Between Manuscript and Print: A Note on Abraham Levi’s Yiddish Travelogue (Amsterdam 1764)

This short article aims to answer a question which was neglected at the time of the publication of Abraham Levi’s travelogue edition (S. Berger, Travels among Jews and Gentiles: Abraham Levi’s Travelogue (Amsterdam 1764) (Leiden 2002). It aims to raise arguments that may explain why, living in Amsterdam during the eighteenth century and knowing that the city was a centre of Jewish book production, the text was nevertheless published in manuscript form and not as a printed book. The article briefly touches upon issues referring to the Yiddish language, potential reading public, the absence of artistic-literary ambitions, and Jewish conservative approach to the written word.