Obj. ID: 39685
Jewish printed books Sefer Sod Hashem, Amsterdam, 1745
This text was prepared by William Gross:
It was customary for Mohalim (circumcisers) to possess circumcision books which contained the laws and prayers relating to circumcision as well as directions for the mohel regarding the proper procedure for performing the ceremony. These books were intended to be brought to the circumcision ceremony and were consequently small in size to as to be easily portable. Such books are found in manuscript form, especially in the 18th century as a part of the renaissance of small illustrated prayer manuscripts. But printed books were cheaper and more accesable to the average mohel.
While it is one of the classic printed circumcision prayer books, this edition of Sefer Sod Hashem has a number of manuscript pages as well. These are not the usual lists of the circumcised children, but other texts regarding the ceremony. This classic book was printed 14 times until the middle of the 19th century. There are six edition in the Gross Family Collection.
The press set up by Solomon Proops became the most famous of all the presses operating in Amsterdam in the 18th century, apart from the Menasseh ben Israel press. Solomon's father Joseph came to Amsterdam from Poznan. Solomon Proops was initially involved in the bookselling trade, and in 1677 was admitted to the Amsterdam Guild of Booksellers, Printers and Bookbinders. In 1704 he set up his own press, which was to become the longest operating and most productive of all the Jewish presses in Europe in the 18th C. He acquired the fame of a printer who produced beautiful books that could be bought at a reasonable price.
Solomon Proops died in 1734, and his three sons Joseph, Jacob and Abraham inherited his press. They were too young to run the press themselves, however, taking over operations only when they reached maturity. Initially Solomon’s sons refrained from listing their names in the works they printed. Instead they identified themselves as “Orphans of the late Solomon Proops”. They only started to place their names on title pages of their works in 1751.