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Editors’ Pick

July 21, 2025

The Pastor Who Founded Berlin’s First Hebrew Printing Press

Johannes Jablonski.

It didn’t take long after Johannes Gutenberg began printing the Bible for Hebrew books to start appearing in print. By the 1500s, Venice, Amsterdam, and Constantinople would emerge as the major centers of Jewish publishing. Hebrew printing wouldn’t come to Berlin until the 1690s, however. Marvin Heller tells the story of the man who was responsible, a third-generation Protestant minister named Daniel Ernst Jablonski who was brought to Berlin to serve as court preacher by the duke of Prussia:

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