1850 VOLUME OF THE VILNA TORAH, BY THE FIRST & ONLY JEWISH PRINTER IN LITHUANIA OR RUSSIAN TERRITORIES, with Ashkenazi & Aramaic translations, and publisher’s dual Cyrillic & Hebrew imprints
מקראי קדש : תורה נביאים וכתובים עם פירשʺי ותרגום אשכנזי ובאור
[MIḲRAʾE ḲODESH: TORAH NEVIʾIM U-KHETUVIM ʻIM PERUSH RASHI ṾE-TARGUM]
[Roughly translated to: HOLY SCRIPTURES. TORAH NEVI’IM AND KETUVIM. PERUSH AND ASHKENAZI TRANSLATION (text in Hebrew, with Ahmaraic and Ashkenazi translations)].
[Vilnia, Lithuania]: [Romm Brothers, Publishers], 1850. Early edition by this noted Jewish Lithuanian publisher; text in Hebrew, Ashkenazi, and Ahramaic, and with Russian (Cyrillic) imprint [the first volume was published in 1848, and this edition still bears the 1848 Russian language censor's statement (p.5)]. Original brown cloth (measuring circa 9 x 6 inches), 464 pages. According to my research, The Vilna Torah was ultimately published in a large, multi-volume set, starting in 1848 and ending in 1856. This is just one volume of that set, published in 1850. It looks like the text includes some Ashkenazi and Perush translations and commentaries, but I’m not sure exactly which portions of the Torah are represented here (the title page does not appear to have a “Volume” number). The book is in poor condition, cloth is stained, torn, chipped, lower spine over-sewn, lacking spine labels, title leaf has tears at inner hinge. Text block has scattered staining, with wear, creasing, chipping, over-opened in a few spots contemporary ink annotations on endpapers and margins, etc. Text appears complete and sound. It's easy to forgive this historic piece of Lithuanian Judaica it's faults, given it's history. Please examine photographs carefully, and ask any questions you may have. Thanks.
To imagine the journey this rare 19th century Lithuanian-Jewish imprint must have completed to end up in my hands, at a flea market in Western Massachusetts… and now, perhaps, in your hands to come… What an amazing role this publisher played in the history of Jewish religion, literature, and the diaspora.
One current scholar declared, “The [multi-generational Jewish-owned] Romm publishing house made a sweeping and pivotal contribution to the Torah world that remains with us to this day….” [see Yated Ne'eman’s excellent article on this important family of printers, and their tumultuous history]. Another scholar noted that “Vilna's great fortune -- and an important factor in its fame -- were its printing houses, which distributed the largest and most important body of literature in our lives -- rabbinical and scholarly literature, from prayer books to the large, handsome Shas -- to every country and town where Jews dwelled. The Widow and Brothers Romm operated the largest printing house, store and publishing business in Jewry in those days. It was almost a national institution. Whenever it was mentioned, nobody thought of it as an enterprise that was run by ordinary people. It seemed to have been in existence forever…”. The publisher was part of a lawsuit by an earlier (Hasidic) publisher who claimed sole-rights, despite the speciousness of their claim. An important artifact of Hebrew and Lithuanian publishing history, and the history of the Jewish diaspora, and its ever-evolving literature.
Please forgive any possible errors in my cataloguing of this important work. If I can’t read it, I can’t collate it. These tracts have a confusing publishing history, and pagination. Accordingly, this is being sold with all faults, and described accordingly. I’ve relied extensively on g-translate, and cross-referenced that with Worldcat, and several respected scholarly sites about this noted publishing family. I’m most happy to make any appropriate corrections/amendments.
Here’s a brief history of the Romm publishing house-- that is well worth the read-- like a thread through the history of the Jewish diaspora in Lithuania:
The Romm publishing house, a publisher of Jewish religious literature from 1788 to 1940, was especially known for its 1886 Vilna Talmud, which still serves as a definitive edition. Barukh ben Yosef Romm founded the business originally in Grodno, and then in 1799 its primary operations moved to Vilnius. There, it expanded under the ownership of Barukh's son, Menahem Mann Romm, initially publishing halakhic and homiletic works from the misnagdic tradition. The Romms were soon caught up in the controversy between adherents of this tradition and the new movement among Eastern European Jews known as Hasidism.
Historically, Jewish authors from "greater" Lithuania had sent their manuscripts abroad for publication. The rivalry between Misnagdim and Hasidism led the former to begin publishing within Lithuania itself, specifically, in 1788, when Barukh Romm went from book dealer to book publisher. Controversy had arisen when the Shapira family of Slavuta intended to publish a new edition of the Talmud in line with an Hasidic point of view. Rabbis on each side argued but were unable to agree as to whether rabbinical law permitted publication of this new edition. In addition, the death of a worker in the Slavuta factory led to Russian government intervention (Vilnius being at that time within the Russian Empire). The Slavuta publishing house was shut down and, to instill order among the Jewish publishers, the Russian authorities instituted a formal publishing monopoly, which Romm successfully bid for.
In 1835, located as they were in Vilnius, which was the heart of misnagdic “greater” Lithuania, the Romms caused a stir by publishing the hasidic talmud. From then until 1940 (when it was nationalized by the Soviet government), the Romms published material from the diversity of Litvak Jewish religious opinion and practice. The Romm factory burned down in 1840, but was soon rebuilt, and prospered through both its monopolistic privileges and the rapidly increasing Jewish population of the region.
When Chaim-Yankev Romm died in 1858, David Romm took over the firm. He was married to Deborah Harkavy, daughter of Rabbi Yeysef-Betsalel Harkavy of Novogrudok. When David Romm died in 1862, Deborah took over management of the firm, renaming it The Widow and Brothers Romm in 1863. As The Widow Romm, she was known internationally by Hebrew and Yiddish scholars and general readers in Eastern Europe and elsewhere, giving her an unusual stature for Litvak women of her time. She was often challenged, but her good business sense along with her scrupulous attention to quality and detail kept power over the firm in her hands. Under her direction, the firm produced a highly regarded new edition of the Talmud, completed in 1886, which is still widely used. The firm's last Talmud edition was printed in 1897. When Deborah Romm died, the firm also started to print secular periodicals and newspapers in Yiddish and Hebrew. Baron David Günzburg from St. Petersburg, a scholar of Jewish affairs, came to the rescue and bought the firm in 1910. When the Baron died soon after, his widow could not continue his work. The outbreak of the First World War in 1914 almost caused the firm's closure. Rabbi of St. Petersburg, Dr. Moshe Eliezer Eisenstadt facilitated the sale of the printing house to two wealthy individuals, Noah Gordon and Haim Cohen, who volunteered to rescue the printing house because of its importance. The printing house changed its name again to The Stock Company for Printing Books and Publishing "Romm". At the request of Noah Gordon, in 1920 his cousin, Mathus Rapoport, took over the management of the printing house and also became one of the owners. Rapoport ran the printing house for 20 years. On the night of July 7, 1941, just days after the German invasion of Russia, Rapoport was taken from his home at midnight and was murdered by the Nazis. With the end of the Second World War the building was confiscated by the Russians. They continued to use the printing house after the war until the beginning of the 1990s but with no connection to Judaism.
On February 4, 1990, Professor Herman Branover presented the Lubavitcher Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson with a Russian-language translation of the Jewish Hasidic text, the Tanya, which had been recently printed, in the quantity of 20,000 units, in the facilities of the Romm publishing house in Vilna [wiki].
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