Yiddish Printing in Hungary

Yiddish Printing in Hungary

  The first Hebrew printing press in Hungary was established in 1814, after which printing with Hebrew type spread rapidly throughout the country, showing immense productivity and variety. Over the course of the next 130 years, thousands of books and periodical publications appeared in Hebrew characters, of which a significant proportion was in Yiddish, or contained some Yiddish text. the present ground-breaking work reconstructs this little-know corpus of Yiddish writing. It offers an annotated bibliography of over 700 books and periodicals issued from 1814 until after World War II, covering both religious and secular works, from prayer books and rabbinic literature to popular narratives. Apart from bibliographical data, the descriptions of each work also include biographical and cultural-historical information. Yiddish Printing in Hungary thus provides a surprisingly broad picture of Yiddish intellectual activity, for the first time in its Hugnarian context.

  Szonja Ráhel Komoróczy holds a doctorate in Yiddish from the University of Oxford, and is currently research fellow at the Center for Jewish Studies at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.