(Communication to the Editor)
Sir:
Your issue of February 27 contains a communication by mail from London, under date of February 15, which begins with the statement: “It will now be possible to print Hebrew with the vowel marks on the monotype machine.” This statement is true, but it is not news because not only has it been possible to print Hebrew with the vowel points and with the accents on the monotype machine, but such work has actually been done for the past seven years.
Two monotype machines were built for the Jewish Publication Society as far back as 1920 and they have been in operation ever since. They constitute the Hebrew Press of the Society. They were initially built in order to render possible the publication in this country of the Jewish Classics Series, the fund for the Press having been furnished by Jacob H. Schiff. Louis Marshall and a number of other gentlemen in New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore. The faces were chosen after a study of early Hebrew printing in America which derived from Holland and which in turn derived from Venice. The actual types were drawn in America from the works published in the printing office of Menassah ben Israel and slight alterations were made to prevent confusion of letters which sometimes are not readily distinguished. The machines carried six faces. Not only these statements, but a very detailed account of the construction of the machines was presented by the undersigned at a meeting of the American Oriental Society held in Baltimore in 1921 and the paper was printed in the Journal of the American Oriental Society, Volume 41, 1921, pages 225 to 229. I recall, too, that at the request of the Monotype Company, this paper was reprinted in a monotype journal.
The application of the monotype to Hebrew printing as well as the possibility of printing by machine Hebrew type with vowels and accents should therefore be credited to the Jewish Publication Society of America, which furnished the Monotype Company not only with the plans but also with the funds from which the first Hebrew monotype machines were constructed.
Cyrus Adler. Philadelphia, Pa., March 4, 1927.
The Jewish National Fund, the agency for the purchase of land in Palestine, which is now celebrating its Silver Jubilee, has announced a Silver Jubilee Song Contest as one of the means of commemorating the completion of twenty-five years of its activity.
Two $100 prizes will be awarded, for the words of original Yiddish and English songs, adjudged the best submitted.
The contest is open to all with the exception of the staffs of the Jewish National Fund and of the organizations affiliated with it.
The song submitted must not have been previously published.
All manuscripts must be mailed on or before April 11th, 1927.
All manuscripts should be addressed to the Jewish National Fund Song Contest, 114 Fifth Avenue, New York.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
