Transferring Jewish Knowledge

One of the best-known publications of the publishing house founded by Salman Schocken is the series known as Schocken-Bücherei (Schocken Library), published in Germany between 1933 and 1938. This series comprised 83 volumes on Jewish history and culture dating from antiquity until the modern era, including works by such disparate figures as Philo of Alexandria, Maimonides, Heinrich Heine, and Franz Kafka. The reasonably priced volumes had average sales of 4,000–5,000 copies, with the most popular works selling up to 10,000 copies: this was the most successful series put out by Schocken. At a time when the rights of Jews in Germany were being curtailed and Jews were being expelled from German culture, ...