Ha-zamir (The Nightengale)
$1,200 · Offered by Biblio
First edition
Large quarto 27.5x22.5 cm., wrappers, (10) pp. The Omanut or Omonuth publishing house (Moscow-Odessa-Frankfurt-Tel Aviv) and its Gamiliel Library of children's literature was founded by the scion Shoshana Persitz (1894-1969), funded by her father Hillel Zlatopolskii and her husband Iosif Persitz. Shoshana was 24 when she began the press. Omanut is the Hebrew word for "art." Shoshana was deeply involved already in the Tarbut group which in 1917 vowed to restore Hebrew language, and she wanted Hebrew to be the mother tongue of Russian Jews, who were historically prosecuted and Hebrew was confined to religious texts. Persitz was inspired by the esthetics of the Mir iskusstva group of artists and to print children's books with fine works of renowned Western authors --- Lewis Carroll, Jules Verne, Charles Dickens, and printed as beautifully as possible. Jewish children would thus be able to partake of best children's literature in their own language. This would be a hidur Mitzvah --- a sanctification of the world through beauty, inculcated into young Jewish readers. Originating in Moscow in 1918, Persitz was unable to print the first titles there, because the Bolsheviks nationalized her equipment. She with her family, together with the entire Tarbut group relocated in a special train provided by a German diplomat to Odessa where the press found temporary quarters. In Odessa the artist group Havarut Tzavarim was formed and connected with Omanut. It consisted of four Jewish artists
- Publisher: Omanut
- Year: 1920
- Edition: First Edition
- Binding: paperback
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