Soncino Press is a Jewish publishing company based in the United Kingdom that has published a variety of books of Jewish interest, most notably English translations and commentaries to the
Talmud
The Talmud (; ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (''halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of Haskalah#Effects, modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the cen ...
Conservative
Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy and ideology that seeks to promote and preserve traditional institutions, customs, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civiliza ...
synagogues until the advent of other translations beginning in the 1990s.
Acceptance
The Soncino translations and commentaries are based, largely, on traditional Jewish sources. They accept the Bible as divine and the biblical history of
The Exodus
The Exodus (Hebrew language, Hebrew: יציאת מצרים, ''Yəṣīʾat Mīṣrayīm'': ) is the Origin myth#Founding myth, founding myth of the Israelites whose narrative is spread over four of the five books of the Torah, Pentateuch (specif ...
from Egypt and the giving of the
Torah
The Torah ( , "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The Torah is also known as the Pentateuch () ...
to
Moses
In Abrahamic religions, Moses was the Hebrews, Hebrew prophet who led the Israelites out of slavery in the The Exodus, Exodus from ancient Egypt, Egypt. He is considered the most important Prophets in Judaism, prophet in Judaism and Samaritani ...
at
biblical Mount Sinai
Mount Sinai (, ''Har Sīnay'') is the mountain at which the Ten Commandments were given to the Prophets in Judaism, Hebrew prophet Moses by God in Judaism, God, according to the Book of Exodus in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. In the Book of ...
as true, and had been generally regarded as Orthodox. Nonetheless, they tended to have some input from Christian and modern academic scholarship and tended not to treat rabbinical
Midrash
''Midrash'' (;"midrash" . ''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. ; or ''midrashot' ...
and
Aggadah
Aggadah (, or ; ; 'tales', 'legend', 'lore') is the non-legalistic exegesis which appears in the classical rabbinic literature of Judaism, particularly the Talmud and Midrash. In general, Aggadah is a compendium of rabbinic texts that incorporat ...
as fact. The ''Terms and Abbreviations'' page lists
Authorized Version
The King James Version (KJV), also the King James Bible (KJB) and the Authorized Version (AV), is an Early Modern English translation of the Christian Bible for the Church of England, which was commissioned in 1604 and published in 1611, by ...
and
Revised Version
The Revised Version (RV) or English Revised Version (ERV) of the Bible is a late-19th-century British revision of the King James Version. It was the first (and remains the only) officially authorised and recognised revision of the King James Vers ...
, both of which include
New Testament
The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus, as well as events relating to Christianity in the 1st century, first-century Christianit ...
; the latter term is found in Soncino's Talmud.
These works, which passed their half century over two decades ago, have seen their acceptance change. As Orthodox and Conservative Judaism have diverged in recent decades, they have tended to move to different Bible translations reflecting their increasingly different theological viewpoints.
* Orthodox Jews are now more likely to use ArtScroll translations, which shun academic scholarship and treat
Midrash
''Midrash'' (;"midrash" . ''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. ; or ''midrashot' ...
ic and
Aggadic
Aggadah (, or ; ; 'tales', 'legend', 'lore') is the non-legalistic exegesis which appears in the classical rabbinic literature of Judaism, particularly the Talmud and Midrash. In general, Aggadah is a compendium of rabbinic texts that incorporat ...
accounts, as well as the Biblical text, as literally true.
* Conservative Judaism has moved in the opposite direction, publishing a commentary, the Etz Hayim Bible, which is considerably more liberal in tone, based on academic sources that accept the documentary hypothesis as the Bible's origin and question the accuracy of its accounts of Jewish history.
Nonetheless, Soncino books still retain a following, particularly among traditional Conservative and some Modern Orthodox Jews in the English-speaking world.
A full page was devoted in ''
The Jewish Press
''The Jewish Press'' is an American weekly newspaper based in Brooklyn, New York City. It serves the Modern Orthodox Jewish community.
History
The ''Jewish Press'' was co-founded in 1960 by Albert Klass and his brother Sholom Klass. The Klas ...
'' to the ''Soncino Classics Collection'' CD-ROM in 2003.
No popular Jewish translation with Soncino's intermediate approach, combining traditionalist outlook and exegesis with openness towards Christian and academic scholarship, has appeared since.
Additionally, because the Soncino publications were generally released without copyright notices at a time when notices were mandatory for establishment of
copyright
A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive legal right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, ...
, the works were generally considered as
public domain
The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no Exclusive exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly Waiver, waived, or may be inapplicable. Because no one holds ...
