Obj. ID: 35330
Jewish printed books Chamishah Chumshei Torah, Amsterdam, 1679
The following description was prepared by William Gross:
This small pocket size edition of the Chumash is one of a number of books published in 17th century Amsterdam by Hebrew printers. An unusual feature of this example is the illustrated frontispiece, an almost exact duplicate of the much larger version used in the same year in the first Yiddish translation of the Bible by Blitz (Gross Family Collection B.56), also published by Uri Fayvesh ha-Levi. By virtue of the small size, such publications did not survive well over the centuries, leading to the book's relative rarity today.
Uri Fayvesh (Phoebus) b. Aaron Witmund ha-Levi opened his own print-shop in Amsterdam in 1658, having worked previously for Immanuel Benveniste. He would print about 100 titles during the years he was active in Amsterdam (1658-1689). Towards the end of this period Phoebus became embroiled in a now-famous controversy with the Athias press over the printing of a Yiddish edition of the Bible. The dispute brought both printers to financial ruin.
In 1689 Phoebus relocated to Poland, hoping to benefit from the smaller number of competitors and the closer proximity to the Jewish communities that comprised a major market for the Amsterdam Hebrew presses. He established a press in Zolkiew in 1691. His descendants continued to operate Hebrew printing-presses in Poland into the twentieth century.