The Anonymous Author of Tikkunei Zohar and Ra‘ya Mehemna: An Antinomian or a Radical Maimonidean?

By Bezalel Naor

Today, it is an accepted fact in scholarly circles that Tikkunei Zohar and Ra‘ya Mehemna form a single unit that postdates the main body of Zohar.[1] More than one reader has been scandalized by statements in Tikkunei Zohar and Ra‘ya Mehemna likening the Mishnah to a shifhah or maidservant.[2] Predictably, in response, there grew an apologetic literature that attempts to justify how such shocking statements are compatible with normative Halakhah.[3]

One cannot rule out altogether the assertion by various secular historians that these pejorative statements betray an antinomian streak,[4] though to be certain, such statements of Tikkunei Zohar and Ra‘ya Mehemna are not situated in the present but deferred to the future. With this proviso, they are no more “antinomian” than the statement of Rav Yosef in the Talmud: “Mitsvot (commandments) are nullified in the future.”[5]

I wish to present a hitherto unexplored possibility. It seems likely that the anonymous author of Tikkunei Zohar and Ra‘ya Mehemna (which surfaced in Spain in the first decades of the fourteenth century)[6] was not so much an antinomian as a radical Maimonidean. It is in this light that we should understand negative statements issuing from the author regarding the study of Mishnah or those comparing the various Talmudic exercises and mental gymnastics to the backbreaking labor to which the Children of Israel were subjected in Egyptian exile.[7] These do not spring from an anti-halakhic mindset but rather from taking at face value Maimonides’ syllabus as laid out in his introduction to Mishneh Torah:

Hence, I have entitled this work Mishneh Torah (Review of the Law), for the reason that a person, who first reads the Written Law and then this [compilation], will know from it the whole of the Oral Law, without having need to read any other book between them [italics mine—BN].

We should be asking ourselves: Are there any historical grounds to assert that in Spain in the early 1300s there were halakhic Jews who openly—we should add, brazenly—promulgated the Maimonidean curriculum to the exclusion of Talmudic studies and the concomitant exercise of pilpul?

I offer the words of Joseph Ibn Kaspi:

Therefore my rabbis, listen to me and God will listen to you! I see that it is the intention of those among you who engage in Gemara, novellae and opinions (shitot),[8] to know proofs for the practical commandments, for you are not satisfied with the tradition from Mishneh Torah composed by Rabbenu Moshe [i.e. Maimonides], though he said: “And one shall have no need of any other book between them [Italics mine—BN].”

Here is an example. Ha-Rav ha-Moreh [i.e. Maimonides] wrote in his laws: “A sukkah that is higher than twenty ammah is invalid.”[9] Yet you despair and are without comfort until you know whether the reason is because “the eye does not rest upon it,” or because “one is not sitting in the shade of the sekhakh (overhead boughs) but of the walls,” or because “the sukkah must be a temporary dwelling,” as written in the Gemara.[10] Even this will not satisfy the very punctilious (mehadrin min ha-mehadrin) until they have added problems and opinions (shitot)[11]: “If you should say,” “one may say,” etc.

Truly, I admit that this is good, but why is the knowledge of proofs an obligation in regard to practical commandments, while not [even] an option,[12] but an outright prohibition when it comes to commandments of the heart? What sin has been committed by these four commandments of the heart (that I mentioned) that you do not treat them in the same manner but are satisfied by a weak tradition of few words, wanting comprehension?[13]

Who was Joseph Ibn Kaspi? Born either in Arles, Provence or Argentière, Languedoc,[14] around the year 1280, he passed in 1345 on the island of Majorca. His was a peripatetic life. The first period of his life was spent in the south of France. Later he gravitated to Barcelona, where his married son David resided. At approximately age thirty-five he travelled to Egypt for several months,[15] hoping to acquire there the intellectual legacy of Maimonides from the Master’s fourth and fifth generation descendants but was sorely disappointed in this respect. He even entertained the thought of traveling to Fez, Morocco in search of wisdom,[16] but that particular journey never materialized.

Ibn Kaspi’s reputation is that of an ultra-rationalist. His naturalistic explanations of events in the Bible far exceed even those of Maimonides; for that reason his opinions were marginalized. Though there is an abundance of manuscripts, it was only in the nineteenth century that Ibn Kaspi’s works were published from manuscript. (A few still remain in manuscript.) To this day, his interpretations have yet to “mainstream.”

My juxtaposing the Maimonidean enthusiast Joseph ibn Kaspi to the anonymous author of the kabbalistic works known as Ra‘ya Mehemna and Tikkunei Zohar may strike the reader of this essai as bizarre. Besides their contemporaneity, what basis is there for this juxtaposition?

Geographically, there are certainly grounds for relating the two authors to one another. Though separated by the Pyrenees, there was much traffic, intellectual and otherwise between Provence and Northern Spain. Some of the greatest families of Provencal scholars originated in Spain: the Kimhis, Joseph and his son David, who excelled as grammarians and Bible exegetes; and the Tibbonides, Judah and his son Samuel, who were the premier translators of classic philosophic works from Judeo-Arabic to Hebrew. And the traffic was two-way. Prominent Provencal families wended their way to Sefarad. The halakhist Rabbi Zerahyah Halevi (“Ba‘al ha-Ma’or”), a native of Gerona, established his career in Narbonne, only to return to Gerona at the end of his days. (His great-grandson was the Talmudist Rabbi Aharon Halevi of Barcelona.)[17] Ibn Kaspi is an example of a Provencal scholar who relocated to Catalonia: Barcelona, and eventually, the Balearic isle of Majorca. Thus, there could easily have been a sharing of ideas between southern France and northern Spain.[18]

In terms of mindset, the border between rationalist philosophy and kabbalah was especially porous at this time. Whoever authored Ra‘ya Mehemna and Tikkunei Zohar, carried with him much Maimonidean baggage. Linguistically, it is apparent to any student of the Ra‘ya Mehemna and Tikkunim that they are rife with the philosophic jargon made popular by the Tibbonides’ translations from Judeo-Arabic.[19] And let us not forget that the very backbone of Ra‘ya Mehemna is an enumeration of the commandments à la Maimonides’ Sefer ha-Mitsvot. (Rabbi Reuven Margaliyot isolated these commandments and presented them in orderly fashion in the introduction to his edition of the Zohar.)

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When we put it all together it makes perfect sense. As shocking as some of its bold statements may be, the literary oeuvre of Ra‘ya Mehemna and Tikkunei Zohar cannot be construed as issuing from the mind of an antinomian. An antinomian would not go to the bother of constructing a Book of Commandments after a fashion. Rather, I maintain that the downgrading of the study of Talmud in general, and Mishnah in particular, should be attributed to a radical adoption of Maimonides’ curriculum of studies, whereby his halakhic magnum opus Mishneh Torah has superseded the study of Mishnah and Gemara.

In this respect, Maimonides’ devotees in Provence and Spain ventured beyond the Master himself. Maimonides penned a convincing letter to Rabbi Pinhas, the Dayyan (Justice) of Alexandria,[20] that regardless of what he wrote in the introduction to Mishneh Torah, the traditional study of the Talmudic tractates (albeit as summarized in Alfasi’s Halakhot) continues unabated in his beit midrash.[21] The curriculum that Maimonides once proposed remained an abstraction. It seems that Egyptian Jewry was not overly receptive to this innovation. Only well over a century later, did this great intellectual experiment of Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, a “hivemind of halakhah,”[22] designed to replace the “dialectics of Abayye and Rava,” find foot soldiers in the likes of Ibn Kaspi and the anonymous author of Ra‘ya Mehemna and Tikkunei Zohar. They launched their campaign from the soil of Provence and Spain.

Our thesis does not ride on the reputation of Joseph ibn Kaspi. Ibn Kaspi’s statement is perhaps the most outspoken and provocative call for adoption of Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah as a way of bypassing Talmudic studies, yet there are other testimonies (from the least expected quarter) that the exclusive study of Mishneh Torah was starting to gain traction in medieval Spain.

The great halakhist Rabbi Asher ben Yehiel (Rosh) emigrated from Germany to Spain at the turn of the fourteenth century and eventually emerged as the Rabbi of Toledo, Castile, where he left his stamp on the shape of Castilian Halakhah.[23] Evidently, Rabbi Asher had cause to fulminate against authorities who decided questions of practical Halakhah based solely on the rulings of Mishneh Torah without recourse to Talmud.

Rabbi Asher writes:

I heard from a great man in Barcelona who was eminently familiar with three orders [of the Talmud, i.e. Mo‘ed, Nashim and Nezikin]. He said: “I am amazed at people who have not studied Gemara and adjudicate based on their reading in the books of Maimonides, of blessed memory, believing that they understand them. I know myself, when it comes to the three orders that I studied, I am able to understand when I read Maimonides’ books. However, his books that are based on Kodashim and Zera‘im—I do not understand at all. And I know that it is that way for them regarding all his books![24]

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Rabbi Yahya Kafah (1850-1931) was not wide of the mark when he asserted that those statements in Zoharic literature that undercut the Talmud (comprised of Mishnah and Gemara) were designed to enhance the prestige of the Kabbalah. (By the same token, one may safely say that Ibn Kaspi’s desire to streamline the study of Halakhah, stemmed from his valorization of Philosophy.)

Logically, our next question should be: What was Maimonides’ own stake in proposing that his compendium Mishneh Torah take the place of protracted Talmudic studies? Maimonides provides a simple answer to this question in his introduction to Mishneh Torah:

At this time, severe vicissitudes prevail, and all feel the pressure of hard times. The wisdom of our wise men has disappeared; the understanding of our prudent men is hidden. Hence, the commentaries of the Geonim and their compilations of laws and responses, which they took care to make clear, have in our times become hard to understand so that only a few individuals properly comprehend them. Needless to add that such is the case in regard to the Talmud itself—the Babylonian as well as the Palestinian—the Sifra, the Sifre and the Tosefta, all of which works require a broad mind, a wise soul and lengthy time, and then one can know from them the correct practice as to what is forbidden or permitted, and the other rules of the Torah.

