Moses Frankfurter

Moses Frankfurter was a Jewish author, dayyan, and printer in Amsterdam. He started printing book in 1721 when he first established a printing pres. Moses issued books both in Hebrew and Yiddish. Later in his life he moved to Frankfurt where he died.

Moses Frankfurter wrote “Nefesh Yehudah” (1701), a commentary on Isaac Aboab’s “Menorat ha-Ma’or” with a Yiddish translation of the text, which was often reprinted as well as “Sheva Petilot” (1721), an abbreviated version of the same work. He also wrote “Zeh Yenaḥamenu” (1712), a commentary on the “Mekhilta de-R. Ishmael”; “Tov Lekhet”, notes to the law of mourning of the Shulḥan Arukh, “Yoreh De’ah” (1746); “Ba’er Heitev”, glosses to the Shulḥan Arukh; “Ḥoshen Mishpat” (1749), patterned after Judah b. Simeon Ashkenazi’s “Ba’er Heitev” (1736–42) on the other three parts of the Shulḥan Arukh. Besides writing and publishing he translated into Yiddish and published his father’s “Sefer ha-Ḥayyim” (1712), from which he compiled “Sha’ar Shimon” (1714), prayers for the sick, in two parts, the second in Yiddish. Frankfurter also edited several works, the most important being a new edition of the rabbinic Bible “Mikra’ot Gedolot” (4 vols., Amsterdam, 1724–27).