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JONATHAN D. SARNA
The Jewish Publication Society
1888
-
1988
*
T
he
J
ewish
P
ublication
S
ociety
o f
A
merica
will be one hun
dred years old on Ju n e
3, 1988.
It has compiled an enviable
record over the past century : publication o f over seven hundred
different titles, distribution o f some nine million Jewish books,
translations o f nearly one hundred foreign-language volumes o f
Judaica into English, and sponsorship o r co-sponsorship o f some
o f the most significant Jewish cultural undertakings o f the last
century, including two Bible translations; a six-volume revised
translation o f Heinrich Graetz’s
History of the Jews',
seventeen
volumes o f the Schiff Library o f Jewish Classics; seven volumes o f
Louis Ginzberg’s
Legends of the Jews',
and eighteen volumes (to
date) o f Salo W. B a ron ’s
Social and Religious History of theJews.
No
Jewish subject has been alien to the Society. History and Bible,
Talmud and Midrash, Philosophy, Theology, and Mysticism, Lit
eratu re and A rt, America and Israel, Contemporary Jew ry and
Contemporary Judaism , books for children, and books for col
lectors — all these and more have been represented on the Socie
ty’s list o f publications.
No
Jewish publisher in the whole history
o f Jewish publishing has a comparable record o f achievement.
The Society’s centennial offers an appropriate moment for a
look back. This is not the place for a full-scale history of the Soci
ety; that will require a volume to itself. Instead, I propose to
return to 1888, the year that the Society was actually founded.
What happened in that fateful year, and, as I shall more briefly
describe, what was achieved in the quarter-century that followed,
shaped a good deal of the Society’s subsequent history, revealing
much about the Society’s ongoing aims and objectives.
* This article is partially based on the second chapter of my forthcoming history
of the Jewish Publication Society, to be published in 1988. Full documentation
may be found there.
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