Private Presses in Israel

The private press had its origins in the 1890s in England; the impetus came from William Morris who, with his Kelmscott Press, brought forth dazzling, aesthetically overwhelming books in what he saw as "Renaissance" style and technique, as a reaction against the 19th centurys mechanization of printing with its perceived carelessness in what once had been a hand craft. He printed his works on an Albion hand press on the best hand-made paper he could find, with very black ink, typography designed by Emery Walker based on Caxtons and Jensons late-15th century typefaces, and he commissioned illustrators whose work was executed in woodblock rather than by the popular and cheap photomechanical methods being developed at the time. There was a constant demand for Kelmscott Press books in the six years the press operated before his death, but William Morris did not want to commercialize Kelmscott. He grudgingly sold his books at prices that covered the printing costs only, although, since his materials were the best, their prices were considerable. A Kelmscott "Chaucer" is worth over a million dollars today.

Other connoisseurs of fine books soon established private presses on Morris model, but with more restrained typography and decoration, first in Britain (where Lucien and Esther Pissarro operated the Eragny Press), then in Germany (where Count Harry Kesslers Cranach Presse in Weimar achieved a high degree of excellence), and in the United States. Their credo was to follow all the unspoken but nonetheless stringent rules of fine printing: elegant but readable typefaces, hand-composition of type, fine paper chosen to suit the typography, preferably hand- or mould-made and watermarked, editions of only a few hundred copies, and a hand-made binding. At the books end, a colophon, a tradition of early printed books adopted from manuscripts, listed details on the books production: date, printer, papermaker, illustrator, binder, and the number of copies printed.

The "fine press," unlike the private press, is a commercial venture, providing a livelihood for the printer, who adheres to the same high standards as the private press. But the edition will usually be larger, the paper machine-made, and the binding simpler. Many of the books will display colophons and the edition will sometimes be limited and numbered.

Although there were several contributions to the art of the book and outstanding Hebrew typography in Israel before the establishment of the state in 1948, there was no private press until 1989. The work closest to fine printing was produced by Tarshish Books, a publishing house established by Dr. Moshe Spitzer (1900-1982). But when Spitzer himself was asked if such an entity as fine printing exists in Israel he would reply, "No, only decent printing." He himself knew what was required to produce a fine book, and how to demand the best of the few printers with whom he worked. But he was limited by the unavailability of good paper and high-quality binding materials, well-cast Hebrew types, and printers with the proper facilities for transforming the Hebrew book into a work of art. His finest work can be seen in a few books sponsored by patrons and other publishers who could afford the best.

The other notable individual during the early years of Israels printing was Henry Friedlaender (1904-1996). He was a type designer but, more important, also a teacher, who had a profound influence on the quality of design and printing in the country. A number of modest books, calendars and ephemera were printed under his direction at the Hadassah-Brandeis Apprentice School of Printing. They reveal a quality rarely seen in the short history of printing in Israel, and meet all the criteria of fine printing.

Shmuel Halevy Gorr (1931-1988) came to Israel from Melbourne, Australia, in 1968. He did not print any books here, but his small Alexandria hand press (the Australian version of the Albion press so popular with 19th century English printers) now stands, unused, in the Jewish National and University Library, where examples of his books are housed. He named his venture the Levite Press; his books were on Jewish subjects but he owned no Hebrew fonts. The prose and poetry of the Levite press were in English, printed with well-worn Plantin types. The graphic works accompanying the texts were excellent, and all the Levite Press books were listed in Private Press Books.

One of the factors which delayed the development of private presses in Israel was the lack of high-quality Hebrew metal type for hand-composition, a prerequisite for the hand-made Hebrew book. Each private printer solved this problem in his own way. Contemporary type designers, in Israel as elsewhere, are now creating types for computer composition, as there is virtually no demand for metal letters and there are only a handful of companies who still cast metal type.

Given the problems, it is perhaps not surprising that there are only two artists in Israel currently engaged in private press printing, and we shall now turn to a study of the work of both of them: Yehuda Miklaf and Ariel Wardi.

