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Pascheles, Wolf

The 1901 Jewish Encyclopedia

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Paschkis, Heinrich

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Austrian publisher; born at Prague May 11, 1814; died there Nov. 22, 1857. The son of needy parents, he gained a livelihood by tutoring in Prague and its vicinity. Then by an accident he was led to the career which made him famous, that of a seller and publisher of Jewish books. In 1828 he wrote a small book of German prayers for women. When, in 1831, the cholera appeared in Prague for the first time, it was ordered by the rabbinate that in this period of greatest suffering the prayers of the seliḥot of R. Eliezer Ashkenazi should be used. These, however, were hard to obtain; so Pascheles had printed his own little book of prayers and the seliḥot in question. As these met with good sales he had some brochures, pictures of rabbis, and things of a similar nature published at his own expense, and carried his entire stock of Hebrew printed matter about with him in a chest. In 1837 he obtained the right to open a book-shop. In 1846 he began to bring out Jewish folk-sayings, together with biographies of famous Jews, novels, and the like, under the title "Sippurim." The first seven volumes met with high appreciation and sold extensively until the disturbances of the year 1848interfered with the work; and not until 1852 could Pascheles continue it. The work has remained a popular one down to the present day. Among the contributors to the "Sippurim" were L. Weisel, Salomon Kohn, I. M. Jost, R. Fürstenthal, and S. I. Kaempf.

Beginning with the year 1852 Pascheles published the "Illustrirter Israelitischer Volks-Kalender." The publication of this calendar was later continued in two separate editions respectively by Jacob (afterward by Samuel) Pascheles and Jacob B. Brandeis, Wolf's son-in-law.

In 1853 Pascheles published a small edition of the Pentateuch, with a German translation by H. Arnheim of Glogau. Its popularity to the present day is proved by the fact that it has passed through innumerable editions. Among the other books brought out by him, two of which are widely circulated, are Fanny Neuda's "Stunden der Andacht" and Guttmann Klemperer's life of Jonathan Eybeschütz.