Uri Ben Aaron HaLevi

Uri (Phoebus) Ben Aaron HaLevi (also called Uri Witzenhausen or Witmund) was a Hebrew printer based in Amsterdam and later in Zholkva. His grandfather father was ḥazzan of the Neveh Shalom congregation, Amsterdam, and his grandfather Moses Uri ha-Levi, rabbi of Emden and one of the founders of the Portuguese Jewish community in Amsterdam.

Uri’s printing business in Amsterdam lasted from 1658 to 1689. He published numerous rabbinical and religious works, some of them in Yiddish, including the first Yiddish translation of the Bible by Jekuthiel Blitz (1679). He also published the first Yiddish newspaper “Dienstagishe un Freytagishe Kurant”, which appeared every Tuesday and Friday from 1680 to 1687.

Manny of his works published in Amsterdam were intended for the Jews of Poland. In 1692 he moved his business to Zholkva where he was reportedly invited by the Polish king John III Sobieski (r. 1674–1696) to print Hebrew books. His press was continued by his children and their descendants for some time after his death in 1715.