David de Castro Tartas

David de Castro Tartas was a printer in Amsterdam from 1663 to 1695 and the publisher of rabbinical writings, including prayerbooks, in Hebrew, Spanish, and Portuguese. Between 1662 and 1701 his press printed the Gazeta de Amsterdam, considered to be the first Jewish newspaper. He was one of three sons of Portuguese New Christians who fled Portugal and eventually moved to Amsterdam to live freely as Jews. De Castro Tartas worked for the printer Manasseh ben Israel in Amsterdam before setting up his own press in 1662. In 1678, he became a member of the Amsterdam Printers’ Guild, competing with other well-known Jewish printers of the time. In 1684, de Castro Tartas published a lavish edition of Mikhlol Yofi (God Shines Forth), a grammatical commentary on the Torah, Joshua, Judges, and Chronicles. With approbations from the famous Christian Hebraist Johann Buxtorf and from four professors in Leiden, it marks the first time a Jewish press sought to attract Christian subscribers by including a Latin title page and Latin approbations in a Hebrew book.