Without the Aid of a Miracle: Jewish Women Printers

The tradition of Jewish women in printing extends back to the earliest days of the Hebrew printed word. In the 1470s, before a Hebrew word for "printing” had even been adopted, Avraham Conat of Mantua wrote a letter describing his wife Estellina Conat's work with their Hebrew press: "She wrote the book with many pens, without the aid of a miracle.”

Women's involvement in Hebrew printing was a consistent if overlooked feature of Early Modern era European Jewish life. Beginning in the 19th century, however, the industrialization and eastward migration of Jewish printing offered women printers new opportunities and visibility. Of the twenty-four women known to have been active in Hebrew printing in the 19th century, seventeen were in Eastern Europe. The most influential of these was Devorah Romm, who operated the Romm printing house in Vilna (Vilnius, Lithuania) from 1860 to 1903. Outside of 18th-century scholar the Vilna Gaon, no single individual can be said to have contributed as much to Vilna's reputation as global center for Jewish learning as Devorah Romm.

This display highlights the work of four significant printers (Doña Reyna Mendes, Judith Rosanes, Pessel Balaban, Devorah Romm), but the contributions of these and other women printers are in evidence throughout this exhibition and Western Libraries' Judaica Collection.

Judith Rosanes (d. 1805)

Judith Rosanes was based in Zolkiew (Western Ukraine), a center of Jewish printing until the Habsburg Empire forced her and other printers to relocate to Lemberg (Lviv), to consolidate the industry. Rosanes was part of a family of printers that traced their lineage to the 17th century Amsterdam printer Uri Phoebus. Judith Rosanes published over fifty titles over nearly three decades and is the first female printer to have operated a commercially successful printing house over an extended period.

Doña Reyna Mendes (c.1539-1599)

Doña Reyna Mendes established a printing press in mid-16th century Constantinople that operated until her death in 1599. Mendes was not the first woman involved in the production of Hebrew books, but she was the first to have run a press not inherited from her husband. She published at least fifteen books, and after her death, there were no other printers to continue her work. Hers were the last books printed in Constantinople – in any language - for nearly forty years.

Displayed here is a title page that states: "Printed in the house and with the type of the noble lady of noble lineage Reyna (may she be blessed among women), widow of the Duke, Prince and Noble in Israel, Don Joseph Nasi of blessed memory ... near Constantinople, the great city, which is under the rule of the great and mighty Sultan Mohammed.”

Pessel Balaban

In Lemberg, Pessel Balaban ranked among the most famous printers of the second half of the nineteenth century.

After the death of her husband, the printer Pinhas Moshe Balaban, Pessel Balaban expanded the press through the production of high-quality essentials for the Jewish home library, such as the code of Jewish law known as the Shulhan Arukh, and the Five Books of Moses (Pentateuch or Chumash), the first of which, the Book of Genesis, is displayed here.

Devorah Romm (d. 1903)

Jennifer Breger writes: “At the end of the 19th century, the most famous Jewish printing house was that of the Widow and brothers Romm in Vilna. The Romm family began printing in 1799 and continued until 1940. However, it was under the management of Devorah Romm that it had its greatest success." After the death of her husband in 1860, Romm "took over the firm and expanded it in partnership with her brothers-in-law until her death in 1913. ... She was the major decision maker in the firm as it produced thousands of volumes in superior editions."

In the 1880s Devorah Romm oversaw the research and publication of a new, authoritative edition of the Babylonian Talmud. The Romm Edition "was a landmark in Hebrew printing; twenty-two thousand copies of the first volume were sold by advance subscription and this edition became a model for all later editions." Known simply as the "Vilna Shas” in seminaries and classrooms the Jewish world over, the Romm Edition of the Talmud remains the enduring standard for this central text of religious Jewish life.