Yehuda Miklaf

Three years after his immigration, a serendipitous meeting with Gregory Robinson, an amateur printer from the USA who happened to be in Jerusalem with a small press and a few drawers of type, enabled Miklaf to exchange bookbinding lessons for instruction in printing, which he had long sought. In 1989, he established the Shalom Yehuda Press, in honour of the Jerusalem street on which his apartment and workshop are located. A happy choice of streets, for orientalist Avraham Shalom Yehuda (1877-1951) had been a collector of Hebrew, Arabic and Latin manuscripts which are preserved in the National Library. Miklaf prints on a Vandercook SP-15 press and on a small Model No.3 platen press. Some of his works are printed on paper that he brought with him from Canada; some on imported paper, and some on paper made by hand by two Israeli papermakers: Natan Kaaren of Kibbutz Sde Yoav, and Izhar Neumann of Zikhron Yaakov (the Tut Neyar Workshop). Some early sample sheets in Hebrew and English were printed on mitnan, native hand-made Israeli paper.*

Yehuda Miklaf soon became an expert in ferreting out old printing equipment and types, often about to be discarded. He located the matrices used by Dr. Moshe Spitzers Jerusalem Type Foundry, as well as some of the old types themselves from other sources - albeit not always of the best quality and not in the most useful sizes for the private press. His workshop drawers include fonts of typefaces such as Hadassah, HaTzvi, Rahat, Haim, Stam, and the old standby, Frank-Rhl. A number of these types are in display sizes only, and some fonts are not complete enough for book printing. Many of the old types remain in sacks, awaiting sorting and cleaning, in order to determine if there is enough of each font and size to enable printing. So as partially to solve the problem of so few available metal Hebrew types, Miklaf found a typefounder in Europe who cast the David type (in Didot sizes) from the old Jerusalem Type Foundry matrices which are kept in the Jewish National and University Library: Miklaf convinced the owner to donate these and some equipment to the Library.

After printing a single-sheet keepsake which is now a collectors item, Miklafs first book was a Hebrew translation of Beatrice Wardes 1932 classic lecture on the importance of invisible printing, "The Crystal Goblet," which Dr. Moshe Spitzer had translated the year before his death. The essay was re-edited and proofed by Daniel Spitzer, Moshe Spitzers son. Miklaf then printed the 12-page booklet, hand-composed in 12- and 16-point David, on Byronic text paper. "The Crystal Goblet" was stitched and covered by Miklaf in heavy paper made by Natan Kaaren, and two copies were bound in leather.

Yehuda Miklaf prints both in Hebrew and English. Two of his books are miniatures. One of these gems is "Am I Now? - A Saying of Kwang-tse" (1933), as told by John Cage; the Hebrew text is printed in six-point Frank-Rhl and the English in eight-point Times New Roman on hand-made abaca paper made at the Tut Neyar Workshop, together with linoblock prints in four colours. Randomly placed images were printed on one large sheet of paper that was folded after printing, using the same blocks but different colours for each side. Some copies were bound in goatskin, in a slipcase of marbled paper; others were bound in quarter cloth of various colours with marbled paper sides also made by Miklaf.

The other miniature book of the Shalom Yehuda Press, printed in 1995, is "Ros," a poem by Brian McClafferty. Handset in eight-point Monotype Bembo, it is printed on dampened Frankfurt cream paper made by the Zerkall Mills, Germany, in a limited edition of 50 copies. The book opens with a delicate frontispiece linocut by the printer. The book received the Distinguished Book Award at the Eighth International Conclave of the Miniature Book Society in Pasadena, California, in 1995.

One of the most impressive books printed by the Shalom Yehuda Press is "If I Forget Thee... Poems by Arturo Schwarz," 1994, in an edition of 130 copies. The work is a collaboration between the printer, the Jerusalem artist Gary Goldstein, and the Italian art historian, poet and essayist, Arturo Schwartz, when he was in Jerusalem to lecture and to document a book collection he had donated to the Israel Museum. Miklaf hand-composed the text in 14-point Bembo. The drawings by Gary Goldstein were printed from photopolymer blocks and hand-coloured by the artist. Miklaf printed one copy in which the illustrations were not coloured, and ten additional copies of the text only. These are striking in that they reveal the beauty of the typography alone, for illustrations tend to compete with the text for the eye of the reader. He bound the books in quarter goatskin, with one of his own linocut prints on the side papers, which includes images of himself, his co-authors and other persons related to their meeting at the Israel Museum. With the edition comes a recording of Arturo Schwartz reading his poetry.

