Producing Redemption in Amsterdam: Early Modern Yiddish Books in Paratextual Perspective

Leiden: Brill, 2013. First edition. Hardcover. Fine. Octavo. xviii, 233, (1)pp. Indices and bibliography. Text in English. Green boards with purple, red and green spines, lettered in white. Illustrated with 5 text leaf facsimiles. A fine, as new copy.

Producing Redemption in Amsterdam offers an analysis of Yiddish early modern paratexts and subsequently a history of Yiddish printed books. (OCLC)

Yiddish was the basic Ashkenazi vernacular in the early modern period. The vast majority of the population was not educated and Yiddish books were printed in order to assist them with keeping a solid Jewish life. Being a basically German language and never being a canonical language as Hebrew, Yiddish also functioned as a buffer language between the internal Ashkenazi Jewish culture and the culture of the environment. Studying the paratexts added to printed Yiddish books may teach us about roles of the printed Yiddish word in Ashkenazi society: contents and forms of books, their contextual framework within Ashkenazi culture, the world of Yiddish book producers on the one hand, and the envisaged readership on the other. (Back cover)

Contents: Paratexts, paratextology and early modern Yiddish books -- Initial encounters: title pages -- Sanctioning what? On approbations -- Getting acquainted: prefaces -- In between and at the end. (OCLC)

Volume 37, of the Brill series, "Studies in Jewish History and Culture" (SJHC).