Hebrew. Pentateuch). CHAMISHAH CHUMSHEI TORAH.

(BIBLE

Officina Serpentis for Soncino Gesellschaft

Berlin

1931-33

ONE OF 850 COPIES printed on Van Gelder paper. Typeface designed by Marcus Behmer, styled on the 16th-century Prague Hagadah of Gershom Kohen. Woodcut decorative title in blue, brown and black. Initial word of each of the Five Books surrounded by arabesques and printed in brown and black, few verses and single words printed in red. Rarely found in the present binding: Original deep-red morocco, gilt extra by Rudolf Lang, Munich.

“RANKS AMONG THE MOST BEAUTIFUL HEBREW BOOKS EVER PRINTED.” The most ambitious undertaking of the Soncino Gesellschaft der Freunde des Jüdischen Buches, an organization of Jewish bibliophiles in Germany. The intended completion of the entire Bible was aborted due to the rise of Nazism. According to A.J. Karp, the verse in Deuteronomy 33:29, “Your enemies shalll dwindle away before you, and youwill tread upon their high places,” was highlighted here in red, in silent but eloquent protest against the rise of Nazi brutality. See A.J. Karp, Library of Congress Catalogue pp. 31-34; L. Avrin, The Art of the Hebrew Book in the Twentieth Century, in: New York Public Library Catalogue, A Sign and a Witness (1988) p.135.