ArtScroll
Gedaliah Zlotowitz (General editor) | |
Official website | www |
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ArtScroll is an
ArtScroll's first president, Rabbi
History
In 1975,[3] Rabbi Meir Zlotowitz, a graduate of Mesivtha Tifereth Jerusalem, was director of a high-end graphics studio in New York.[4] The firm, ArtScroll Studios, produced ketubot,[5] brochures,[6] invitations, and awards.[3] Rabbi Nosson Scherman, then principal of Yeshiva Karlin Stolin Boro Park,[3] was approached by Zlotowitz who had helped him write copy for brochures and journals in the past,[7] and they collaborated on a few projects.[8]
In late 1975, Zlotowitz wrote an English translation and commentary on the
After decades of being headquartered in New York, ArtScroll moved to New Jersey in 2020.[12] Among other things, ArtScroll's headquarters in Rahway is notable for their in-house green screen studio used for the production of Inside ArtScroll videos made available online, as well as non-ArtScroll videos such as Mishpacha interviews and other "films that are broadcasted to the Torah community."[13]
Associated entities
The Mesorah Heritage Foundation box printed on the inner page of ArtScroll publications lists Rabbi David Feinstein's name first.
Mesorah Publications is the "parent" company of ArtScroll; the name Mesorah was not part of ArtScroll's publications for the first book published, Megilas Esther (1976).[14]
Publications
Primary publications and popular demand
ArtScroll publishes books on a variety of
Its Torah translation and commentary, a series of translations and commentaries on books of the
The popular demand for ArtScroll's translations of classic Jewish works (e.g., Mishnah; Talmud) largely coincided with preexisting market demands, unappreciated to an extent, for English editions characterized by both high-fidelity translations as well as accompanying commentary in the English vernacular. Such editions are used even by American
ArtScroll publications are best identified through the "hallmark features" of its design elements such as typeface and layout, through which "ArtScroll books constitute a field of visual interaction that enables and encourages the reader to navigate the text in particular ways."[16] The emphasis on design and layout can be understood "as a strategy on the part of the publisher to achieve a range of cognitive as well as esthetic effects."[16] The name ArtScroll was chosen for the publishing company to emphasize the visual appeal of the books.[17]
Prayerbooks
Mesorah Publications received widespread acclaim in response to its ArtScroll line of prayerbooks,.
While many Conservative synagogues rely on the Siddur Sim Shalom or Or Hadash prayer books and Etz Hayim Humash, "a small but growing number of North American Conservative Jewish congregations ... have recently adopted ArtScroll prayer books and Bibles as their 'official' liturgical texts, not to mention a much larger number of Conservative synagogues that over recent years have grown accustomed to individual congregants participating in prayer services with editions of ArtScroll prayer books in their hands."[18] The shift has mainly occurred among more traditionally minded Conservative congregants and rabbis (sometimes labeled "Conservadox") "as an adequate representation of the more traditional liturgy they seek to embrace."[1][18]
Since the advent of ArtScroll, a number of Jewish publishers have printed books and siddurim with similar typefaces and commentary, but with a different commentary and translation philosophy.
Stone Chumash
In 1993, Mesorah Publications published The Chumash: The Stone Edition,
A 2018 review of Hebrew-English
Schottenstein Edition Talmud
Mesorah has a line of
The text generally consists of two side-by-side pages: one of the
ArtScroll's English explanations and footnoted commentary in the Schottenstein Edition of the Talmud are based on the perspective of classical Jewish sources. The clarifying explanation is generally based on the viewpoint of
Mesorah and the Schottenstein family have also printed a Hebrew version of the commentary and have begun both an English and Hebrew translation of the Talmud Yerushalmi (
ArtScroll has also produced the "Elucidated Mishnah", a work similarly clarifying the Mishnah-text, and expanding thereon in an appended commentary and footnotes; see Mishnah § Commentaries.