On these grounds, I, Moses the son of Rabbi Maimon the Sefardi, bestirred myself…[25]

While perhaps not the ideal curriculum, the exigencies of the time demanded the production of a bold new work on the order of Mishneh Torah that would preserve the practice of Halakhah for the masses ill-equipped to make their way through the labyrinthine discussions of the Talmud or even the decisions of the Gaonica (originally intended to clarify the canons of Jewish Law).

But was there perhaps another purpose of Mishneh Torah that Maimonides kept to himself and was not willing to divulge in writing? In Hilkhot Talmud Torah (Laws of the Study of Torah), Maimonides would proceed to sketch the traditional trivium of Mikra (Bible), Mishnah and Talmud, [26]such that Pardes (the esoteric teachings of Judaism) comes under the rubric of “Talmud”[27]; and that furthermore, the mature scholar who has covered the requisite literature and is thus no longer bound by the daily trivium, “will devote all his days exclusively to Talmud, according to the breadth of his mind and the composure of his intellect.”[28]

Was the condensing of Talmud into Mishneh Torah Maimonides’ master plan to free time for the study of Pardes or esoterica? Should that prove true, then Ibn Kaspi’s interest,[29] and mutatis mutandis that of the Tikkunei Zohar and Ra‘ya Mehemna, was not so very different from that of HaRav HaMoreh.[30]

[1] This fact was recognized two and a half centuries ago by the discerning eye of Rabbi Jacob Emden. See Emden’s Mitpahat Sefarim, Altona 1768, Part 1, chap. 3 (6b); chaps. 6-7 (16b-17b); Lvov 1870, pp. 12, 37-39.

Whereas Zohar itself has come to be associated with the name of Rabbi Moses de Leon, no single name surfaces in regard to Tikkunei Zohar and Ra‘ya Mehemna (though there are some who would attribute the latter to a yet unidentified disciple of De Leon).

It should be mentioned in passing that even in regard to the authorship of the Zohar there has been a sea change in scholarly thinking. Unlike Scholem, who was convinced that the single author of the Zohar was Rabbi Moses de Leon, current thinking (spearheaded by Yehuda Liebes) rejects this notion of single authorship and assumes the Zohar to be a collaborative or composite work on the part of a mystic fraternity or haburah.

[2] See Zohar I, 27b. This is actually a segment of Tikkunei Zohar that the Italian printers in 1558 mistakenly embedded in Zohar. See Editor Daniel Matt’s note to the Pritzker edition of the Zohar, vol. 1 (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2004), p. 170, note 499. See also the Introduction to Tikkunei Zohar (Vilna, 1867), 15b and gloss of the Vilna Gaon, s.v. shalta shifhah.

And see the Tikkunim appended to Tikkunei Zohar (Margaliyot ed.), tikkun 9 (147a).

By the same token, there are passages where the Mishnah is related to Metatron, the “‘eved” (male servant). See e.g. Ra‘ya Mehemna in Zohar III, 29b; and The Hebrew Writings of the Author of Tiqqunei Zohar and Ra‘aya Mehemna (Hebrew), ed. Efraim Gottlieb (Jerusalem: The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 2003), p. 1, line 3.

Moshe Idel has demonstrated that this motif whereby the Mishnah is juxtaposed to Metatron is to be found in the obscure work of Rabbi Abraham Esquira, Yesod ‘Olam (Ms. Moscow, Günzburg 607, 80a-b). See Idel’s introduction to The Hebrew Writings of the Author of Tiqqunei Zohar and Ra‘aya Mehemna, pp. 23-24, 27-28. Inter alia, Esquira’s text makes mention of “six hundred orders of Mishnah.” This is a reference to b. Hagigah 14a. See Rashi there s.v. shesh me’ot sidrei Mishnah. Thus, p. 23, n. 76 of Idel’s introduction is in need of correction. By the same token, Esquira’s “seven hundred orders of confusion” (“shesh me’ot sidrei bilbulim”) is a parody of the “seven hundred orders of Mishnah” in b. Hagigah 14a. See Idel, ibid. p. 28, n. 105.

Concerning the juxtaposition of the six-lettered Metatron, the servant, to the six days of the work week, see the Vilna Gaon’s gloss to Tikkunei Zohar (Vilna, 1867), tikkun 18 (33b), s.v. be-gin de-Metatron. There is precedent in a Teshuvat ha-Ge’onim (Gaonic responsum) for restricting the activity of the angelic realm to the six days of the week and reserving the seventh Sabbath day for Israel’s sphere of influence. See Tosafot, Sanhedrin 37b, s.v. mi-kenaf ha-’arets zemirot shama‘nu; and Rabbi Reuven Margaliyot, Margaliyot ha-Yam ad locum, and idem, Nitsutsei Zohar to Ra‘ya Mehemna in Zohar III, 93a, note 2.

Later, in sixteenth-century Safed, Rabbi Isaac Luria advised reserving the Sabbath day for the exclusive study of Kabbalah (“as was the custom of the early ones”), while relegating the study of Halakhah to the six work days. This is hinted to in the two verses “Hishtahavu la-Hashem be-hadrat kodesh” (whose initials form the word “Kabbalah”) and “Hari‘u la-Hashem kol ha-’arets (initials “Halakhah”). See Rabbi Hayyim Vital, Peri ‘Ets Hayyim (Dubrovna, 1804), Sha‘ar ha-Shabbat , chap. 21 (103c); Rabbi Jacob Zemah, Nagid u-Metsaveh (Lublin, 1881), 25b. And see Peri ‘Ets Hayyim, Sha‘ar Hanhagat ha-Limmud, s.v. kavvanat keri’at ha-Mishnah (85a): “Know that the Mishnah is Metatron in Yetsirah…”

In the Ra‘ya Mehemna in Zohar III, 279b, the Mishnah is referred to as the “shifhah…the female of the ‘eved, na‘ar (“lad”). “Na‘ar” or “lad” is yet another epithet for Metatron; see b. Yevamot 16b (based on Psalms 37:25) and Tosafot ad loc. s.v. pasuk zeh sar ha-‘olam amaro. Just as Metatron is referred to as “‘eved,” “for his name is like that of his Master” (b. Sanhedrin 38b). Both Metatron and Shadai have the numerical value of 318. (In Ra‘ya Mehemna in Zohar III, 82b it is spelled out that “Metatron is a good servant, a faithful servant to his Master.”)

In Ra‘ya Mehemna, in Zohar III, 276a, three of the most difficult tractates of the Mishnah are singled out for derision, ‘Eruvin, Niddah and Yevamot, as they are assigned the acronym ‘Ani (poor man).  The Vilna Gaon points out that the derogation of the rabbis, students of the Mishnah, is not absolute, but only relative to the “ba‘alei kabbalah” (“masters of the Kabbalah”). See Yahel ’Or, ed. Naftali Hertz Halevi (Vilna, 1882), Tetse, 276a, s.v. ve-i teima.

Earlier in that passage (Zohar 275b) we have the underhanded compliment, “Hakham Mufle Ve-Rav Rabbanan” (“Outstanding Sage and Rabbi of Rabbis”), whose initials spell the word “hamor” (jackass). (This cynical remark found its way into the modern mystery novel by Richard Zimler, The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon [Woodstock, NY: The Overlook Press, 1998], p. 44.)

One who found absolutely outrageous the labeling of the Mishnah as a “shifhah” was the Chief Rabbi of Sana‘a, Yemen, Rabbi Yahya ben Shelomo (Sliman) Kafah (1850-1931). See his ‘Amal u-Re‘ut Ru’ah va-Haramot u-Teshuvatam (Tel-Aviv, 1914; limited facsimile edition Jerusalem 1976), p. 12. Available at hebrewbooks.org.

‘Amal u-Re‘ut Ru’ah va-Haramot u-Teshuvatam is Rabbi Kafah’s rejoinder to the bans placed upon him by the various batei din (courts) of Jerusalem—Ashkenazic, Hasidic and Sefardic. It struck Rabbi Kafah as highly ironic that he, a staunch defender of Talmudic Judaism, was placed under the ban, while the Zohar, with its numerous derisions of Talmud and its students, was upheld and, what is more, sanctified. Ibid. p. 14.

The constraints of space do not allow us to explore the controversy regarding the Zohar that erupted in Yemen in the early part of the twentieth century between Rabbi Kafah and his disciples, the self-styled Darda‘im, on the one hand, and their opponents, to whom they referred as ‘Ikeshim. (The first label is based on the Midrashic pun on Darda‘ [1Kings 5:11] as Dor De‘ah, “a generation of knowledge”; the second comes from Deuteronomy 32:5, “dor ‘ikesh u-petaltol,” “a perverse and twisted generation.”) At the instigation of his critics, Rabbi Kafah was jailed on more than one occasion by the Muslim authorities. (Rabbi Kafah alludes to this in ‘Amal u-Re‘ut Ru’ah va-Haramot u-Teshuvatam, p. 14.)