. Legally, however, this is no longer the case in the United States since 1994.In the United Kingdom, and other contemporary signatories to the Berne Convention, a copyright notice was never required to establish copyright. In the United States copyright for such works originally published overseas was re-established by the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (URAA) of 1994. Copyright was restored for works still in copyright in their native countries as of 1 January 1996.
The term of copyright in the UK at the time was life + 70 years, so U.S. copyright was restored for all UK-originating works whose authors were still alive on 1 January 1926 or were born after that date. Under current U.S. law the works will now remain in copyright until the end of a period of 95 years from first publication.
History
The firm is named for the Soncino family of Hebrew book printing pioneers. Based in Northern Italy, this family published the first-ever printed book in Hebrew type in 1483 (an edition of the Talmud tractate Berakhot) and continued a string of printed editions of the Hebrew Bible, Talmud, and various rabbinical works until about 1547.
''Soncino Books of the Bible''
The ''Soncino Books of the Bible'' is a set of
Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach" . '' Tanakh
The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach" . ''
Old Testament
The Old Testament (OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew and occasionally Aramaic writings by the Isr ...
) in fourteen volumes, published by the Soncino Press. The first volume to appear was
Psalms
The Book of Psalms ( , ; ; ; ; , in Islam also called Zabur, ), also known as the Psalter, is the first book of the third section of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) called ('Writings'), and a book of the Old Testament.
The book is an anthology of B ...
in 1945, and the last was Chronicles in 1952. The series was edited by Abraham Cohen and the commentary was written by several rabbis including Cohen himself, Eli Cashdan, Harry Freedman and Israel Wolf Slotki (identified as I. W. Slotki) (1884–1973).
Each volume contains the
Hebrew
Hebrew (; ''ʿÎbrit'') is a Northwest Semitic languages, Northwest Semitic language within the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family. A regional dialect of the Canaanite languages, it was natively spoken by the Israelites and ...
and English texts of the Hebrew Bible in parallel columns, with a running commentary below them. The Hebrew text in Psalms was originally that of Christian D. Ginsburg's earlier (1894) edition.See preface to Psalms This led to protests, since Ginsburg had converted to Christianity, so subsequent volumes used a (completely reset) copy of Meir Letteris' second (1866) edition of the Hebrew text. Both Hebrew texts are scrupulous versions of the
Masoretic Text
The Masoretic Text (MT or 𝕸; ) is the authoritative Hebrew and Aramaic text of the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible (''Tanakh'') in Rabbinic Judaism. The Masoretic Text defines the Jewish canon and its precise letter-text, with its vocaliz ...
The commentary in the first edition of the series drew mainly upon classical Jewish sources (see below), but also drew upon the best of early-to-mid 20th century Bible scholarship, including the work of Christian expositors.
The ''Soncino Chumash'', covering the
Torah
The Torah ( , "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. The Torah is also known as the Pentateuch () ...
and
Haftara
The ''haftara'' or (in Ashkenazi Jews, Ashkenazic pronunciation) ''haftorah'' (alt. ''haftarah, haphtara'', ) "parting," "taking leave" (plural form: ''haftarot'' or ''haftoros''), is a series of selections from the books of ''Nevi'im'' ("Pr ...
s, first published in 1947 and frequently reprinted has only the views of the most important medieval Jewish commentators, such as
Abraham ibn Ezra
Abraham ben Meir Ibn Ezra (, often abbreviated as ; ''Ibrāhim al-Mājid ibn Ezra''; also known as Abenezra or simply ibn Ezra, 1089 / 1092 – 27 January 1164 / 23 January 1167)''Jewish Encyclopedia''online; '' Chambers Biographical Dictionar ...
,
Rashi
Shlomo Yitzchaki (; ; ; 13 July 1105) was a French rabbi who authored comprehensive commentaries on the Talmud and Hebrew Bible. He is commonly known by the List of rabbis known by acronyms, Rabbinic acronym Rashi ().
Born in Troyes, Rashi stud ...
,
Rashbam
Samuel ben Meir (Troyes, c. 1085 – c. 1158), after his death known as the "Rashbam", a Hebrew acronym for RAbbi SHmuel Ben Meir, was a leading French Tosafist and grandson of Shlomo Yitzhaki, "Rashi".
Biography
He was born in the vicinity of ...
Sforno
Ovadia ben Jacob Sforno (Obadja Sforno, Hebrew language, Hebrew: עובדיה ספורנו) was an Italian rabbi, Jewish commentaries on the Bible, Biblical commentator, Philosophy, philosopher and physician. A member of the Sforno (family), Sfo ...
