The People and the Book: The Impact of the Printing Press on the Formation of Jewish Culture

David Ruderman talks about the momentous world events that shaped Jewish history in the early modern era. What did the discovery of America in 1492 have to do with the expulsion of Sephardic Jews from Spain and the resettlement of Ashkenazim in Eastern Europe? How did the invention of the Guttenberg press democratise Jewish scholarship? Why were far-flung Jewish communities so closely connected? David Ruderman’s original solutions to these and other conundrums are recounted in his fascinating book: Early Modern Jewry: A New Cultural History.

David B. Ruderman is the Joseph Meyerhoff Professor of Modern Jewish History and the Ella Darivoff Director of the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. His many books include Jewish Enlightenment in an English Key and Connecting the Covenants.