The man who acted as a peacemaker between the warring factions was none other than Rabbi Abraham Isaac Hakohen Kook. While upholding Rabbi Kafah’s status as an unusual Torah scholar, Rabbi Kook conveyed to him that he had erred in taking literally passages that were intended to be understood metaphorically. See Igrot ha-Rayah, vol. 2, ed. RZYH Kook (Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook 1961), no. 626 (pp. 247-248); Haskamot ha-Rayah, ed. Y.M. Yismah and B.Z Kahana (Jerusalem, 1988), no. 41 (pp. 46-47); Ma’amrei ha-Rayah, vol. 2, ed. Elisha Aviner (Langenauer) (Jerusalem, 1984), pp. 518-521. An incomplete variant of the letter in Haskamot ha-Rayah was published by Rabbi Moshe Zuriel, Otserot ha-Rayah, vol. 1 (Rishon LeZion, 2002), no. 76 (p. 447). See further Rabbi Zevi Yehudah Hakohen Kook, Li-Sheloshah be-Ellul I (Jerusalem, 1938; photo offset Jerusalem, 1978), par. 107 (p. 46).

For Rav Kook’s involvement with the Yemenite community and facilitating their ‘aliyah at the beginning of the twentieth century, see ibid. par. 42 (p. 21); and recently Ben Zion Rosenfeld, “Yahaso shel ha-Rayah Kook le-Hakhmei ha-Mizrah bi-Tekufat Yaffo 5664-5674 (1904-1914)” [“HaRav Avraham Isaac HaCohen Kook and his Attitude Regarding the Sephardi Sages During His Stay in Jaffa 5664–567 4(1904–1914)”], Libi ba-Mizrah (My Heart Is in the East) 1 (2019), pp. 287-290.

[3] See Rabbi Hayyim Vital, introduction to Sha‘ar ha-Hakdamot (printed as an introduction to the standard editions of ‘Ets Hayyim); Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, Iggeret ha-Kodesh (4^th section of Tanya), chap. 26 (especially 143a). And see Rabbi Dov Baer Shneuri, Bi’urei ha-Zohar (Brooklyn, NY: Kehot, 2015), Bereshit (to Zohar I, 27b), 5a-8d.

[4] Heinrich Graetz, History of the Jews, cited in Gershom G. Scholem, “The Meaning of the Torah in Jewish Mysticism,” in idem, On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism (New York: Schocken Books, 1970), p. 70, n. 1.

[5] b. Niddah 61b.

Contra Graetz, Scholem, referring to “the ambiguity of certain statements about the hierarchical order of the Bible, the Mishnah, the Talmud, and the Kabbalah, which are frequent in the Ra‘ya Mehemna and the Tikkunim, and which have baffled not a few readers of these texts,” states categorically: “It would be a mistake to term these passages antinomistic or anti-Talmudic” (op. cit. p. 70). Rather, to describe the peculiar posture of the Ra‘ya Mehemna and the Tikkunim, Scholem coins the term “utopian antinomianism” or “antinomian utopia” (op. cit., pp. 80, 82).

Other secular scholars who objected to Graetz’s judgment concerning the controversial passages in the Zohar (or to be more precise, Tikkunei Zohar) were Bernfeld and Zinberg. See Heinrich Graetz, Geschichte der Juden, 7, Beilage 12; Shim‘on Bernfeld, Da‘at Elohim, Part 1 (Warsaw, 1897), pp. 396-397, note 1; Israel Zinberg, A History of Jewish Literature, vol. 3, transl. Bernard Martin (Cleveland: The Press of Case Western Reserve University, 1973), pp. 55-56.

[6] Scholem and Idel would date Tikkunei Zohar and Ra‘ya Mehemna as early as the end of the thirteenth century (bringing the work in contact with Rabbi Moses de Leon). See Idel’s introduction to The Hebrew Writings of the Author of Tiqqunei Zohar and Ra‘aya Mehemna, pp. 10, 25-26, 29. Tishby established the years 1312-1313 as the terminus ad quem for the composition of Tikkunei Zohar based on its Messianic expectations for those years. Cited in Idel, ibid. p. 10, n. 7. See also p. 23. Idel, relying on Liebes, would make the terminus ad quem a year earlier, 1311. (Ibid.)

[7] See Zohar I, 27a:

They embittered their lives with hard labor (‘avodah kashah)—with kushya (difficulty);

with mortar (homer)—with kal ve-homer (a fortiori);

and with bricks (levenim)—with libun hilkheta (clarification of the law);

and with all [manner of] labor in the field—this is Beraita;

all their labor—this is Mishnah.

Though mistakenly embedded by the Italian printers back in 1558 in the text of the Zohar, this is actually a segment from the later work Tikkunei Zohar. See above note 2.

This same anachronistic interpretation of the verse in Exodus 1:14 is found (with slight variations) in the Ra‘ya Mehemna, again embedded in Zohar III, 153a, 229b (though in this case explicitly identified as Ra‘ya Mehemna). See also Tikkunei Zohar, tikkun 21 (Margaliyot ed. 44a); the additional Tikkunim appended to Tikkunei Zohar, tikkun 9 (147a); and the Tikkunim appended to Zohar Hadash (Margaliyot ed.), 97d (where the end of the verse is interpreted, “be-pharekh—da pirkha”), 98b, 99b.

And see now, The Hebrew Writings of the Author of Tiqqunei Zohar and Ra‘aya Mehemna (Hebrew), ed. Efraim Gottlieb and Moshe Idel (Jerusalem: The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 2003), pp. 39-40.

This degradation of Talmudic hermeneutic was duly noted by Rabbi Kafah (see above note 2). Kafah believed that the not so hidden agenda of the anonymous writer was to promote the study of Kabbalah at the expense of the study of Talmud. See ‘Amal u-Re‘ut Ru’ah va-Haramot u-Teshuvatam, p. 12: “The entire purpose of the author of the Zohar is to cause the Mishnah and the Talmud to be forgotten from Israel, to stop up the mouth of the well of living waters from which flow the ways of the Oral Law, and have them occupy themselves with his new Torah.”

[8] The primary meaning of the Hebrew word shitah is a line; hence, a line of thought. For its derivative usage in medieval rabbinical literature, see Mordechai Breuer, ’Ohalei Torah (Jerusalem: Shazar Center, 2004), pp. 109, 510; Ya‘akov Spiegel, ‘Ammudim be-Toledot ha-Sefer ha-‘Ivri, vol. 2 (Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan, 2005), p. 442; and lately, Hayyim Eliezer Ashkenazi, “Heker ve-‘Iyun be-Sifrei Rishonim (4),” Yeshurun, vol. 40 (Nisan 5779), p. 930, n. 7.

In the London Beth Din Ms. 40 (designated in the microfilm collection of the National Library of Israel, F4708), f.30, this word reads “mishnayot,” rather than shitot, but the reading is unlikely, to say the least. Cf. below n. 11.

[9] Maimonides, MT, Hil. Sukkah 4:1.

[10] The three opinions are found in b. Sukkah 2a.

[11] In the London Beth Din ms. for “shitot” there occurs the grotesquerie “shtuyot” (foolishness).

[12] The London Beth Din ms. has the superior reading “eino reshut o makom patur.”

[13] Joseph ben Abba Mari ibn Kaspi, Sefer ha-Mussar/Yoreh De‘ah, chap. 15.

Ibn Kaspi’s Sefer ha-Mussar was published in a couple of collections: Eliezer Ashkenazi of Tunis’ Ta‘am Zekenim (Frankfurt am Main, 1854); and Isaac Last’s ‘Asarah Klei Kesef (Pressburg, 1903). Our particular chapter (15) appeared earlier in the introduction to Ibn Kaspi’s ‘Ammudei Kesef u-Maskiyot Kesef, ed. Salomo Werbluner (Frankfurt am Main, 1848), p. xv. In Ta‘am Zekenim our quote appears on 53a; in ‘Asarah Klei Kesef on p. 70.

Sefer ha-Mussar was written for Ibn Kaspi’s twelve year old son Shelomo residing in Tarascon (Provence). According to the colophon, it was completed in 1332 in Valencia (Catalonia).

[14] Moshe Kahan is of the opinion that Joseph himself was born in Arles, and that it was his ancestors who hailed from Argentière (hence the Hebrew surname Kaspi). See M. Kahan, “Joseph ibn Kaspi—From Arles to Majorca,” Iberia Judaica VIII (2016), pp. 181-192.

[15] Kahan dates the journey between the years 1313-1315, and writes that Ibn Kaspi stayed in Egypt for about five months. Op. cit. p. 182.

In Mishneh Kesef I, ed. Isaac Last (Pressburg, 1905; photo offset Jerusalem, 1970), chap. 14 (pp. 18-19), Ibn Kaspi writes that about two years ago, at approximately age thirty-five, he went down to Egypt. The colophon of the book (p. 168) is datelined Arles, 1317, which would mean that the Egyptian expedition took place about the year 1315.

In Sefer ha-Mussar, which according to the colophon was completed in Valencia in 1332, we receive a slightly different picture. In the introduction, Ibn Kaspi writes that twenty years previous he wandered to Egypt; the total trip, from beginning to end, lasted five months. If we take him at his word, the trip to Egypt was in 1312. What is clear is that the actual sojourn in Egypt was less than five months.

[16] Introduction to Sefer ha-Mussar. In chap. 15, Ibn Kaspi spells out his fascination with Fez: “The Jews find repulsive and abandon today the Guide…the Christians respect and exalt it, and have translated it [to Latin]. All the more so the Ishmaelites; in Fez [italics mine—BN] and other lands, they established study-houses to learn the Guide from the mouth of Jewish scribes.”

[17] See Israel Ta-Shma, Rabbi Zerahyah Halevi (Ba‘al ha-Ma’or) u-B’nei Hugo (Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1992), pp. 2, 16; Hayyim Eliezer Ashkenazi, “Heker ve-‘Iyun be-Sifrei Rishonim (4),” p. 933, n. 17.

