Hebrew Bible Printed in 1933
In 1924, a group of Jewish bibliophiles in Berlin founded the Soncino Gesellschaft der Freunde des jüdischen Buches, a society dedicated to publishing Jewish and Hebrew books of exemplary quality. Its greatest triumph was the printing of a Humash, a Hebrew Bible, in 1933. With its specially designed font based on the sixteenth–century Prague Haggadah, this book has often been called the most beautiful Bible ever printed. Its publication coincided with another triumphal moment—the consolidation of Nazi power in Germany, and it is against this dark background that the first and last verses of the Blessing of Moses, so boldly printed in red, take on a special significance: “Your enemies shall dwindle away before you. You shall tread upon their high places” (Deuteronomy 33:29).
In 1924, a group of Jewish bibliophiles in Berlin founded the Soncino Gesellschaft der Freunde des jüdischen Buches, a society dedicated to publishing Jewish and Hebrew books of exemplary quality. Its greatest triumph was the printing of a Humash, a Hebrew Bible, in 1933. With its specially designed font based on the sixteenth–century Prague Haggadah, this book has often been called the most beautiful Bible ever printed. Its publication coincided with another triumphal moment—the consolidation of Nazi power in Germany, and it is against this dark background that the first and last verses of the Blessing of Moses, so boldly printed in red, take on a special significance: “Your enemies shall dwindle away before you. You shall tread upon their high places” (Deuteronomy 33:29).