It’s not every day that one comes across a volume that quite literally marks the birth of printing on an entire continent – but such is the case with the 1516 edition of Sefer Abudarham, printed in Fez, Morocco. More than just a Hebrew liturgical commentary, this landmark work has the unique distinction of being the first book printed in any language on African soil. While no complete copies are extant, individual incomplete copies occasionally surface and when I had the opportunity to acquire one such copy recently, I couldn’t resist.
The story begins with Samuel ben Isaac Nedivot and his son Isaac – two printers of Portuguese origin, refugees of the Iberian expulsions. Trained in Lisbon under the renowned Rabbi Eliezer Toledano, the elder Nedivot had worked on an earlier edition of the Abudarham in 1489. After the 1497 decree forced Portugal’s Jews to convert or flee, the Nedivots made their way to Morocco, settling in Fez, which had by then become a flourishing hub for Sephardic exiles.
By 1515, the Jewish population of Fez had swelled, with estimates placing it at upwards of 10,000 souls. The need for printed Hebrew texts was pressing. The Nedivots – armed with typeset knowledge and unshaken resolve – answered that call, setting up shop and launching Africa’s first press.
Their inaugural production was a deliberate echo of their past: a reprint of the Lisbon Abudarham, almost identical to the earlier edition save for a few typographic changes and a revised colophon. That colophon, in true poetic Sephardic fashion, is a prayer in itself:
“May G-d reward them… in their days may we see redemption, and then we will sing a new song in the house of G-d.”
But printing in exile was no easy feat. The printers detail their hardships in the introduction – especially in securing paper, as a Spanish royal decree forbade merchants from selling to Jews. Still, against the winds of European hostility, the press continued to turn. Over the next decade, the Nedivots would print some fifteen works – laying the foundation for Jewish printing in North Africa.
That they chose Sefer Abudarham as their opening salvo was no accident. A clear, richly sourced commentary on the prayers – weekday, Shabbat, and Yom Tov – it had become a staple in Sephardic homes and study halls. Rabbi David Abudarham, a 14th-century Spanish scholar and student of the Rashba, had written his commentary not just with erudition but with the intent of making liturgy accessible to the layman.
Today, the 1516 Fez Abudarham is virtually unobtainable. No complete copies are known to survive, and even fragments are a rarity of the highest order. But scarcity is only part of its value. The book stands as a monument, not only to the spread of Hebrew printing, but to the persistence of Jewish life in the aftermath of expulsion. Through ink and type, the Nedivots turned adversity into endurance.
At its core, this Abudarham is more than a commentary. It’s a declaration: that even in exile, even when cast to the margins of the world, Jews will preserve, produce, and pray. And when all else fails, we print.
