Nathan Hannover
Nathan Hannover was a chronicler, talmudist, and kabbalist. He is thought to have been born in Ostrońg in Volhynia, where he studied at the local yeshiva. After marriage, he settled in Zaław in Ukraine; during the 1648 uprising he was forced to flee and ended up traveling through Germany, Holland, and Italy. Hannover is chiefly known for Yeven metsulah (Abyss of Despair), printed in Venice in 1653, which describes the course of the Khmel’nyts’kyi uprising in the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The book, written in Hebrew, was based mainly on oral testimonies.
Content by Nathan Hannover
Primary Source
Yeven metsulah (Abyss of Despair)
Primary Source
Ta‘ame sukkah (Discourse on Sukkot): Account of His Printing Problems
Related Guide
Birth of an Idea: Defining the Early Modern Period
The emergence of the early modern period (1500–1750) in Jewish history is relatively recent and complex.
Related Guide
Jewish Printing and Book Culture
Jewish printing unified far-flung communities by standardizing religious texts, created textual uniformity, and enabled vernacular translations, and facilitated the spread of Jewish texts and knowledge.