"Ohncensurirte viel übles in sich enthaltende Bücher". On the Registration and Censorship of Hebrew Books in Moravia in the Mid-18th Century
Abstract
This paper deals with the Hebrew printing press of Franz Joseph Neumann in Brno in the years 1755-1760. It focuses on the registration and stamping of Hebrew books found in Moravia done by Neumann and on censorship of Hebrew books published by him.
It describes the functioning of the Hebrew book trade and its regulation in Moravia. It also gives specific examples of terms and passages that were unacceptable to the censors.
On the basis of Neumann's case and his dispute with Jesuit censors on the censorship of his books, it is possible to show the (non-)functioning of the censorship of Hebrew books in the 1750s in Moravia, when there was a significant change in censorship practice, namely a transfer of implementation powers from the Jesuit order to the state authority. Based primarily on an analysis of archival materials, the paper supplements existing overviews and case studies while also correcting some of the claims made so far.