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268 Athias

THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

Athletes

and sympathetic remedies, which was published in Hebrew characters under the title "La Guerta de Oro, o sea Tratamiento Gustoso, Saberoso y Provechoso, " Leghorn, 1778. The book also contains " Lettres-Patentes du Roi Confirmatives des Privileges, dont les Juifs Portugais Jouissent en Prance Depuis 1550," with a Ladino translation and the outlines of a method of learning Italian and Greek" in a short

mens

268

Hebrew presswork and

of



it

won

for Athias

so great a reputation that he was thereupon taken into the Printers' Gild (March 31, 1661).



time contains also

" sympathetic " remedies, a treaon physiognomy, etc. ("Hebr. Bibl." xvi. 114).

tise

Immanuel Athias Printer at Amsterdam till 1707; son and business successor of Joseph Athias. The most elegant editions of Hebrew works, among

them Maimouides' " Yad ha-Hazakah," etc., were issued by his office (Steinschneider, in Ersch and Gruber, "Encyklopadie,"

Isaac Athias



II. sec. J. 28, p. 66).

Hakam

of the first Portuguese-

Jewish congregation in Hamburg, and after 1622 at Venice, where he died. He was a pupil of Isaac Uzziel, and wrote in Spanish " Tesoro de Preceptos Donde se Encierran las Joyas de los Seyscientos y Treze Preceptos que Encomendb el Seiior a su Pueblo Ysrael," Venice, 1627; second edition, Amsterdam, 1649.

The first edition is dedicated to Elijah Aboab at Hamburg, and contains also " Dinim de Degollar por un Estilo Facilissimo y Breve. " In 1621 he translated "Hizzuk 'Emunah," a polemical work in defense of Judaism by Isaac Troki, a Karaite, which translation exists in manuscript (see Gratz, " Gesch. der Ju-

still

den," x. 20, 23).

A prolific Italian writer on and homiletical topics. His works, seven in number, were published at Leghorn— 1793, 1821, 1823, 1825, and 1831. Isaiah ben Hayyim Athias Wrote notes to the ritual codes and sermons of Caro, and published them under the title "Bigde Yesha'" (Garments of Isaiah Athias

halakic,



exegetical,



Sal vation),Leghorn, 1853.

On another Isaiah Athias,

"Kontres ha-Maspid," p. 28. Jacob Athias Rabbi at Bayonne, France, during

see Jellinek,



the

half of the nineteenth century. See "Voice of Jacob," i. 198.

first

1842.

Jacoh Hezekiah Athias



Member

He

died in

of the Tal-

mudical academy " 'Ez Hayyim " at Amsterdam from the year 1737. He was a son of David Israel Athias. g." M. K.— G. b. Abraham Athias Printer and pubborn in Spain, probably at Cordova, at the beginning of the seventeenth century died at Amsterdam, May 1 2, 1700. When very young he was

Joseph

lisher







sent

by

his father to

Hamburg

in order to receive a

Jewish education. Somewhat before 1658 he seems to have gone to Amsterdam, where he established himself as a printer and publisher for

His

in the following year there

Printing- from Press. Oliveyra.

his press "

was

issued

Tikkun Sefer Torah

"

(Order of the Book of the Law), with an introductory poem by Solomon de During the next two years he was en-

his well-known edition of the Bible, the proof-reading for which was entrusted to John Leusden, professor at Leyden. As Steinschneider says, the admirable mechanical execution of the edition entitles it to rank among the most beautiful speci-

gaged on

Printer's

Mark

of

Joseph Athias.

Other works published by Athias were: Pentateuch, with Megillotand Haftarot,1665; the Psalms, with a Dutch translation (proof-reader J. Leusden), 1666-67 the second edition of his Bible, 1677, more carefully prepared than the first, and with still more beautiful type and decorations. For this'edition the States General of the Netherlands awarded him a gold medal and chain worth 600 Dutch florins. On This edition the title-page is a cut of the medal. gave occasion for a small broadside by Athias, entitled " Ccecus de Coloribus, contra Reprehensiones Sam. Maresiide ed. Bibl." Amsterdam, 1669. Athias published also "En Ya'akob" (1684-85), as well as prayer-books and liturgies according to the Portuguese and German rituals. Athias' printing-establishment was one of the His wealth enabled best equipped in Amsterdam. him to lavish money on the cutting and casting of

type, and to demand artistic work of his designers and die-sinkers. The edition of Maimonides' Yad ha-Hazakah, with " Lehem Mishneh, " 5 vols., Amsterdam, 1702-3, begun by Athias and completed after his death by his son Emanuel, is, as Steinschneider says, one of the most elegant and most admired products of the Hebrew press. At the end of the work the fact is mentioned that on July 9, 1667, Athias' father was burned as a Marano at an auto da f e at Cordova. The molds and letters used by Athias came into the possession of the printing-house of Proofs. One ugly feature in Athias' business career was the circumstance connected with a Judseo-German edition of

the

Bible.

The

printer Uri Phoebus,

first Sephardic rabbi at Amsterdam, employed a certain Jekutiel Blitz to write a Judso-German translation of the Bible; and, before he began to print it, he obtained from the Polish Council of the Four Lands the privilege that for ten years all reprints were to be proThe rabhibited and laid under ban (Nisan, 1671). bis of the Portuguese and German congregations of Amsterdam and elsewhere confirmed this privilege. Phoebus, whose entire fortune was risked in the

grandson of Moses Uri Levi, the

undertaking,

felt

himself under the necessity of