Ashkenazic Jews and Their Attitude toward Books as Material Objects in the 16th and 17th Centuries

Abstract Based on an analysis of approximately 1,400 Hebrew printed books from Rabbi David Oppenheim’s collection, housed in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, this article examines the handwritten inscriptions of their owners and users. In the second part, we explore what the nature of these inscriptions reveals about Ashkenazic Jewish society’s relationship to books. The absence of aesthetic sensitivity and, more generally, the lack of what is referred to in non-Jewish culture as bibliophilism – such as the individualization of books through uniform bindings, supralibros, ex libris, and the collector’s interest in amassing books – leads to the conclusion that, while 16th- and 17th-century Ashkenazic Jews undoubtedly demonstrated a strong affinity for the text (what Avriel Bar Levav termed ‘textual intimacy’), they did not display a significant interest in books as material objects.