Jews in Ottoman textual production and printing

The introduction of Hebrew printing into the Ottoman Empire was the work of Sephardic exiles, who established as early as 1493 in Constantinople a press operated by the brothers David and Samuel ibn Nahmias, several decades before the appearance of printing in Arabic characters in the Empire. Workshops rapidly developed in Constantinople, Thessaloniki, and, later, in Safed and Smyrna, making these cities major centers for the production and distribution of the Jewish book. They printed fundamental religious texts — editions of the Talmud, the Choulhan Aroukh of Joseph Karo, works of halakha and Kabbalah — as well as literary, poetic, and scientific works in Hebrew and in Judeo-Spanish. These printing houses played a pivotal role in the unification of religious practices and in the circulation of knowledge throughout the Mediterranean and beyond. They thus contributed to the intellectual radiance of the Sephardic communities of the Ottoman Empire.

Sources & resources

• Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World — Brill
• Encyclopaedia Judaica — 2e éd., Keter/Macmillan