[18] Though scholars assume a Castilian—rather than a Catalonian—provenance for Tikkunei Zohar and Ra‘ya Mehemna, I do not see that as a major obstacle. Surely, the main flow of traffic was between Provence in the south of France and Catalonia in the north of Spain, but for Jews, Sefarad was an overarching unity, no matter the local potentates into which it was fragmented. Thus, in 1305, the Rabbi of Barcelona, Catalonia, Rabbi Solomon ben Abraham ibn Adret (Rashba) was able to place a newly arrived German émigré, Rabbi Asher ben Yehiel (Rosh) in the rabbinate of Toledo, Castile. (See Avraham Hayyim Freimann, Ha-Rosh ve-Tse’etsa’av, trans. Menahem Eldar [Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1986], pp. 28-29.)

Sometimes, within a single family one finds both strands of Kabbalah, Castilian and Catalonian. Isaac ibn Sahula, native of Guadalajara, Castile, author of the bestiary Meshal ha-Kadmoni (1281), as well as a kabbalistic commentary to Song of Songs, was a disciple of Rabbi Moses of Burgos, as well as an assumed associate of Rabbi Moses de Leon. (The first reference to the Midrash ha-Ne‘elam, an early stratum of the Zoharic literature, is found in Ibn Sahula’s Meshal ha-Kadmoni.) His brother, Meir ibn Sahula, on the other hand, prided himself on his Catalonian and Provencal pedigree, being a disciple of “Rabbi Joshua ibn Shu‘aib and of Rabbi Solomon ben Abraham ibn Adret (Rashba), who received from Nahmanides, who in turn received from Rabbi Isaac the Blind, son of Rabad of Posquières, who in turn received from Elijah the Prophet.” So writes Meir ibn Sahula at the conclusion to his commentary on the Bahir, “’Or ha-Ganuz.”

(Yehuda Liebes speculated that the especially acerb remarks that precede this peroration are directed against recent developments in Castilian Kabbalah, namely the Zohar. See Y. Liebes, Studies in the Zohar [Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993], pp. 168-169, n. 50. However, in all fairness, the description of those “who expound books and books of the nations, and transcribe therein their gods, and call them ‘Secrets of the Torah’ [Sitrei Torah],” sounds more like an attack on Maimonides and his followers who construe Aristotelian philosophy as Sitrei Torah, than an assault upon the Zohar. At the end of his lengthy footnote, Liebes conceded this distinct possibility.)

Thus, the division of Spanish Kabbalah into discrete units of Castilian versus Catalonian traditions need not prejudice us against the possibility of penetrations and influences that defy this dyadic model. One needs to complexify the general picture of Spanish Kabbalah in order to appreciate the multiplicity of forces at work. Binaries are helpful as historic guidelines but they can never do justice to the complexity of lived reality.

[19] Tishby collected some of these Tibbonide neologisms, starting with “nefesh ha-sikhlit” or “intellectual soul” (Ra‘ya Mehemna in Zohar III, 29b). See Isaiah Tishby, Mishnat ha-Zohar, vol. 1, 2^nd printing with corrections (Jerusalem: Mossad Bialik, 1949), pp. 77-78.

One can well appreciate how the Chief Rabbi of Sana‘a, Yemen, Yahya ben Shelomo Kafah, a most outspoken opponent of the Zohar, typified its author as “the philosopher, author of the Zohar” (“ha-philosoph mehabber ha-Zohar”). See his ‘Amal u-Re‘ut Ru’ah va-Haramot u-Teshuvatam, pp. 12-16.

Besides the obvious use of Maimonidean terminology, there is the subtle copying of categories. An example would be the way in which the author of Tikkunei Zohar patterned his “hamesh minim” (“five species” or “five sects”) of the ‘Erev Rav (Mixed Multitude) after Maimonides’ “hamishah minim” (“five sectarians”). The passage from Tikkunei Zohar was incorporated by the printers in Zohar I, 25a. (The note in Derekh Emet alerts the reader that the material correlates to Tikkunei Zohar, tikkun 50. In the new Pritzker edition of the Zohar, the passage from Tikkunei Zohar has been removed.) Maimonides’ “hamishah minim” are found in MT, Hil. Teshuvah 3:7. This is just a random sample of the pervasive influence of Maimonides on the author of Tikkunei Zohar and Ra‘ya Mehemna.

Cf. the direct quote from Maimonides, Hil. Teshuvah 3:6 in Isaac ibn Sahula’s Meshal ha-Kadmoni (Venice, 1546), Sha‘ar ha-Rishon (10a), s.v. va-yo’el ha-tsevi le-va’er. And see now Sarah Offenberg, “On Heresy and Polemics in Two Proverbs in Meshal Haqadmoni” (Hebrew), Jewish Thought 1 (2019), pp. 64-65. Recently, Hartley Lachter has attempted to demonstrate that the general tenor of Meshal ha-Kadmoni is esoteric; see H. Lachter, “Spreading Secrets: Kabbalah and Esotericism in Isaac ibn Sahula’s Meshal ha-Kadmoni,” Jewish Quarterly Review, Vol. 100, No. 1 (Winter 2010), pp. 111-138.

[20] It should be noted, for whatever it is worth, that Pinhas ben Meshullam was a Provencal rabbi who took up the post of Dayyan of Alexandria, Egypt. It would be pure conjecture on my part to posit that his critique of Maimonides reflected the way in which Mishneh Torah had been received in Provence. It is equally possible that Pinhas’ critique was not based on actual observation of the Provencal reception of Mishneh Torah.

[21] See Igrot ha-Rambam, ed. Yitzhak Shilat, vol. 2 (Jerusalem, 1988), pp. 438-439; quoted in Bezalel Naor, The Limit of Intellectual Freedom: The Letters of Rav Kook (Spring Valley, NY: Orot, 2011), pp. 297-298.

[22] The term “hivemind” referred originally to the coordinated behavior of a colony of insects (bees or ants) which to an outside observer, appears the workings of a single mind. In the age of the Internet, it refers to the collectivity of the users who function as a single mind in expressing their thoughts and opinions. This is, in effect, what Maimonides created in Mishneh Torah. As he stated it so eloquently in the introduction to that work:

I…intently studied all these works, with the view of putting together the results obtained from them in regard to what is forbidden or permitted, clean or unclean, and the other rules of the Torah—all in plain language and terse style, so that thus the entire Oral Law might become systematically known to all, without citing difficulties and solutions or differences of view, one person saying so, and another something else [italics mine—BN]—but consisting of statements, clear and convincing, and in accordance with the conclusions drawn from all these compilations and commentaries that have appeared from the time of Rabbenu ha-Kadosh [i.e. Rabbi Judah the Prince] to the present, so that all the rules shall be accessible to young and old, whether these appertain to the (Pentateuchal) precepts or to the institutions established by the sages and prophets, so that no other work should be needed for ascertaining any of the laws of Israel, but that this work might serve as a compendium of the entire Oral Law…

(Moses Hyamson translation with correction)

[23] See A.H. Freimann, Ha-Rosh ve-Tse’etsa’av, chap. 4 (pp. 32-41).

[24] She’elot u-Teshuvot ha-Rosh 31:9; quoted in Bezalel Naor, The Limit of Intellectual Freedom, pp. 300-301.

[25] Translation of Moses Hyamson with slight alterations.

[26] b. Kiddushin 30a. See Tosafot there s.v. lo tserikha le-yomei.

[27] MT, Hil. Talmud Torah 1:11.

[28] Ibid. 1:12.

[29] In Sefer ha-Mussar, chap. 10, Ibn Kaspi lays out a study plan for his twelve year old son, Shelomo. He advises Shelomo to spend the next two years studying Bible and Talmud. From fourteen to sixteen, he should turn his attention to ethics: Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Avot with the commentary and introduction of Maimonides, Hilkhot De‘ot of Sefer ha-Madda‘, as well as Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Starting at age sixteen, for the next two years, he should tackle the Halakhic codes of Alfasi, Rabbi Moses of Coucy [i.e. Sefer Mitsvot Gadol or SeMaG] and Maimonides, and pursue the study of logic. At age eighteen, he would be well advised to study natural science for two years. Finally, at age twenty, Shelomo should commence studying Aristotle’s Metaphysics and Maimonides’ Guide. (He is also advised to take a wife at that time.)

[30] See Maimonides’ famous parable of the King’s palace in Guide of the Perplexed III, 51.

The Fish Motif on Early Hebrew Title-Pages and as Pressmarks

by Marvin J. Heller

            Fish are a symbol replete with meaning, among them, in Judaism, representing fertility and good luck, albeit that fish are not an image that, for most, quickly comes to mind when considering Jewish iconography. Created on the fifth day of creation, fish symbolize fruitfulness, and, as Dr. Joseph Lowin informs, the month of Adar on the Hebrew calendar (February-March, Pisces) is considered “a lucky month for the Jews (mazal dagim).” He adds that in Eastern Europe people named sons Fishl as a symbol of luck, and that in the Bible, the father of Joshua is named fish, that is, Nun, which is fish in Aramaic.[1] Similarly, Ellen Frankel and Betsy Platkin Teutsch note the allusion to fertility and blessing, the former that when Jacob blesses Ephraim and Manasseh, Joseph’s sons, he says “May they multiply abundantly ve-yidgu, like fish) in the midst of the earth” (Genesis 48:16) and the latter to the Leviathan, the great sea monster the Jews will feast upon in the messianic age.[2]

Other biblical references to fish include Dagon, the fish-god of the Philistines, also worshipped elsewhere in the Middle East, mentioned several times in the Bible (Joshua15:41, 19:27; Judges 16:23; I Samuel 5:2–7; and I Chronicles 10:10).  A fish also appears in the biblical story of Jonah, a large fish (dag gadol), not the popular whale that swallowed the prophet.

