions of books and reprint them rapidly if demand arose without having to set the text in type again. He traveled to Berlin to buy the new machinery and hired professionals to operate it. A six-week strike by typesetters, alarmed at the prospect of losing their jobs, was resolved by means of an increase in their salary.

Feigenzohn also worked to overcome the obstacles posed by the censor—at that time, the convertIakov Brafman—by providing him with a regular “salary,” in exchange for which Brafman would examine every book intended for publication before it was printed. Feigenzohn introduced the policy of proofreading material three times to ensure the accuracy of the texts. Books were redesigned to attract buyers, and a policy of acquiring exclusive rights to publication was put in place.

Feigenzohn directed the project of what came to be known as the Vilna Talmud, a production characterized by scrupulous proofreading and the addition of many variant readings and commentaries. At his behest, manuscripts held by various libraries were copied in order to add early, previously unpublished commentaries to the new edition. At the height of its production, more than 100 printers and 14 learned proofreaders were involved in the project.

There was a substantial response to the appeal for subscribers in the fall of 1879. Demand for the new edition was so great that 22,000 copies of the first volume were sold in the first year (1880). Sales were hindered bypogromsin southernRussiathe next year and by fires that damaged the plant and books in the warehouses. A decline in the number of subscribers and sales ensued, but there were still 13,000 subscribers when the final volume was printed in 1886.

Menaḥem Gavri’el transferred management of the Russian-language press to outside administrators in 1901. When the new managers gave printing materials to revolutionaries, the authorities became aware of the practice. Badly frightened, Menaḥem Gavri’el sold the Russian part of the business for a pittance.

After Feigenzohn left the printing house in 1888, it had gone into a period of decline, producing just a single new edition, the prayer bookKolbo(1895). Subsequently, Feigenzohn resumed management of the firm in 1903, the year of Devorah’s death. At the time of his return, the printing house held thousands of folio pages of the most important canonical works in stereotype, 15 presses were still in operation, and the firm held the rights to print classics of Jewish literature. What it lacked was capital.

A small investment came from Bentsiyon Aharonovitsh, who financed the printing of several orders of theMishnah, but more than his assistance was needed. At a meeting of Jewish leaders inSaint Petersburg, therebbeof theLubavitchHasidic movement, Shalom Dov Ber Shneerson, horrified at the prospect of the closure of the Romm house, persuaded BaronDavid Gintsburgto rescue the shop, and Gintsburg invested 75,000 rubles. Feigenzohn paid the debts of the firm, but additional backing dissolved when Gintsburg died in 1910. World War I caused a further decline in the firm’s fortunes, and it passed into the hands of its creditors, who operated it until 1940.

The importance of the Romm press in the cultural history of the nineteenth century cannot be overstated. During its existence, the Romm printing house published more than 1,400 books in both Hebrew and, to a lesser extent, Yiddish, in avariety of literary genres. Books devotedtoKabbalahandhalakhahappeared alongside the novels ofAvraham Mapuand the stories ofAyzik Meyer Dik. Romm publishedYitsḥak Ber Levinzon’s prolegomenon,Igeret ha-besorah(1824), to his extended program for the reform of Jewry,Te‘udah be-Yisra’el(1827, 1856). ‘Azaryah dei Rossi’s sixteenth-century translation into Hebrew of theLetter of Aristeas(Greek, second centuryBCE) was printed in 1818 and entitledHaderat zekenim.Translations from world literature into Hebrew and Yiddish soon followed. The first of these was a translation of the journal of a seventeenth-century Dutch traveler to the Far East, W. Bontekoe, into Hebrew, apparently byMenaḥem Mendel Lefin,Oniyah so‘arah(1823), published together with a translation of one of Joachim Heinrich Campe’s works,Masa‘ot ha-yam,byMordekhai Aharon Gintsburg. The latter’s translation of Campe’sMasa‘ Kolumbuswas published the same year, but the name of the publisher did not appear on the title page. A year later, Romm published Gintsburg’s Yiddish translation of the same work.

Romm publishedSefer ha-beritby Pinḥas Eliyahu Hurwitz (1765–1821) in 1818. This was an idiosyncratic, encyclopedic work combining philosophical and kabbalistic topics with reports on scientific discoveries. It was an important source of scientific information for many readers who knew only Hebrew and Yiddish. Much farther from normative literature was the introduction to algebra,Mosde ḥokhmahby themaskilḤayim Zelig Słonimski(1834). Much of the Haskalah literature failed to find a wide market, often remaining unsold.

The Romm house continued to printrabbinic literaturealongside works callingfor reform. Several collections of the teachings ofEliyahu, theGaonof Vilna, were printed as well as a number of editions ofḤaye adam(1810, 1819, 1834), the popular halakhic work byAvraham Danzig. All this was in addition to canonical works such as the Talmud and theShulḥan ‘arukh,prayer books, and Pentateuchs.

Romm printed some Yiddish books as well, including Eli‘ezer Paver’sGdulas Yoysef,which they reprinted several times (1817, 1822, 1833).Tkhineswere published inTikun shelosh mishmarot(1833). A complete list of Romm publications would reflect well the trends and cultural developments of East European Jewry in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.