Isaac Prostitz

Born in Moravia, Isaac Prostitz studied printing in Venice and later settled in Kraków. In 1567, more than thirty years after the first Hebrew press in Kraków closed its doors (this press, established by the Helicz brothers in 1534, had survived only one year), King Sigmund August II of Poland granted Isaac permission to establish a Hebrew press in the city. Over the following six decades, using the type, designs, and decorations that Isaac had brought with him from Italy, Isaac and his descendants printed some two hundred works, among them copies of the Bible, the Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmuds, rabbinical literature, and works of philosophy, history, and kabbalah. Seventy-three of these works were in Yiddish. The printer’s mark used by Isaac featured a fish and a ram (signifying the near sacrifice of Isaac). Between 1602 and 1605, Isaac returned to Moravia, where he printed four works. His family continued its association in the printing trade until the late seventeenth century. Ḥasde ha-shem (Mercies of the Lord), concerning the thirteen attributes of God, was written by Moses Mordechai ben Samuel Margolioth, head of the yeshiva in Kraków. It was printed by Isaac’s printing house in 1589.