            Not only Jewish sources and printers used devices that were fish related. The Medjed fish, a species of elephant fish, a medium-sized freshwater fish with a long downturned snout, abundant in the Nile, was worshipped at Oxyrhynchus in ancient Egypt and appears in Egyptian art. Fish are a not infrequent image on medieval coat of arms. Indeed, there are as many as 181 shields of salmon alone in heraldry.[3] The most well-known printer device with a fish is the anchor and dolphin of Aldus Manutius (1449-1515), albeit not strictly speaking a fish, as a dolphin is actually an aquatic marine mammal. Among the most novel of the marine pressmarks is that of the Liege printer J. M. Hovii, active during the latter half of the seventeenth century, whose mark consisted of a mermaid enwrapped about a tree with a skull at the foot of the tree.[4]

            This article is the most recent in a series describing printer’s devices and motifs appearing on the title-pages and with the colophons of early Hebrew printed books.[5] The use of the fish images described here are varied, comprised of pressmarks and full page frames which include representations of marine life. The discussion of the images and the presses are for the sixteenth into the eighteenth century. Although a number and variety of presses that that utilized marks with fish are addressed in this article they are examples only and not necessarily complete. Furthermore, the entries are expansive, that is, printers’ marks are not described in isolation but with discussions of the presses that employed them and examples of the books on which they appeared. Entries are in chronological.[6]

            As noted above, the month of Adar is, if not exactly, coterminous with the astrological sign of Pisces. That sign is represented by a pair of fish swimming in opposite directions, as fish swimming against the stream represents the powerful Pisces potential. They can be ‘sharks’ – charismatic, strong leaders with vision and clarity about leadership that can guide an entire nation, like Moses, who was also a Pisces. But those Pisces who prefer to go with the flow can be weak people who get carried away easily and are prone to addictive patterns of behavior.

Pisces is known for the holiday of Purim. According to the sages, it will be the only holiday to continue to be celebrated throughout the world after the Messiah comes. “When Adar begins, joy enters,” as the famous Hebraic phrase goes. It is a month of happiness, miracles and wonders. It affords us the ability to achieve mind over matter, to overcome our doubts, and connect to the Light.[7]

            Another compatible view of Adar and fish states that “The astral sign of Adar is the fish (Pisces). Fish are very fertile, and for that reason are seen as a sign of blessing and fruitfulness. The Hebrew word for blessing is bracha, from the root letters bet, reish, kaff. In Jewish numerology (gematria), the letter bet has a value of 2, reish is 200 and kaff is 20. Each of these is the first plural in their number unit. What this tells us is that the Jewish concept of ‘blessing’is intertwined with fertility, represented by the fish of Adar.”[8]

            Our first example of a pressmark with a fish is the most unusual in the article, the only device in which the fish is not only completely inconsistent with the above description but is the least prominent representation of a fish of all the pressmarks in the article. Among the earliest printers to make utilize of the fish in a pressmark is Joseph ben Jacob Shalit in Sabbioneta. Although the Sabbioneta press is commonly associated with Tobias ben Eliezer Foa, it was Shalit who appears to initially have been the motivating force behind the press and, with other partners, the provider of necessary financial support. Tobias Foa is credited with providing only the physical quarters, Duke Vespasian Gonzaga’s patronage, and limited financial assistance. Also associated with the press were Cornelius Adelkind, Vincenzo Conti, and R. Joshua Boaz Baruch, all prominent names in mid-sixteenth century Hebrew printing in Italy.

The first title printed at the press was Don Isaac ben Judah Abrabanel’s (1437-1508) Mirkevet ha‑Mishneh (1551), a commentary on Deuteronomy. Abrabanel began work on Mirkevet ha‑Mishneh when still in Lisbon, unlike the remainder of his commentary on the Torah which was written much later. Its completion was postponed, however, due to his responsibilities at the Portuguese court. The incomplete manuscript of Mirkevet ha-Mishneh was lost when Abrabanel was forced to flee Portugal in 1483. However, on his later peregrinations after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain Abrabanel came to the island of Corfu in 1493, where he serendipitously (miraculously) found a copy of the manuscript. Leaving aside other work he turned to completing this commentary, but after the departure of French troops from Naples, Abrabanel went to Monopoli (Apulia), where Mirkevet ha-Mishneh was finally completed in the first part of 1496.

The title page, dated 5311 Rosh Hodesh Sivan (Wednesday, May 16, 1551) is comprised of an architectural border with standing representations of the mythological Mars and Minerva. This border was first employed by Francesco Minizio Calvo in Rome in 1523 and as late as 1540 in Milan. This is its earliest appearance in a Hebrew book. It would be often reused and copied, appearing on the title pages of books printed as far apart as Salonika and Cracow.[9]

On the final unfoliated leaf are two devices, on the right that of Foa, a palm tree with a lion rampant on each side and affixed to the tree a Magen David, about it the verse, “The righteous flourish like the palm tree” (Psalms 92:13), all within a circle, and to the sides the letters ט and פ for Tobias Foa. On the left is Shalit’s device, a peacock standing on three rocks, facing left, with a fish in its beak within a cartouche, although Avraham Yaari, after describing the peacock with a fish, adds, in parenthesis, (or a worm?). The letters יביש about this device stand for Joseph ben Jacob Shalit. Also printed by the press that year was R. Isaac ben Moses Arama’s (c. 1420–1494) Ḥazut Kashah, on the relationship of philosophy and religion. It too has the Mars and Minerva title-page, but here the last leaf is foliated and has one pressmark only, the peacock with fish of Shalit.[10] Parenthetically, Arama too was a refugee from Spain.

Fig. 1 pressmarks of Joseph Shalit (left) and Tobias Foa (right)

The peacock with fish pressmark was reused by Shalit in Mantua at the press of Venturin Rufinelli with the colophon of several works, for example the late 10th century ethical work based on animal tales, translated from the encyclopedic Arabic Rasa`il ikhwan as-safa` wa khillan al-wafa` (Epistles of the Brethren of Purity and Loyal Friends) into Hebrew by Kalonymus ben Kalonymus (c. 1286-c. 1328) as Iggeret Ba’alei Hayyim (1557). The original is comprised of 52 eclectic volumes (pamphlets) on philosophy, religion, mathematics, logic, and music. The portion from which Iggeret Ba’alei Hayyim is taken appears at the end of the 25th book. The original was prepared by the Brethren of Purity, a secret Arab confraternity which flourished in Basra, Iraq in the second half of the tenth century. The tales themselves have an Indian origin. Four other varied works of note with the peacock with fish pressmark are R. Saadiah ben Joseph Gaon’s (882-942) Sefer ha-Tehiyyah ve-Sefer ha-Pedut (1556) on resurrection; R. Abraham ben Samuel ha-Levi ibn Hasdai’s (13th century) Ben ha-Melekh ve-ha-Nazir (1557), also based on an Indian romance and here derived from the Arabic; Berechiah ben Natronai ha-Nakdan’s (12th-13th century) Mishlei Shu’alim (1557-58) popular collection of fables, and a Haggadah with the Mars and Minerva title-page (1568).

The Shalit pressmark also appears on the title-page of several books printed in Venice at the press of Giovanni di Gara, without mention of Shalit, so that Yaari suggests he was not involved with the books but it was used simply as an ornament. Among the titles with this pressmark are R. David Kimhi’s (Radak, c. 1160-c.1235) commentary on Psalms (1566), R. Moses ben Baruch Almosnino’s (c.1515 – c.1580) Me’ammez Ko’ah (1587-88), R. Samuel ben Abraham Laniado’s (d. 1605) Keli Hemdah (1596), each with a biblical verse about the frame, and R. Aaron ibn Hayyim of Fez’s  (1545–1632) Lev Aharon (1608), this last without the biblical verses about the cartouche. The Shalit pressmark appears in various places in the books, after the introduction, by the colophon, least often on the title-page. Yaari notes that the Shalit device was also employed by Georgi di Cavilli in an Ashkenaz rite Mahzor (1568).[11]

Leaving Italy, for now, and Shalit, we turn to Cracow where Isaac ben Aaron Prostitz, who together with his sons after him, printed Hebrew books for fifty years, beginning in 1569. In 1578, Prostitz printed at least three large format attractive tractates from the Talmud, Avodah Zarah, Ketubbot, and Rosh Ha-Shanah, the last extant in a ten folio unicum fragment in the library of the Jewish Theological Seminary. Moritz Steinschneider writes that Avodah Zarah was printed “si revera Supplementi tantum instar ad ed. Basil,” and “seu castrata . . .Cracoviae vero supplementi instar excusus,” that is, to compensate for its omission of the entire tractate from the much censored Basle Talmud.[12] Another feature of this tractate is that it is the first employ by Prostitz of the shield with two fish facing in opposite directions, the upper facing left, the lower facing right, above a printer’s inker, as his device.

