Rabbi Moshe Shapiro of Slavuta

Rabbi Moshe Shapiro of Slavuta - son of Rabbi Pinchas of Koretz   Yahrzeit - 8 Kislev Burial place - Slavuta Moshe Shapiro served as rabbi and Av Beit Din in Slavuta at the end of the 18th century. Since his position as rabbi was unpaid, Moshe earned his living by establishing a large printing house in 1791, which specialized in producing beautiful editions of religious books, in particular volumes of the Talmud, halacha, and responsa. The founder of the Slavuta printing house, Rabbi Moshe Shapiro, son of the famous tzadik Rabbi Pinchas of Koretz, began printing Jewish books in Slavuta in 1792, with the permission of the town's ruler, the Polish Count Eustachy Sanguszko. Later, when Slavuta became part of the Volhynia Governorate of the Russian Empire following the second partition of Poland, Shapiro obtained an additional license for the printing house from the new authorities. By the 1820s, when Rabbi Moshe passed the printing house on to his sons Shmuel-Aba and Pinchas, it had become a thriving enterprise with its own paper mill and bindery. The editions of the Slavuta printing house were famous throughout Europe for the beauty of their design and the quality of their typeface (legend has it that before typesetting particularly important religious texts, the Shapiro brothers would immerse the type in a mikveh — a pool for ritual immersion). In 1840, the German newspaper "Das Orient" wrote: "Who in Germany has not heard of the Slavuta printing house? Who has not admired the magnificent edition of the Talmud printed in Slavuta?" The printing house published mainly classic texts of Judaism — the Tanach, the Talmud, the Mishnah (books of Jewish religious law), the Arba'ah Turim (a work composed in the 14th century by the Spanish rabbi Yaakov ben Asher, who systematized the main sections of Jewish law), and prayer books. These and other books were published in large print runs and were sold out in the shortest possible time by Jewish educational institutions (cheders and yeshivot), rabbis, and ordinary Jews as well, who considered it essential to have holy books at home. Demand was such that sometimes, having finished printing one edition of a book, the printing house would immediately begin a new one. Thus, the complete edition of the Talmud published in Slavuta in 1808-1816 was reprinted in 1817-1822. The printing house played a primary economic role in Slavuta — almost the entire Jewish population of the town, along with a significant portion of the Christian population, was employed at the printing house, the paper mill, or Shapiro's bindery. Members of the Shapiro family were held in great esteem, and the founder of the printing house, Rabbi Moshe, was repeatedly elected rabbi of Slavuta.   https://silatehilim.com/%d1%85%d0%b0%d1%81%d0%b8%d0%b4%d1%83%d1%82-%d0%bd%d0%b0-%d1%82%d0%b5%d0%b8%d0%bb%d0%b8%d0%bc-%d1%80%d0%b0%d0%b1%d0%b8-%d0%bc%d0%be%d1%88%d0%b5-%d0%b8%d0%b7-%d1%81%d0%bb%d0%b0%d0%b2%d1%83%d1%82%d1%8b/