Printer’s Mark
The press of Solomon Proops was one of the most prolific and well-known Hebrew presses in eighteenth-century Europe. The printer’s mark used by Proops (which does not appear on all his works) depicts two hands, fingers spread in the priestly blessing, with the printer’s name written in Hebrew characters. Such a symbol was quite popular among printers and was used to indicate priestly descent and status, just as others used a lion to indicate that they were descended from the Davidic dynasty.
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Credits
Collection Ets Haim—Livraria Montezinos, Amsterdam, EH 4F 11.
Published in: Yosef Kaplan, ed., The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 5, The Early Modern Era, 1500–1750 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2023).
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Related Guide
Jewish Printing and Book Culture
1500–1750
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.
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Colophon: Tefilah le-Moshe (Prayer of Moses)
I set the Yiddish letters with my own hands.
Elle, daughter of the respected rabbi Moses from Holland.
I am not more than nine years old.
Among six children I am the only daughter.
Therefore, if you…
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The twelve-volume “Bermann Talmud'' was financed by the Court Jew Behrend Lehmann (Issachar Bermann Segal), printed in Frankfurt an der Oder, Germany, by Michael Gottschalk, and published by John…
Approbation for a Printing House
“That which is well known needs no proof,” and the root cause is the skilled operating of the printing shop in the holy community of Żółkiew [Zhovkva], may the Rock preserve it, which was established…
Colophon: Tefilah le-Moshe (Prayer of Moses)
All the letters in this beautiful new prayer book,
from beginning to end, I set with my own hands.
Gele, daughter of R. Moses the printer
and Frau Freide, who bore me among ten children, may they…
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