, Radak, and Ralbag (Gersonides), but no modern or Christian source references, so as not to duplicate the book ''The Pentateuch and Haftarahs'' edited by
Chief Rabbi
Chief Rabbi () is a title given in several countries to the recognized religious leader of that country's Jewish community, or to a rabbinic leader appointed by the local secular authorities. Since 1911, through a capitulation by Ben-Zion Meir ...
A second edition of all books other than the ''Soncino Chumash'' appeared in the 1990s, edited by Rabbi Abraham J. Rosenberg (a disciple of Rabbi Moshe Feinstein), who had previously done a Bible commentary for Judaica Press and a
Mishnah
The Mishnah or the Mishna (; , from the verb ''šānā'', "to study and review", also "secondary") is the first written collection of the Jewish oral traditions that are known as the Oral Torah. Having been collected in the 3rd century CE, it is ...
commentary for Artscroll. In this edition, all work from historical scholars and Christian bible commentators has been removed; it has been replaced by additional references to the
Midrash
''Midrash'' (;"midrash" . ''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. ; or ''midrashot' ...
literature and medieval Jewish commentators.
Soncino Talmud
The Soncino Talmud was published from 1935–1952,
under the general editorship of Rabbi Isidore Epstein.
The translation is distributed both on its own (18 volumes) and in a parallel text edition (35 volumes), in which each English page faces the
Aramaic
Aramaic (; ) is a Northwest Semitic language that originated in the ancient region of Syria and quickly spread to Mesopotamia, the southern Levant, Sinai, southeastern Anatolia, and Eastern Arabia, where it has been continually written a ...
Anglo-Jewish
British Jews (often referred to collectively as British Jewry or Anglo-Jewry) are British people, British citizens who are Jews, Jewish. The number of people who identified as Jews in the United Kingdom rose by just under 4% between 2001 and 202 ...
Rabbis and scholars
(these include Rabbis H. Freedman and Eli Cashdan; see for a listing);
Rabbi Epstein reviewed each translation, to an extent ensuring consistency in form and notation, and provided footnotes and cross references as required. Rabbi Raymond Apple (1972) Rabbi Dr Isidore Epstein – a tribute /ref>
Subsequent to publishing the translation, Soncino released an index in a separate volume;
a translation of the
Minor Tractates
The minor tractates (, ''masechtot qetanot'') are essays from the Talmudic period or later dealing with topics about which no formal tractate exists in the Mishnah. They may thus be contrasted to the Tosefta, whose tractates parallel those of the ...
was also published, as was a translation of the Mishnah, with detailed notes, for those tractates without ''
Gemara
The Gemara (also transliterated Gemarah, or in Yiddish Gemore) is an essential component of the Talmud, comprising a collection of rabbinical analyses and commentaries on the Mishnah and presented in 63 books. The term is derived from the Aram ...
''.
The work was used by beginning students and laymen through the 1980s, although has largely been supplanted by the Schottenstein ( ArtScroll) and Steinsaltz ( Koren) translations. One observation, is that relative to these, the Soncino "has limited value in helping one understand the ... progression of ideas at large," functioning rather as a translation; the index is still considered valuable.
Translations of classical works
Among many books on Jewish topics, both translations and original works, Soncino Press has also published a number of other classical works, including the following.
Soncino's ''Midrash Rabbah'' comprises a translation, with brief commentaries in its footnotes.
The Soncino Haggadah is a translation and commentary on the Haggadah by
Cecil Roth
Cecil Roth (5 March 1899 – 21 June 1970) was an English historian.
He was editor-in-chief of the ''Encyclopaedia Judaica''.
Life
Roth was born in Dalston, London, on 5 March 1899. His parents were Etty and Joseph Roth, and Cecil was the younge ...
Zohar
The ''Zohar'' (, ''Zōhar'', lit. "Splendor" or "Radiance") is a foundational work of Kabbalistic literature. It is a group of books including commentary on the mystical aspects of the Torah and scriptural interpretations as well as material o ...
* Soncino
Haggadah
The Haggadah (, "telling"; plural: Haggadot) is a foundational Jewish text that sets forth the order of the Passover Seder. According to Jewish practice, reading the Haggadah at the Seder table fulfills the mitzvah incumbent on every Jew to reco ...
CD-ROM – Soncino Classics Collection
Davka released a CD-ROM, Soncino Classics Collection, that contains:
* Hebrew and English of
Kehot Publication Society
Kehot Publication Society is the publishing division of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement.
History
Kehot was established in 1941 by the sixth Rebbe of Chabad, Chabad-Lubavitch, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn. In 1942, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak appointed ...