Prostitz’s apparent next use of this device, this the first noted in bibliographic sources, is a Mahzor (1584) printed with the support of four partners, and reused frequently afterwards on such varied titles as Josippon (1589) at the end of the book, Avot with the commentary Derekh Hayyim by R. Judah Loew ben Bezalel (Maharal of Prague, c. 1525-16) after the introduction (1589), R. Moses ben Jacob Cordovero’s (Ramak, 1522-1570) Pardes Rimmonim (1591), between the books introductions, R. Bahya ben Joseph ibn Paquda’s (late 11th century) Hovot ha-Levavot, after the translator’s preface (1593) and R. Naphtali Hirsch ben Asher Altschuler’s (16th-17th cent.) Ayyalah Sheluha c. 1595. Pardes Rimmonim was actually printed in Cracow/Nowy Dwor, the change in location due to a serious outbreak of plague in Cracow, Prostitz and his family forced to flee to Nowy Dwor with the press’ typographical equipment. Pardes Rimmonim was completed in that location, the only Hebrew book printed in that Nowy Dwor.[13]

Fig. 2 Pressmark of Isaac Prostitz

Yaari questions Prostitz’s use of this pressmark. While the employ of the printer’s tool is clear, that is not the case for the fish. He suggests that it might be a propitious sign for the partners in the printing of the Mahzor in 1584, which Prostitz continued to use afterwards. This is unlikely, however, for, as we have noted, this device had been employed previously in 1578 on tractate Avodah Zarah. Another possibility is that the fish alludes to the month (Adar) in which Proztitz was born, but he then inquires why the pressmark was not used previously on all the books printed by the press. Yaari notes Steinschneider’s suggestion that the fish represented Prostitz’s entreaty for children, as his sons were borne at an old age. Here to, however, he observes that Prostitz’s four sons were born earlier, being mentioned in the colophon to Toledot Yitzhak in 1593. Another suggestion is that the fish allude to the name of R. Naphtali Hirsch ben Asher Altschuler who was known by all as Hirsch mokhir seforim (bookseller) in Lublin and for whom Prostitz printed books, for example Hovot ha-Levavot, the fish alluding to the name Naphtali, for the portion of the tribe Naphtali included the Kinneret Sea, in which fish were plentiful, but Yaari concludes this is only speculative.[14] I would question why, even if this is true for R. Altschuler, what does this have to do with Prostitiz and why he should have adopted this fish image for his pressmark?

A short lived press existed in Thannhausen, Bavaria, near Augsburg, a zoltot (supplementary festival prayers for the period between Passover and Shavu’ot) and a Mahzor (c. 1594) for the entire year according to the Ashkenaz rite were printed in the last decade of the sixteenth century. The press was a furtive effort to print Hebrew books by R. Isaac Mazia, whose name, it has been suggested, is an abbreviation for mi-zera Yehudim anusim, that is, he was of Marrano origin, or that he had served as rabbi in several communities in southern Germany, together with R. Simeon ben Judah ha-Levi of Guenzburg (Simon zur Gemze) of Frankfurt, who arranged with the Munich printer Adam Berg, to issue those works. When printing the mahzor the printers, concerned about the Christian response to sensitive passages and accusations of blasphemy, left blanks to be filled in by the purchasers.

After an examination of the still incomplete mahzorim by the censor at the University of Ingolstadt the press run of 1,500 copies was destroyed; only five copies are known to be extant today. In August, 1597, Mazia was fined 200 florin and released, while Berg, as late as 1604, was still attempting to have his impounded press returned. All of this occurred despite the fact that the authorities concurred that the mahzorim had been approved for publication by the imperial authorities in Prague. Nevertheless, the printers had neither received nor sought permission from the local authorities in Burgau to print. Moreover, as the books were for export they gave the impression that printing was done with the permission of those authorities.

 Fig. 3b Zoltot

Fig. 3a Zoltot Extract

Both titles have a like frame comprised of an ornamental border with three entwined fish at the top (the signet of Mazia), at the sides are armed men in armor each with a shield, the right shield engraved with the name R. [Isaac] Mazia, the left with the name R. Simeon Levi. At the bottom is a laver pouring water on two hands, representative of the [Simeon] Levi. Isaac Yudlov informs that the fish here represent Isaac Mazia; this appearance of three fish as a printer’s mark is apparently unique. [15]

Not long afterwards we find the fish image employed in Lublin at the press of Zevi bar Abraham Kalonymous Jaffe. Lublin has a long and proud history as a Hebrew printing center, beginning with the press established by the family of Hayyim Shahor (Schwarz), that is, his son Isaac and his son-in-law Joseph ben Yakar. This press, through descendants and collateral members, would be active for almost a hundred and fifty years. The presses’ began publishing in 1551, with a folio Polish rite mahzor for the entire year, continuing until 1646 when a fire forced the press to close; printing resumed in 1648 when tah-ve-tat (gezerot Polania, the Chmielnicki massacres of 1648-49), broke out. That and the 1655-60 Swedish Muscovy wars, combined with others conflicts besetting the area made it impossible for Jaffe to continue and he had to close the press. Printing did resume when Solomon Zalman Jaffe ben Jacob Kalmankes of Turobin, encouraged and supported by his father, reestablished a Hebrew press. He printed 30 books until 1685 and the entire Jaffe family is credited with as many as 180 Hebrew titles.

Fig. 4 Pressmark of Zevi Jaffe

A device employed by Zevi Jaffe, found on the title page of tractates in the large folio edition of the Babylonian Talmud published from 1617-1639, and after the introduction to R. Joel Sirkes’ (Bah, 1561–1640), Meishiv Nefesh, and possibly other works is a deer with raised forelegs, above a crown atop a shield with two fish, the upper facing left and the lower facing representative of the fact that he was a Levi, often accompanied by two fish, here too indicating that he was born in the month of Adar.

Among the many prominent printers of Hebrew books in Amsterdam is Uri Phoebus ben Aaron Witmund ha-Levi. He had previously worked for Immanuel Benveniste; in 1658, Uri Phoebus established his own print-shop. He would print about one hundred titles, from 1658 to 1689, the period he was active in Amsterdam, generally traditional works for the Jewish community, encompassing Bibles, prayer-books, halakhic works, haggadot, aggadot, and historical treatises (Yosippon). Prostitz’s first pressmark, employed in 1569 on the title-page of R. Naphtali Hertz ben Menahem of Lemberg’s Perush le-Midrash Humash Megillot Rabbah and intermittently afterwards was a stag within a cartouche. Subsequently, Uri Phoebus employed as his device a hand pouring water from a laver, representative of the fact that he was a Levi, often accompanied by two fish, here too indicating that he was born in the month of Adar.

The first usage by Uri Phoebus of this device was in 1660 on the title-page of Ketoret ha-Mizbe’ah, R. Mordecai ben Naphtali Hirsch of Kremsier’s (d. 1670) work on the aggadic portions of tractate Berakhot dealing with the destruction of the Temple and the length of the exile. The title-page of this folio book has an arabesque frame and across the lower half of the page is Uri Phoebus’s fish mark. That device would be frequently used as a decorative ornament in many of the books that Uri Phoebus printed, placed in various locations, after introductions or the colophons.

Fig. 5a Ketoret ha-Mizbe’ah

Fig. 5b Ketoret ha-Mizbe’ah Extract

Examples of the fish woodcut appears in other works, but not necessarily on the title-page, for example, in R. Hayyim ben Benjamin Ze’ev Bochner’s Or Hadash (c. 1671-75), on the laws of benedictions in a concise and abridged form, the title page of Or Hadash has an architectural frame headed by an eagle but no fish, that device being but one of several tail-pieces.

In 1662 Uri Phoebus printed an illustrated Haggadah accompanied by the commentary of R. Joseph Shalit ben Jacob Ashkenazi of Padua entitled Nimukei Yosef. The title-page of this quarto Haggadah has an architectural frame with two robed men at the sides, above winged cherubim and between them two fish with the winged head of a cherub. At the bottom are two vignettes; on the left the punishment of Shehem for the rape of Dinah and on the right the tribe of Levi killing the worshipers of the golden calf. In 1667-68, Uri Phoebus printed, also with this title-page, Nahalat Shivah (below and extract to right), R. Samuel ben David Moses ha-Levi’s (c.1625–1681) work on legal documents, particularly relating to divorce and civil matters. Nahalat Shivah has the same title-page as the Haggadah, here dated, “The Messiah ben David is coming משיח בן דוד בא (427 = 1667),” reflecting the referring to the false messiah Shabbetai Zevi. This title-page and fish crest (below) would be reused by Uri Phoebus for many years and elsewhere besides Amsterdam.

Fig. 6a Nahalat Shivah

Fig.6 Nahalat Shivah Extract

Other title-pages employed by Uri Phoebus, with different architectural frames but with a like laver and fish image include such varied works as R. Jonah ben Isaac Teomim (d. 1669) of Prague’s Kikayon di-Yonah (1669-70), novellae on tractates of the Babylonian Talmud and, attributed to R. David ben Aryeh Leib of Lida (c. 1650-96) Migdal David (1680), both with the Benveniste frame; and R. Isaac Benjamin Wolf ben Eliezer Lipman (d. c. 1698), rabbi of Landsberg, Germany’s Nahalat Binyamin (1682), the first part of a commentary on the taryag [613] mitzvot and R. Shabbetai ben Meir Ha-Kohen’s (Shakh, 1621–1662) Siftei Kohen, a commentary and halakhic novellae on Shulhan Arukh Hoshen Mishpat these with a frame with rectangular shapes, all with the fish and lave at the apex.[16]  The title-page of Siftei Kohen, the first part of a commentary on the taryag [613] mitzvot dates the beginning of the work to 21 Tammuz, days of the Messiah ימי המשיח (423 = Thursday, July 26, 1663). The colophon dates completion of the work to Monday, 21 Heshvan, in the days of the Messiah בימי   המשיח (425 = November 9, 1664, actually a Sunday), both dates (Messiah) a possible allusion to Shabbbtai Zevi.[17]

Among the more elaborate title-pages is that of the first complete translation of the Bible (1676-78) into Yiddish by R. Jekuthiel ben Isaac Blitz, a rabbi from Witmund, Germany and corrector at the press of Uri Phoebus. This edition was the subject of a serious controversy with the Amsterdam printer Joseph Athias, who published an almost simultaneous and related Yiddish edition by Joseph Witzenhausen printed (Amsterdam, 1679-87).

