A Brief History of Jewish Typography

Artist and designer Hillel Smith will give a talk entitled, “A Brief History of Jewish Typography” at Western Washington University Library in the Reading Room (Wilson 4 Central). How have changing technologies changed the ways that Judaism is studied and practiced? What insights can typography offer into Jewish communal identity and relations? What have been the roles of nationalism and romanticism, assimilation and cultural exchange, in the development of Hebrew typography? This multimedia presentation will cover the four-thousand-year development of the Hebrew alphabet, from its invention to the present, focusing on how technology and geography have shaped the way Jews practice and think about holy texts.

Co-sponsored by Western Libraries Heritage Resources, the Department of History, the Department of Modern and Classical Languages, the Western Gallery, and the Department of Global Humanities and Religions, this talk is offered in connection with an exhibition, “As Far As Their Books Reach: Jewish Printing and the Global Jewish Diaspora,” currently on display in Western Libraries Special Collections. For more information, pleasse contact David Schlitt, Heritage Resources Judaica Project Archivist, at (360) 650-3193 or David.Schlitt@wwu.edu.