Come Celebrate the Print Shop at BOOKHOUSE

Come celebrate the installation of the Bookhouse Print Shop and experiment the beauty and pleasure of making your own print! On November 18th, we will welcome guests between 5:00 pm and 8:00 pm, with tea, mahmouls and bocca di dama cookies, music, and free books! Most of our programs are free, but for this event we ask for a contribution of $10 which will help us move the project forward. Reserve your ticket here and confirm your reservation at rsvp@primolevicenter.org.

Offering letterpress printing and book arts that spark from a multifaceted history of Jewish journeys and encounters, the Print Shop will serve the public at large as well as institutions, libraries, and the publishing sector. Most importantly, it represents the cultivation of knowledge, skills, and collaborative ethos that the American Sephardi Federation, Centro Primo Levi, and Dan Wyman Books envisioned with the creation of this open space.

Inspired by a century old tradition of printmaking and bookbinding, as well as by Primo Levi’s reflection on the importance of working with love, this new project offers opportunities for posters and cards making with handset wood type in Hebrew and other alphabeths, as well as for printing poetry, liturgy, and cultural zines.

Partner in this venture is the Yiddish Printmakers Cooperative that brings together young book artists who are passionate about the revival and cultivation of traditional techniques. The Cooperative includes Sophie Edelhart, who has worked extensively with the Balinson Hebrew Type Collection as a fellow and apprentice in the Massey College Bibliography Room at the University of Toronto; Caleb Sher, who is currently working on the Yiddish type at the Yiddish Book Center; Jacob Romm, teaching assistant for a letterpress seminar at Yale University; and Jay Saper, who has taught a course rooted in Jewish book arts at Middlebury College. The Cooperative has years of experience using, maintaining, and repairing traditional letterpress printing equipment, including wood and metal type, illustration blocks, platen presses, and cylinder presses, in addition to teaching printing to beginner students.

Jewish printing has a long and rich history in Italy, starting in Reggio Calabria and Rome as early as the 15th century and creating deep roots in many cities, including Mantua, Ferrara, Venice, and Livorno. From there, it moved to the Ottoman Empire and Northern Europe. Some of the earliest printing ranging from Yiddish to Ladino was done in the Italian peninsula, following the early flourishing of the printing press.

The Print Shop will give a modern public stage to a vibrant print culture rooted in diasporic linguistic traditions. It will attract renowned and emerging artists, host residencies, exhibit contemporary and archival Jewish book arts, print limited editions, and complement Centro Primo Levi’s CPL Editions. 

In the same spirit of Bookhouse that suspends national and regional borders in favor of understanding history as a map of translations, the Print Shop will offer a platform where all languages that were cradles to Hebrew intersect and converse including Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Arabic, French, German, Russian, Farsi, and many others.