Fig. 7a Bible – Engraved Front-piece

Fig. 7b Later Prophets

Figs. 7c, 7d Extracts

The Bible has an engraved front-piece title-page with depictions of Moses and Aaron, Mount Sinai at the top, and in the lower right hand corner a coronet and below it the raised hands of the Kohen giving a benediction. In the lower left hand corner is a fish and laver image, here the two fish are crisscrossed. The engraved title page is incorrectly dated תזל כטל (439 = 1679), whereas the like title-pages for each of the biblical divisions are correctly dated  תלז(437 = 1677), such as Later Prophets, below. The text has a separate but like title-page for Former Prophets, Later Prophets, and Writings. Note that in the otherwise like depictions of the fish and laver the position of the laver and water is reversed.

In 1689, Uri Phoebus ceased printing in Amsterdam, in order to relocate to Poland. Faced with competition from the large number of Hebrew printers in Amsterdam, Uri Phoebus felt that he would be more successful in Poland, located closer to its large Jewish population, a major market for the Hebrew printing-houses of Amsterdam. He established the first Hebrew press in Zolkiew in 1691, bringing his typographical material with him. Uri Phoebus’ descendants continued to operate Hebrew printing-presses in Poland into the twentieth century.

One of, if not the first book printed by Uri Phoebus in Zolkiew is R. Mordecai ben Moses Katz of Prostitz’s Derekh Yam ha-Talmud (1692) a super-commentary on the Hiddushei Halakhot of R. Samuel Eliezer ben Judah ha-Levi Edels (Maharsha). The title-page of this small work (4⁰: 8ff.), much worn, appears to be the Benveniste frame, but at the apex is the same fish image as at the apex of Siftei Kohen. Among the decorative material, after the introduction and after the colophon is Uri Phoebus’ four fish mark, one on each side facing a laver from which water is being poured.

Among the other works published by Uri Phoebus in Zolkiew with the Nahalat Shivah title page reproduced above, is R. Jekuthiel ben Solomon Zalman ha-Levi Suesskind’s Dat Yekuthiel (1696,), a concise (8⁰: 16 ff.) versified enumeration of the taryag mitzvoth (613 commandments). After the approbations to Dat Yekuthiel, there are thirteen, is the press mark comprised of four fish and laver. The title-page informs that the manuscript was found by Jekuthiel’s son Jonah of Kalish in his father’s bag, and arranged and brought to press by his grandson Menahem Feibush.

After the approbations is a letter from Jekuthiel to his son Eliezer. Jekuthiel, who was incarcerated at the time, in which he writes from his dark cell of his painful existence, where he had “wormwood, and gall to drink” (cf. Jeremiah 9:14) until “‘My soul is weary of my life’ (Job 10:1) ‘and my soul became impatient’ (Zechariah 11:8) to die in this way with this ‘light bread’ (Numbers 21:5) that I eat, absorbed in all my limbs, ‘the bread of adversity, and the water of affliction’” (Isaiah 30:20). Jekuthiel continues, describing his hardships, and then writes, “I will pay my vows to the Lord” (Psalms 116:14, 18) and that he took “of that which came to my hand a (new) offering” (cf. Genesis 32:14) on the taryag mitzvot. He thought to write on them in verse, “parallel, one with the other” (Exodus 26:17, 36:22), in single stanzas to the end, in the order of the Torah with references to the Hamishah Homshei Torah in the margins. Jekuthiel tells his son to take this as his blessing, which will be for a remembrance for both of them.

Uri Phoebus passed away in c. 1705.[18] He was succeeded in Zolkiew by his son Hayyim David, who had assisted his father at the press. Unfortunately, Hayyim David died shortly after his father, leaving the print-shop, in turn, to his sons, Aaron and Gershon. Uri Phoebus’ descendants continued to operate Hebrew printing-presses in Poland into the twentieth century. Aaron and Gershon did not use the ornamental material brought by Uri Phoebus to Zolkiew, instead preparing new frames that also reflected that they were Levi’im, and employed on such small format books as R. Raphael Lonzano’s Kinyan Avraham (1723) and R. Meir ben Levi’s Likkutei Shoshanim (1727). This ornate frame continued to be used by their descendants, among them Judah Solomon Yarsh Rappaport in Lvov on a Shir ha-Shirim with the commentary Magishi Minhah (1817) in Lvov.[19]

Fig. 8a Kinyan Avraham

Fig. 8b Kinyan Avraham Extract

            Turning to, Germany, we find two fish, here facing in the same direction, on a title-page with an architectural pillared title-page, and at the bottom a palm tree, about it on the left a crab facing right and on the right two fish, both facing left, the former the sign of Tammuz (Cancer, scorpio), and, as already well noted, the latter the sign of Adar. The two zodiacal emblems may have had a personal significance, but, as Yosef Hayyim Yerushalmi observes describing a slightly later usage “the significance of this combination is difficult to ascertain.[20]

First employed in Fuerth by Joseph ben Solomon Zalman Schneur and his sons from 1691 through 1698, beginning with Torat Kohanim, and other folio volumes, primarily from the Shulhan Arukh, a like frame was subsequently used by Aaron ben Uri Lippman Frankel beginning with a Haggadah, in Sulzbach (below). Aaron was active in Sulzbach from the mid-1690’s until he passed away in 1720 at the age of seventy-five, first utilizing the fish image on a Mahzor printed in 1699 and afterwards in his folio imprints. Among those titles is a Haggadah (1711) with an attractive engraved copperplate front-piece (but without fish) followed by the second architectural pillared title-page described above. The architectural title-page was subsequently reused in Feurth by Hayyim ben Zevi Hirsch, who is credited with printing as many as 164 titles in that location, among the works with this frame and fish mark are several Haggadot (1746, 1752, and 1756).[21]

Fig. 9a Aaron ben Uri Lippman Frankel

Fig. 9b Aaron ben Uri Lippman Frankel Extract

The site of yet another press that employed fish on the title-page, here apparently once only, was in Wandsbeck, a borough in north-west Hamburg in Schleswig-Holstein. The first printed books in Wandsbeck are dated to the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, beginning with the Astronomiae instauratae Mechanica of Tycho Brahe (1546-1601), the famous Danish astronomer, published in 1598 by the printer Phillip van Ohr. Hebrew printing in Wandsbeck is a later occurrence, beginning approximately a century after its non-Jewish counterparts. It flourished for a brief period, primarily, albeit not solely, at the press of Israel ben Abraham.[22] The Thesaurus of the Hebrew Book enumerates forty-four titles from 1688 through 1744, several of which, including the titles previous to Israel’s sojourn in Wandsbeck, are listed as doubtful and includes duplicates as well.[23]

Israel ben Abraham was a proselyte who, reputedly, had previously been a Catholic priest. After his conversion Israel eschewed the sobriquets common among converts such as Avinu or the Ger (convert). Israel converted to Judaism in Amsterdam, where he wrote a Yiddish-Hebrew grammar Mafte’ach Leshon ha-Kodesh (Amsterdam, 1713). In 1716, after leaving Amsterdam, Israel ben Abraham acquired the typographical equipment belonging to Moses Benjamin Wulff, the court Jew in Dessau, and printed in Koethen, Jessnitz, and then in Wandsbeck from 1726-33, returning, after a brief retirement, to Jessnitz in 1739, printing a small number of titles to 1744.

Fig. 10a Selihot with ma’ariv be-zemanah

Fig. 10b Selihot with ma’ariv be-zemanah Extract

Selihot with ma’ariv be-zemanah (evening prayers in its time) is one of if not the first dated book attributed to Israel ben Abraham in Wandsbeck; it is a small octavo book (8⁰: 7, 9, [4], 10-13, 13-23, [3] ff.). Its distinct title-page states that it is a Selihot with ma’ariv be-zemanah and that it contains matter pertaining to women; it informs that it was printed “as vowed and accepted upon themselves by the men of the hevra kaddisha (burial society) of the gemilut hasadim (charitable association) of HALBERSTADT,” and that it was “brought to press by the heads, the officers of the hevra kaddisha, R. Wulff and the noble R. Leib Warburg.” The title-page is dated in the year “You resuscitate the dead מחיה מתים אתה (469 = 1709),” a misdate, as noted by Moritz Steinschneider, who rejects the 1709 date (non admittunt; recusus ergo . . .) and dates it to 1730?[24]  At the bottom of the title-page are images of a lion at the left supporting a signet enclosing a pail, at the right a wolf supporting on the right side of the signet, two vertical fish, facing in different directions. The symbolism of these images is not clear, although it might be related to Wulff and Warburg, prominent contemporary family names.

