Obj. ID: 40083
Jewish printed books  Hamishah Humshei Torah, Berlin, 1931-1933

This text was prepared by William Gross:

The Soncino Gesellschaft was named after the Soncino printing family from the 16th century in Italy. The society was founded in May 1924 in Berlin with the object of enhancing the publication of Jewish bibliophile editions and the study of Jewish bibliography. The members would finance bibliographically-interesting luxury editions, honoring each other on special occasions. They also launched larger projects such as the publication of the Soncino Blהtter and the largest of all: the printing of the Hebrew Pentateuch with a new font designed by Marcus Behmer, a German artist, painter and book and periodical illustrator, who based his typeface on that of the 1526 Prague Haggadah. The society planned to distribute this font to quality Hebrew printers; however these letters appeared for the first and last time in this book.
850 copies of the Chumash were printed on paper; 6 were printed on parchment.
In early 1933 the Officina Serpentis, Berlin’s only hand press, finished the printing of the Bible. The Society was declared illegal by the German National-Socialists in 1937. The remaining books of the Bible were never printed.