The definition of a private printer preferred by Yehuda Miklaf was expressed by printing historian Will Ransom: "A private press may be defined as the typographic expression of a personal ideal, conceived in freedom and maintained in independence."

Ariel Wardi

Called, simply, "The Private Press of Ariel Wardi," this press was established in Jerusalem in 1989. Wardi was born in Turin, Italy, in 1929, and was brought to Israel as a baby. Upon completing his army service during Israels War of Independence, he returned to Turin to study art for two years at the Academia Albertina di Belle Arte. Back in Israel, he worked as a free-lance book designer, and for several years was a partner in the printing firm Isratypeset with the Ben Zvi family (who had established the Central Press, one of the oldest-established and most distinguished commercial presses in Israel). In 1981, Wardi was invited to teach at Hadassah Community Colleges newly opened department of printing, of which he became head in 1983. He had always enjoyed working with his hands, and when he retired, he began to devote all his time to the art of printing, with his hand-made types, and his Vandercook S-15 proof press.

Not satisfied with the existing Hebrew metal fonts, Wardi solved the problem by designing and executing his own, which he did not cast in the traditional manner. Using simple materials and jewellers tools, he hand-cut the punches used to form the matrices from which his type is cast. For his first two books, the punches, matrices and types were made of various plastics and resins used by dental technicians. The design of the letters themselves is based on the David Italic typeface; each letter redesigned to suit his taste and to harmonize with the other letters.

Wardis first book, completed in 1990 in an edition of 20, was Ashrei HaIsh ("Blessed is the Man" - Psalm 1). It was set in 72-point type, with only about ten words on a page. At first glance, the large 20-page book looks more like a work of calligraphy than a typeset one. The binding is paper on boards, with the name of the book printed with letters specially made for the cover.

In his second work, "The Book of Jonah," Wardi once again cast the David Italic type but in 36-point size. The smaller type and larger page gave the book more of a printed appearance than his first work. In it one can see the printers exceptional talents as a book designer. Wardi printed two editions of 70 copies each.

Wardis next work, printed in 1992, was Yemei Bereshit (Genesis 1-2:3). Once again he halved the type size, down to 18-point, composing and printing a few pages at a time so that he could evaluate the layout before setting more pages - one example of the printers perfectionism. Yemei Bereshit was also typeset in two editions of 40 copies each, with the same layout as Jonah, that is, one version with longer but fewer lines on the page and one with short and long lines conforming to the rhythm of the recited text.

There is a third, smaller version of Yemei Bereshit as well; it reveals the delicacy of Wardis type at its finest. Wardi himself designs, sews, and binds his books; each one possessing a unique cover design.

Wardi has printed several other books. While most of them are biblical texts - Psalm 104 (1993), Hashunamit ("The Shunamite Woman" - II Kings 4:8-38, 1994), a few are not: Shlosha Shirim ("Three Poems," 1994), and Maaseh BEchad ("Eight Epigrams," 1995). Wardi also created a book of ten monoprints without text, Nofim Shevirim ("Fragile Landscapes"), in an edition of only five copies. In 1995, Wardi was honoured with a highly acclaimed exhibition at the Jewish National and University Library, Jerusalem.

The printers latest book is "The Book of Ruth," completed in 1996, just before the Shavuot holiday (Pentecost), when this scroll is read in synagogue. The 28 pages were printed in an edition of 40, in 18-point type on 140-gram Fedrigoni Old Mill paper made in Italy. Here he chose to determine the lines length by the rhythmic reciting of the text.

Some of the Book of Ruths hand-made bindings are of Italian cotton printed with a leaf pattern, some display Wardis original monoprints on other fabrics, and for six of them the bindings were made from remnants of an antique Persian carpet.

The Book of Ruth is a masterpiece of restrained elegance; "sumptuous austerity," as the works of the 18th century private printers Baskerville and Bodoni have been described. It is a hopeful and gratifying fact that in this age of computer composition and high-tech printing, the art of the hand-made book thrives in the work of private presses, whose international ranks are now joined by two Israeli book artists.