Kauffmann, Isaac
KAUFFMANN, ISAAC
KAUFFMANN, ISAAC (1805–1884), founder of the Kauffmann Jewish publishing house in Germany. Kauffmann, who was born in Bouxwiller, Alsace, in 1832 went to Frankfurt where he set up a bookshop. In 1850 he established the publishing house J. Kauffmann. The first book published by the firm was Buch vom rechten Lebenswandel (1850), his own translation of the ethical treatise of Zerahiah ha-Yevani Sefer ha-Yashar. Kauffmann published the works of S.R. *Hirsch, among others.
Isaac's son ignatz kauffmann (1849–1913) succeeded to the direction of the firm; under his aegis it published for the first time works by adherents of the *Wissenschaft des Judentums, including Moritz *Steinschneider, Leopold *Zunz, Abraham *Geiger, Abraham *Berliner, and David *Kaufmann. In 1900 Ignatz Kauffmann took over the printing house of M. Lehrberger and Co., successor to Wolf *Heidenheim's Hebrew publishing house.
From 1909 to 1936 Ignatz' son felix kauffmann (d. 1953) directed the firm; in 1913 he became sole owner. He continued to publish works in all fields of modern Jewish scholarship, textbooks, juvenile literature, and books on Jewish art and music. Among important writers and scholars published in this later period were Hermann *Cohen, Leo *Baeck, and Franz *Rosenzweig. The 1936 catalog, the last of nearly 100 issued, contained close to 1,000 items published by the firm. Felix Kauffmann remained active in the book trade after his emigration to the United States in the Nazi era.
bibliography:
Neue Juedische Monatshefte, 4 (1919), 69–77. add. bibliography: ndb, vol. 22 (2005), 68*.