Shabsai Bass

Rabbi Shabsai Bass (Shabbethai ben Yosef Bass, 1641–1718) is remembered as a pioneer of Jewish bibliography and Hebrew printing. Born in Kalisz, he was orphaned as a young man when his parents perished in the violence of 1655, after which he made his way to Prague. There he studied Talmud and sang in the Altneuschul choir, and it was his role as a bass singer that gave him the surname by which he became known. Following years of travel he settled for a time in Amsterdam, where he learned the printer's craft. In 1680 he issued Sifsei Yesheinim, the first catalogue of Hebrew books compiled by a Jew, describing some 2,200 titles; Sifsei Chachamim, a widely used supercommentary gathering earlier explanations of Rashi's Torah commentary; and Derech Eretz, a Yiddish traveler's guide. In the late 1680s he founded a Hebrew press at Dyhernfurth. He died at Krotoschin in 1718.