The most dramatic, eye catching title-page with a fish motif was printed in Bad Homburg vor der Höhe at the press of Aaron ben Zevi Hirsch of Dessau. This Homburg is the district town of the Hochtaunuskreis, Hesse, Germany, on the southern slope of the Taunus, bordering, among others, Frankfurt am Main and Oberursel.[25] The title-page appears on successive editions of R. Meir ben Jacob ha-Kohen Schiff’s (Maharam Schiff, 1605-41, var. 1608-44) Hiddushei Halakhot, novellae on tractates of the Talmud, printed in Homburg in 1737, 1741, and 1747. Maharam Schiff, scion of a distinguished rabbinic family, a prodigy, was appointed rabbi of the important city of Fulda at the age of 17, where he was also served as a Rosh Yeshivah. There is a tradition that he was appointed rabbi of Prague in 1641, but if, as his grandson, who brought his works to press, reports, that he lived only 36 years, Maharam Schiff must have passed away immediately after his appointment. Maharam Schiff’s novellae are highly regarded and are reprinted in standard editions of the Talmud.[26]

The title-page has a four part frame, the top image of a fish (sea creature) attacking a ship and within the fish two men, apparently roasting a small fish (?). Below the fish (sea creature) appears to be the face of a man. On the other editions the other portions of the frame are varied. A. M. Habermann, in his work on Hebrew title-pages describes the top portion of the frame as mythological.[27]

Fig. 11 1741, Hiddushei Halakhot

Returning to Amsterdam, an edition of Avot de-Rabbi Nathan with the commentary Ahavat Hesed (1777) by R. Abraham ben Samuel Witmond (1696-1773), also the author of novellae on the Pentateuch and Babylonian Talmud (1734). Avot de-Rabbi Nathan is one of the minor tractates, fourteen (fifteen, depending upon the enumeration) minor non-canonical tractates of the Talmud today appended to Seder Nezikin. It is an ethical work, considered a supplement to or a further development of Avot but with much aggadic material not related to the Mishnah, suggestive of an aggadic midrash. Ahavat Hesed was published posthumously by Witmond’s son-in-law and grandson at the press of Gerard Johann Janson. The header and place of publication on the title-page are printed in an oversized font in red letters. At the bottom of the page is a pressmark

Fig. 12a Ahavat Hesed

Fig. 12b Ahavat Hesed Extract

At the bottom of the title-page is a shield with topped by a coronet and within it on the right are two fish facing in opposite directions, above them the sun, moon, and a star, and above them the phrase “and (Samson) said, [O Lord God,] remember me, I pray you, and strengthen me” (Judges 16:28); on the left a hand holding a pail above water, again above the sun, moon, and a star, and above the phrase “And David blessed the Lord” (I Chronicles 29:10). Yaari informs that the two phrases, allude to Witmond’s son-in-law, R. David, son of the late Solomon Bloch, together with the author’s grandson, Samson ben Moses, who brought the book to press. Furthermore, the fish refer to Samson ben Moses, born in the month of Adar, the sign of which is a fish, and the pail refers to his son-in-law David, born in the month of Shevat, that month’s sign being a pail.[28]

            The fish image, replete with its symbolism of fertility and good fortune, continued to be used in Jewish imagery and pressmarks. Indeed, shortly after its appearance on Ahavat Hesed it was again employed, if only occasionally, on the title-page of works from another Amsterdam printer, this into the nineteenth century. The usage over centuries depicted here attest to the popularity and power of the fish image, persisting to the present.

[1] Joseph Lowin, “Hebrew Root Word [D-Y-G]” Jewish Heritage on Line Magazine, http://www.jhom.com/topics/fish/lowin.html.
[2] Ellen Frankel and Betsy Platkin Teutsch, The Encyclopedia of Jewish Symbols) Northvale, London, 1995), p. 55.
[3] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Salmons_in_heraldry
[4] W. Roberts, Printers’ Marks. A Chapter in the History of Typography, (London, 1893), pp. 201-02.
[5] Previous articles in this series are “Mirror-image Monograms as Printers’ Devices on the Title Pages of Hebrew Books Printed in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,” Printing History 40 (Rochester, N. Y., 2000), pp. 2-11, reprinted in Studies in the Making of the Early Hebrew Book (Brill, Leiden/Boston, 2008), pp. 33-43; “The Cover Design, ‘The Printer’s Mark of Marc Antonio Giustiniani and the Printing Houses that Utilized It,’” Library Quarterly, 71:3 (Chicago, July, 2001), pp. 383-89, reprinted in Studies, pp. 44-53; “Mars and Minerva on the Hebrew Title Page,” The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 98:3 (New York, N. Y., 2004), pp. 269-92, reprinted in Studies, pp. 1-17; “The Bear Motif on Eighteenth Century Hebrew Books” The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 102:3 (New York, N. Y., 2008), pp. 341-61, reprinted in Further Studies in the Making of the Early Hebrew Book (Brill, Leiden/Boston, 2013), pp. 57-76; “Akedat Yitzhak (the Binding of Isaac) on the Title-Pages of Early Hebrew Books,” in Further Studies, pp. 35-56; “The Eagle Motif on 16^th and 17^th Century Hebrew Books,” Printing History, NS 17 (Syracuse, 2015), pp. 16-40; “The Lion Motif on Early Hebrew Title-Pages and Pressmarks,” (Printing History, NS 22, (Syracuse, 2015), pp. 53-71.
[6] Among the primary sources for this article are my The Sixteenth Century Hebrew Book: An Abridged Thesaurus (Brill, Leiden, 2004) and my The Seventeenth Century Hebrew Book: An Abridged Thesaurus. Brill, Leiden/Boston, 2011, and Avraham Yaari, Hebrew Printers’ Marks From the Beginning of Hebrew Printing to the End of the 19^th Century, (Jerusalem, 1943), Hebrew with English introduction.
[7] Kabbalah Centre, https://livingwisdom.kabbalah.com/pisces-adar.
[8] Aish.com, http://www.aish.com/h/pur/b/The_Choice_of_Adar.html.
[9] Concerning the widespread use of this frame see my “Mars and Minerva on the Hebrew Title Page,” noted above.
[10] Yaari, Hebrew Printers’ Marks, pp. 12, 132 no. 19.
[11] Yaari, p. 132.
[12] Moritz Steinschneider, Catalogus Liborium Hebraeorum in Bibliotheca Bodleiana (Berlin, 1852-60), col. 220 n. 1407, col. 228 n. 1427.
[13] Nowy Dwor, Polish for ‘new manor’, is the prefix of several locations with that title. Another Nowy Dwor, Nowy Dwor Mazowiecki, was home to a Hebrew press in the late eighteenth – early nineteenth centuries, printing a significant number of Hebrew titles from 1781 through 1818.
[14] Yaari, pp. 26, 139 no. 42.
[15] A. M. Haberman, Title Pages of Hebrew Books (Safed, 1969), pp.m 48,129 no. 34; Isaac Yudlov, Hebrew Printers’ Marks: Fifty-Four Emblems and Marks if Hebrew Printers and Authors (Jeruslaem, 2001), pp. 36-40 [Hebrew]. He also informs that three small fish are the mark of the Gronim family of Prague in the sixteenth century, appearing on their headstones.
[16] Concerning Lida and Migdal David see my“David ben Aryeh Leib of Lida and his Migdal David: Accusations of Plagiarism in Eighteenth Century Amsterdam,” Shofar 19:2 (West Lafayette, Ind., 2001), pp. 117-28, reprinted in Studies in the Making of the Early Hebrew Book, pp. 191-205.
[17] Another work refering to Shabbetai Zevi noted by Ch. B. Friedberg, History of Hebrew Typography of the following Cities in Europe: Amsterdam, Antwerp, Avignon, Basle, Carlsruhe, Cleve, Coethen, Constance, Dessau, Deyhernfurt, Halle, Isny, Jessnitz, Leyden, London, Metz, Strasbourg, Thiengen, Vienna, Zurich. From its beginning in the year 1516 (Antwerp, 1937), p. 29 [Hebrew] published by Uri Phoebus is Tikkun Keria with a depiction of Shabbetai Zevi “sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up” (Isaiah 6:1).
[18] Ch. B. Friedberg, History of Hebrew Typography in Poland from the beginning of the year 1534, and its development up to our days . . . Second Edition, Enlarged, improved and revised from the sources (Tel Aviv, 1950), p. 64 [Hebrew] and Yaari, p. 158, date Uri Phoebus death to 1705. L. Fuks and R. G. In contrast, Fuks-Mansfeld, Hebrew Typography in the Northern Netherlands 1585 – 1815, II (Leiden, 1984), p. 242, writes that although Uri Phoebus was very productive in Zolkiew, he returned to Amsterdam in 1705, where, in 1710, he wrote “a short history of the first settlement of the Sephardic Jews in Amsterdam,” and where he died on 23 Shevat 5475 (17 January, 1715).
[19] Yaari, p. 158.
[20] Yosef Hayyim Yerushalmi, Haggadah and History, A Panorama in Facsimiles of Five Centuries of the Printed Haggadah from the Collections of Harvard University  and the Jewish Theological Society of America, (Philadelphia, 1976), plates 64, 65.
[21] Yeshayahu Vinograd, Thesaurus of the Hebrew Book. Listing of Books Printed in Hebrew Letters Since the Beginning of Printing circa 1469 through 1863 I (Jerusalem, 1993-95), I, p. 450 [Hebrew]; Yaari, pp. 51, 152-52 no, 82; Yudlov, pp. 59-61
[22] Concerning Hebrew printing in Wandsbeck see Marvin J. Heller, “Israel ben Abraham, his Hebrew Printing-Press in Wandsbeck, and the Books he Published,” Further Studies in the Making of the Early Hebrew Book (Brill, Leiden/Boston, 2013), pp. 169-93.
[23] Vinograd, II, pp. 168-69.
[24] Steinschneider, cols. 2792-93 no. 7517, 446-47 no. 2939.
[25] Concerning Hebrew printing in Homburg see my “Early Hebrew Printing in Bad Homburg vor der Höhe,” in progress.
[26] Itzhak Alfassi, “Schiff, Meir ben Jacob Ha-Kohen,” Encyclopaedia Judaica, (Detroit, 2007) vol. 18, p. 131; Mordechai Margalioth, ed. Encyclopedia of Great Men in Israel IV (Tel Aviv, 1986), col. 1028-29 [Hebrew].
[27] A. M. Habermann, Title Pages of Hebrew Books (Tel Aviv, 1969), pp. 104, 134 no. 88 [Hebrew].
[28] Marvin J. Heller, Printing the Talmud: A History of the Printed Editions of the Talmud from the mid-17th Century to the end of the 18th Century and the Presses that published them (Brill: forthcoming); Yaari, Hebrew Printers’ Marks, pp. 89, 169-70 no. 145.