1577. R. Yom Tov Tzahalon and the first book ever printed in the Land of Israel

JEWISH MOMENTS IN THE LAND OF ISRAEL

1577.
R. Yom Tov Tzahalon:
The ‘Good Doctrine’, the first book ever printed in the Land of Israel

Safed in the sixteenth century was both a thriving center of Jewish life in the Land of Israel and a node in a wider Sephardic world. In this setting, a young scholar, R. Yom Tov Tzahalon, wrote Lekach Tov [Good Doctrine] a commentary on the Book of Esther. This slim volume printed in Safed in 1577 became the first book ever printed in the Land of Israel and, according to many scholars, the first book printed anywhere in the Middle East or Western Asia, thereby binding together the Hebrew language, the printed word, and the ancient Jewish attachment to the land.

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R. Yom Tov ben Moshe Tzahalon (c. 1558–after 1638) was born in Safed to a family of Spanish exiles who had resettled in the Galilee after the expulsions from the Iberian Peninsula. He grew up in one of the most dynamic Jewish communities of the time: Safed was renowned for its rabbinic academies, halakhic authorities, and kabbalists such as R. Moshe Cordovero and R. Yitzchak Luria, and it attracted scholars and merchants from across the Jewish world.

R. Tzahalon studied with prominent local figures, especially the major halachic authority R. Moshe di Trani (1505–1580). From a relatively young age, R. Tzahalon’s reputation as a halachic authority spread beyond Safed, and questions were sent to him from various communities in the Ottoman Empire and Europe. His responsa, later collected under the title She’elot u-Teshuvot Yom Tov Tzahalon, were published in Venice in 1694 by his grandson, R. Yom Tov ben Akiva Tzahalon, and have since been regarded as an important source by both Sephardi and Ashkenazi halachic authorities.

R. Tzahalon served as rabbi of one of the Sephardi congregations in Safed and contributed significantly to the religious life of the community in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. He later acted as an emissary for Safed to Italy, Holland, Egypt, and Turkey, strengthening the city’s ties with diaspora communities and securing financial support for the Jewish population in the Land of Israel.

Given his stature, it is not surprising that R. Tzahalon was among those who received semichah, classical rabbinic ordination – in Safed. The well‑known attempt to renew semichah in the city had been initiated in 1538 by R. Yaakov Berab. Later sources report that his descendants, including a grandson also named R. Yaakov Berab, continued to confer this form of ordination on outstanding scholars, R. Tzahalon included.

R. Tzahalon was the author of the first book ever printed in the Land of Israel, Lekach Tov [Good Doctrine] a commentary on the Book of Esther completed and printed in Safed in 1577 by the itinerant printer R. Eliezer ben Yitzchak Ashkenazi of Prague. R. Eliezer had learned the craft of Hebrew printing in Lublin, worked for a time in Constantinople, and then brought his type, ornaments, and expertise to Safed, where he partnered with a local financier, R. Abraham ben Isaac Ashkenazi, to establish a small press.

Incredibly, R. Zahalon was only about eighteen years old when he wrote Lekach Tov, which he describes on the title page as a mishlo’ach manot [Purim gift] for his father. On the back of the title page, R. Tzahalon celebrates the establishment of the Safed press, notes that this is the first book printed “in this Holy City in the Land of Israel,” and urges other local authors to have their works printed there rather than abroad. In a second, longer introduction, he explains the connection between the work and his own name, drawing on the verse “For I give you good doctrine [lekach tov] do not forsake my teaching” (Proverbs 4:2).[9]

Although R. Tzahalon later gained wide recognition for his halakhic responsa, Lekach Tov itself attracted relatively little attention. The Safed press, moreover, had a short life: between 1577 and 1587 it produced only six books, all by Safed authors, before closing. For centuries, copies of Lekach Tov remained rare, and the work was seldom reprinted. Only in 1977, four hundred years after its first appearance, was a facsimile edition issued to mark the anniversary of the first Hebrew book printed in the Land of Israel.

Modern scholarship generally describes Lekach Tov as the first book printed in the Land of Israel and the first Hebrew book printed in the Middle East or Western Asia. Some earlier popular accounts even claimed it as the first book printed on the Asian continent, though that broader geographic assertion is more problematic in light of non‑Hebrew printing in other regions. Nonetheless, the Safed press and Lekach Tov remain a landmark in the history of Hebrew printing and a vivid expression of the enduring bond between Hebrew, Torah study, and the Land of Israel.

Sources and Further Readings:

Avi‑Yonah, Michael. “1577: The First Printing Press in the Middle East – Safed.” In *A History of the Holy Land in Documents*. Jerusalem: Keter, 1972.

Encyclopaedia Judaica. “Printing, Hebrew”; “Safed”; “Tzahalon, Yom Tov ben Moses.” 2nd ed. Edited by Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2007.

Heller, Marvin J. *Printing the Talmud: A History of the Individual Treatises Printed from 1700 to 1750*. Leiden: Brill, 1999.

Offenberg, Adri K. “Early Hebrew Printing from Lublin to Safed: The Journeys of Eliezer ben Isaac Ashkenazi.” *Studia Rosenthaliana* 26 (1992): 1–28.

Posen Library. “Responsum: On the Right to Bequeath a Mitzvah (Yom Tov Tzahalon).” In The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, Volume 5: 1650–1800, edited by Elisheva Carlbach. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2019.

Reif, Stefan C. Judaism and Hebrew Prayer: New Perspectives on Jewish Liturgical History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.