Kosher by Design
In 2003, ArtScroll published a cookbook by
Editorial policy
Works published by Mesorah under this imprint adhere to a perspective appealing to many Orthodox Jews, but especially to Orthodox Jews who have come from less religious backgrounds, but are returning to the faith (
In translations and commentaries, ArtScroll accepts midrashic accounts in a historical fashion, and at times literally; it disagrees with textual criticism. Page "X" of the preface to ArtScroll's first publication set the tone: A long paragraph includes "No non-Jewish sources have even been consulted, much less quoted. I consider it offensive that the Torah should need authentication from the secular or so-called 'scientific' sources."[30][31]
Frequently coalescing to give voice to ArtScroll's worldview is, in the words of Scherman, "a heavy combination of
Despite the recent trend of most
Transliteration system
ArtScroll publications,
ArtScroll's transliteration system for
- the letter Tav without a dagesh(emphasis point) is transcribed as [t] and [s] respectively
- ArtScroll uses the latter
- the vowel kamatz gadol, is transcribed [a] and [o] respectively
- ArtScroll uses the former
As such, the following transliterations are used:
Ashkenazi | Sefardi | ArtScroll |
---|---|---|
Boruch | Barukh | Baruch |
Shabbos | Shabbat | Shabbos (ArtScroll makes an exception due to widespread usage) |
Succos | Succot | Succos |
Avrohom | Avraham | Avraham |
Akeidas Yitzchok | Akedat Itzhak | Akeidas Yitzchak |
Critical reviews
- A large number of grammatical errors exist in their Bible and commentary translations, changing the meaning of these passages. B. Barry Levy alleged in 1981:
Dikduk (grammar) is anathema in many Jewish circles, but the translation and presentation of texts is, to a large extent, a philological activity and must be philologically accurate. The ArtScroll effort has not achieved a respectable level. There are dozens of cases where prepositions are misunderstood, where verb tenses are not perceived properly and where grammatical or linguistic terms are used incorrectly. Words are often vocalized incorrectly. These observations, it should be stressed, are not limited to the Bible text but refer to the talmudic, midrashic, targumic, medieval and modern works as well. Rabbinical passages are removed from their contexts, presented in fragmentary form thus distorting their contents, emended to update their messages even though these new ideas were not expressed in the texts themselves, misvocalized, and mistranslated: i.e. misrepresented.[36]
- ArtScroll biographies have been criticized as providing incomplete and partial portrayals of Rabbinic figures. Notably, this is not disputed by ArtScroll. Rabbi Nosson Scherman stated that as it pertains to biographies the mission of ArtScroll "is to impart a positive message" without mentioning "disputes that can often become vitriolic."[37]
- The commentary of halakhic view that the day begins at sundown. However, Rashbam takes a peshat (plain sense) approach, as he does throughout his commentary, reading the verse as follows: "There was an evening (at the conclusion of daytime) and a morning (at the end of night), one day"; that is, the day begins in the morning and lasts until the next daybreak.[40] This comment of Rashbam was notably subject to sharp criticism by Ibn Ezra who placed a curse on any publishers who included this comment in their Chumash out of concern that the reading could cause a misinterpretation of Halacha and lead to Shabbat desecration. In their defense, ArtScroll points out that in standard Mikra'os Gedolos the entire commentary of Rashbam on the beginning of Bereishis is missing. When adding in from older manuscripts, they left out the exegeses to Genesis 1:5 because of questions to its authenticity.[41]
Bibliography
- Rabbi B. Barry Levy. "Our Torah, Your Torah and Their Torah: An Evaluation of the ArtScroll phenomenon.". In: "Truth and Compassion: Essays on Religion in Judaism", Ed. H. Joseph et al.. Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1983.
- B. Barry Levy. "Judge Not a Book By Its Cover". Tradition 19(1)(Spring 1981): 89-95 and "Communications" within Tradition 1982;20(4)(Winter 1982): 370-375.
- B. Barry Levy. "ArtScroll: An Overview". In "Approaches to Modern Judaism" [Vol. I], Ed. Marc L. Raphael. Scholars Press, 1983.
- Jacob J. Schacter, "Facing the Truths of History". Torah u-Madda Journal 8 (1998–1999): 200-276.
- Jacob J. Schacter, "Haskalah, Secular Studies, and the close of the Yeshiva in Volozhin in 1892" Torah u-Madda Journal
- Jeremy Stolow, Orthodox by Design: Judaism, Print Politics, and the ArtScroll Revolution
See also
References
- ^ a b c d e f Joseph Berger (June 27, 2017). "Rabbi Meir Zlotowitz, Who Made Jewish Prayer Books Clear to All, Dies at 73". The New York Times.
- ISBN 978-1-4226-2222-3.
... son, R'Gedaliah, ... at the helm ...
- ^ a b c Resnick, Eliot (6 June 2007). "Our Goal is to Increase Torah Learning". The Jewish Press. Archived from the original on 31 January 2011. Retrieved 23 December 2010.
- ^ a b Ephross, Peter (13 July 2001). "In 25 Years of Publishing, Artscroll captures Zeitgeist". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Archived from the original on 9 June 2011. Retrieved 23 December 2010.
- ^ The Jewish Observer, December 1972, p. 34 full-page advertisement
- ^ a b c d e f g Berger, Joseph (10 February 2005). "An English Talmud for Daily Readers and Debaters". The New York Times. Retrieved 23 December 2010.
- ^ "What's Bothering Artscroll?: Interview with Nosson Scherman". Retrieved 2023-02-13.
- ^ Hoffman, Rabbi Yair (3 December 2009). "The ArtScroll Revolution: 5TJT interviews Rabbi Nosson Scherman". Five Towns Jewish Times. Retrieved 23 December 2010.
- The Jewish Week. Archived from the originalon 3 March 2016. Retrieved 23 December 2010.
- ^ Cf. his position that quality English-language sefarim will be used by Jews in the Messianic era as, like Yiddish in its time, "today English has become a language of Torah." (Rabbi Nosson Scherman in The Mandate to Communicate Torah in the Vernacular: Excerpts From a Presentation to an Eleventh Grade published in The Jewish Observer, April 1998, p. 27).
