Obj. ID: 39126
Jewish printed books Yesod Mora by Avraham ben Meir Ibn Ezra, Prague, 1833
This text was prepared by William Gross:
Rabbi Avraham be Meir ibn Ezra was one of the outstanding scholars produced by medieval Sephardic Jewry. He was a poet, mathematcian, atrologer and grammarian. Above all he was one of medieval Jewry's greatest Bible commentators. But he was a great philosopher as well. Yesod Mora was the first major book on Jewish philosophy to written in Hebrew. There are engraved plates at end of book.
Moshe Israel Landau (1788-1852) was an Austrian printer, publisher, and lexographer, and the grandson on R' Yechazkel Landau (Av Bet Din of Prague, and the author of the Nodeh be-Yehudah). After finishing his studies at a yeshivah, he established a Hebrew and Oriental printing-press in Prague in 1824, which became important in the annals of Hebrew typography. Landau's chief merit as a typographer is due to the fact that he always personally supervised the correction of the works published in his establishment, so that they issued from the press with scarcely a fault.
Landau's collection of all the foreign words found in Rashi (on the Bible and Talmud), in the Tosafot, in Maimonides, and in Rosh, is of lasting value. The work, entitled "Marpe Lashon," was published first in his edition of the Mishnah (Prague, 1829-31), then in the editions of the Talmud (ib. 1829-31 and 1839-45) and in his edition of the Bible (ib. 1833-37). It has also appeared separately (Odessa, 1865), with notes by Dormitzer.