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Harvey Belovski, rabbi at Golders Green United Synagogue:

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On 12th March, 563 years ago, a man called Enea Silvio Piccolomini sent a letter describing something remarkable that happened in the previous year – 1454.Ìý The letter isn’t well known, but its subject was an invention that changed the world beyond recognition.

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Piccolomini – who would become Pope Pius II just four years later – wrote that a marvellous man in Frankfurt had been promoting the Bible.Ìý Apparently, Johann Gutenberg had produced a version of the Bible with such neat lettering that it was possible to read it without glasses.Ìý Every copy had been sold.

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Of course, Gutenberg had invented the printing press.Ìý Before Gutenberg, books were expensive and had to be duplicated by hand.Ìý To get a sense of what that meant, 200 years earlier, during a period of antisemitism in Paris, all known copies of the TalmudÌý – the major text of Jewish study – were burned.Ìý Today, a local Jewish college/yeshiva in this unfortunate position would just buy or download replacements, but back then in pre-printing Paris, the yeshiva simply closed, unable to function.

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Although there had been printing of sorts in China and Korea, Gutenberg pioneered moveable type, which allowed for mechanical, mass-production of books.Ìý His first and only full-scale publication was a Bible, printed in Latin, of which only 48 survive today.

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Gutenberg’s invention triggered a revolution of ideas and literacy, as books were distributed widely and cheaply.Ìý Ordinary people could access knowledge, which in turn empowered them in ways that altered the very fabric of society.

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Printing transformed the world – we can’t conceive of a school, library, church or synagogue before its invention.Ìý But perhaps we can: try just for a moment to imagine a world without the internet!

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It was a change that also benefitted the Jewish world in extraordinary ways.Ìý Jewish publishers sprung up across Europe, printing the great works of Jewish scholarship, ensuring that everyone could have access to them.Ìý Our morning prayers contain the line ‘learning Torah – Jewish religious texts – is equivalent to them all’.Ìý This means that study and the love of knowledge is deeply imprinted on our souls, and has always been central to Jewish identity.Ìý The invention of printing allowed the democratisation of knowledge to become a reality for whole communities, not just a privileged elite.Ìý We owe Gutenberg a huge debt of gratitude.

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