- ^ Ami. No. 136. p. 90.
- ^ Jewish Link (March 12, 2020), Artscroll Moves to New Offices in Rahway.
- ^ Reisman, Leah. "The Art of Publishing". Mishpacha Junior (October 27, 2021): p. 10.
- ^ inside cover: ArtScroll Studios, Ltd
- ^ Rabbi Dovid Kaplan in Book-Review: The Malbim on Iyov (a non-ArtScroll Hebrew to English translation)
- ^ a b Stolow, Jeremy (2010). Orthodox by Design: Judaism, Print Politics, and the ArtScroll Revolution. p. 157.
- ^ Sandy Eller; Yosef Shidler (17 March 2010). "Brooklyn, NY - VIN Exclusive: Behind The Scenes At Artscroll [video]". VIN. vosizneias.com. Retrieved 23 December 2010.
- ^ ISBN 9780520264250.
- ^ "The Chumash: The Stone Edition".
Published ... 1993
- ^ Plural Chumash, the five books of Moses, from the Hebrew word for the number five
- ^ Yosef Lindell; Shira Hecht-Koller (September 28, 2018). "Move Over Artscroll: Here's The New, Modern Orthodox Chumash". The Forward.
- ^ printed inside
- ^ copies have been sold in the USA. The first volume was in memory of Mr. Safra of the eponymous bank.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-520-26426-7.
- ^ Church & Synagogue Libraries, Volumes 38-39. Church and Synagogue Library Association. 2005.
- ^ Moskin, Julia (16 April 2008). "One Cook, Thousands of Seders". The New York Times. Retrieved 22 March 2011.
- ^ Chefitz, Michael (15 November 2010). "Kosher by Design's Susie Fishbein is Back!". TribLocal Skokie. Archived from the original on 26 July 2011. Retrieved 22 March 2011.
- ^ a b Sanders, Gavriel Aryeh (14 March 2005). "Kosher Diva Outdoes Herself With Latest Offering". Jewish World Review. Retrieved 22 March 2011.
- ISBN 1578195381.
- ^ The first of these sentences was the end of a series of italicized sentences.
- ^ Yaakov Kornreich (July 18, 2018). "Meir Zlotowitz's Legacy: The Spiritual Engine Of American Orthodoxy's Renaissance". The Jewish Press. Retrieved January 10, 2019.
- ^ The Case for a Traditional Approach in the Study of Tanach in the Jewish Action Winter 2018 issue
- ^ Rabbi Avrohom Biderman in minute 53-54 of May 7, 2020 Twitter Live podcast with SeforimChatter. Archived from original on July 24, 2020.
- ^ "Jewish prayers for Orthodox services - Translation and transliteration".
... correspond to the Rabbinical Council of America Edition of the Artscroll Siddur
- ^ "If You Can Read This - You Can Pray In Hebrew".
- ^ Levy, B. Barry (Spring 1981). "Judge Not a Book By Its Cover". Tradition. 19 (1): 89–95.
- ^ Scherman in an interview with Rabbi Yitzchok Frankfurter published in A Conversation with Rabbi Nosson Scherman On Chinuch (p. 66-73 in Ami Magazine, June 21, 2017), in which Frankfurter stated "[t]o be honest, I sometimes question ArtScroll's approach when it comes to certain things. One of these is the tendency to portray the commonality between gedolei Yisrael rather than their particular hashkafos [worldviews]. I grew up in a generation when people liked to debate what this gadol said versus what another one said. Today there's much more uniformity; everyone believes the same things in the same way." Upon responding "[o]ur role is not to discuss issues in current events. Our intention is to present the text," Frankfurter questioned Scherman: "Even when it comes to biographies and the like?" Scherman replied: "We include the opinions of whichever gadol is the subject of the biography, but we don't necessarily discuss dissenting views. We feel that our mission is to educate people and to be marbeh kevod shamayim [to increase honor of God]. We try to stay away from disputes that can often become vitriolic. Getting involved in such things is not our mission. Our mission is to impart a positive message."
- ^ ArtScroll omitted entire sections of Rashbam's commentary on Gen. 1:4, 1:5, 1:8, and 1:31. See David Rosin, Perush Rashbam al Ha-Torah (Breslau, 1882), pp. 5-6, 9 Archived February 19, 2015, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Hulin 83a
- ^ First identified by Marc B. Shapiro on Seforim Blog. See also David S. Zinberg, "An inconvenient text," The Jewish Standard (February 12, 2015)
- ^ Shapiro, Marc B. "ArtScroll's Response and My Comments". the Seforim Blog. the Seforim Blog. Retrieved 30 June 2019.
External links
- Official website
- Jeremy Stolow, ArtScroll, Encyclopaedia Judaica; via Encyclopedia.com
- Critical evaluations of ArtScroll