Obj. ID: 40585
Jewish printed books  Parafrasis Comentado Sobre el pentateuco..., Amsterdam, 1681

This text was prepared by William Gross:

The beginning of the Jewish community in Amsterdam is rooted in the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions at the end of the 16th century. During this period, many of the large number of Jews whose ancestors had been forcibly converted almost one hundred years earlier and labeled "New Christians" were being hounded and accused of heresies. Some of these chose to leave and found a friendly refuge in the Protestant city of Amsterdam. As more and more of them arrived and sought to return to their Jewish roots, the need arose for fundamental Jewish texts that would be comprehensible to an audience ignorant of Hebrew.
One of the rarest books from Amsterdam is this Spanish Bible commentary with the original portrait of the author, Isaac Aboab, bound in. Both the portrait and the title page are beautiful copper engravings. It is often sited that the portrait and the title page are from two different dates, but if one looks at the date on the left hand side of the crown in the portrait one sees that it is indeed '81, the same date - 1681 - as on the title page.
Ya'akov Chaim de Cordova was born in Brazil. Following his arrival in Amsterdam he learned the printing trade and worked at several Jewish presses there, including those of Joseph Athias, Uri Phoebus, David Tartas and Moses Coitinho. His sons, Isaac Hezekiah and Abraham also became printers. Isaac began printing Hebrew and Spanish books at his own press in 1706, operating his press during various periods in both Amsterdam and Hamburg. Several of his books are preserved in the Gross Family Collection.