The State of Hebrew Type Design

“Try and tell me why design doesn't matter.” 🤖🥊🤨 

​​Franziska (Franzisca) Baruch (1901–1989) became interested in Hebrew letterforms before she even spoke it. A letterer and graphic designer, she is likely best known for her Hebrew typeface Stam (Berthold, 1926); depending on how you count, she made 3 to 8 Hebrew faces. Baruch’s life is well documented, so we discuss creative control, group work attributions, and the nuances of revivals, derivatives, piracies. 

Born in Hamburg, Baruch studied lettering and commercial art in Berlin. She left Germany in 1933, moving to Tel Aviv, then Jerusalem. The Schocken family hired her to redesign the Ha'aretz newspaper and masthead (still in use!) in 1936. A prolific creator, her portfolio ranges from passports to books to signage.

Shani gives us a broad overview of Jewish typography history, covering how much we don’t know about Hebrew's many “designer-less fonts”—often made by those who did not speak or read it—plus Schocken-Baruch, designing vs inspiring, and lasting impacts of forcing alphabets into Gutenberg’s printing system.

Special guest: Shani Avni, Ismar David Assistant Curator for RIT Cary Graphic Arts Collection, trouble maker, Jewish typography expert

PSA: Check out the Hebrew Monotype at the Bixler Press & Letterfoundry chapbook & 2023 workshop.

📚 by Baruch

• Covers for Rimon (Yiddish) & Milgroim (Hebrew), full issues
• with Jacob Steinhardt: Passover Haggadah (1921), Book of Jonah (1953), Book of Ruth (1957)
• Magere Stam, Stam, Rambam, Rahel | מאגערע סתם, סתם, רמבם, רחל, c. 1925
• Ha'aretz newspaper masthead
• Baruch on wikimedia, German Designers

plus

J.F. Coakley, The Hebrew types of the Jericho Press (2010)

Philipp Messner, "Von der Form der Sprache,” Soncino (2014)

Ishai Mishory, “Molded Inexorably by the Times,” In Geveb (2019)

ed. Ada Ward, New Types – Three Pioneers of Hebrew Graphic Design (2016)

Transcript

Re(un)Covered Podcast

Season 1, Episode 6: The State of Hebrew Type Design

Release date: 2025

Copyright © 2025. All rights reserved. This text may not be published online or distributed without written permission. Transcripts are generated using a combination of speech recognition software and human transcribers, and may contain errors. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print.

[intro music]

Joe: This is re Uncovered, the podcast about what lingers in the archive and why it matters. Episode six the state of Hebrew type design. 

Recorded voice: The linotype machine sets solid lines of type called hot type, creating that powerful element of communication: the printed word.

Bethany: Hi, Joe. Joe, guess what we could talk about today.

Joe: Type design.

Bethany: So today, it's very exciting because we are going to be talking about a typeface that is not a Latinate form.

Joe: Yeah, this is our first one. Right?

Bethany: This is our first. This is our first one. And the only one in this season. But there are many more. So we're going to be talking about Franziska. Baruch. Brooch. Brooch. Depending on who, how good your Hebrew is. Mine is not, again.

Joe: Continuing the show within the show

Bethany: Bethany, What language is she speaking and what languages does she have to do research.

Joe: In what language are we in? What? What script are we talking about?

Bethany: So we're going to be talking about Hebrew. We're looking at Hebrew, which you may recall is the opposite of English, in terms of direction that the words move. So instead of going from, left to right, as we do in English, Hebrew goes from right to left.

Joe: This is where I rack my brain in trying to remember which direction to read English.

Bethany: And this is why I just looked at my screen and was like, okay, this is left. I made my little L, well, L means left.

Joe: Great. Everyone put their hand out there.

Bethany: Oh shoot, it's not not on my shoes anymore. I just have in my hands, magic hands. So Baruch is somebody, unlike many other people in this fine season of our fine podcast, we know a lot about, she was born in 1901. She died in 1989.

Joe: Oh, a lot of a life. A lot of things happened.

Bethany: Spanned. Spanned a whole thing. Yeah, a whole whole century.

Joe: Almost whole many things, actually.

Bethany: So we're not going to get into all the nuts and bolts. There are resources out there, which, again, we will put on the show notes. But, I think the thing that really amazed me is that her, her work is really prolific and really cool. And so today we're going to sort of I'm going to give you like a, a very high, like a very short overview.

Bethany: This is actually going to be a short overview. And then when I talk with Shani Avni, who is an expert in Hebrew type design, she and I get more into the brass tacks. Shani’s research on, like, wooden type in Hebrew is incredible. But before we fangirl about Shani, we're going to fangirl about Francesca Baruch.

Bethany: So Baruch is probably best known for her typeface Stam which was released by Berthold in 1926, and this is inspired by a, 16th century Haggadah, which was printed actually in wooden type in Prague by the Koen brothers.

Joe: Oh, like the Coen brothers?

Betany: Yeah, with a K…

Joe: by John Ethan Coen. 

Bethany: You know, they're prolific. This font, this typeface, inspires other Hebrew typefaces that Berthold put out, which probably were developed without her consent or direct involvement, but we don't fully know that. So one of the things that's really fascinating about her work is we actually get a lot into the, like, ideas of creative control and ownership. And who made a thing.

Bethany: She also made a form of this typeface for this professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. That then got cut at the Jerusalem Type Foundry as Mayer-Baruch in the late 1950s. So those are sort of her like two, like the two typefaces she's really known for.

So she's born in Hamburg in 1901. She studied in Berlin. She did lettering with a person who, Else Marcks-Penzig, who was a student and collaborator of Emil Rudolf Weiss who was a student of…

Joe: Anna Simons?

Bethany: Yes! Ding ding ding ding ding ding. 

Joe: I have been listening. Yes.

Bethany: You have. So she was, her School of Applied Arts, from 1919 to 1925. And then she, went into the commercial arts department, and worked with Ernst Bohm. And she got into Hebrew letter forms, even though she didn't speak Hebrew at the time. 

Joe: Oh, wow.

And she did some work for the Rimon publishing house in Berlin, where they had this Jewish art magazine, that was published in Yiddish and Hebrew.

Bethany: So it was called Rimon in Yiddish and Milgroim in Hebrew. Baruch also in this period is doing a lot of calligraphy. And so she does the lettering, working with Jacob Steinhardt, to make the woodcut illustrations for a Passover Haggadah. And then later the they collaborate together again in the 50s and do two more works that have Baruch’s calligraphy in them.

So she's doing Hebrew calligraphy, which then obviously is influencing her type design later. So briefly, she you know, starts making type designs. She does a typefaces for the league, the German League of Free Welfare's Pavilion at this exhibition in Dusseldorf in 1926, which was the largest trade fair in the Weimar Republic, much like other people in this season, in the 30s, she leaves Germany because she is Jewish.

So she, moved to Tel Aviv in 1933. And then she later moves to Jerusalem, where she lives until she dies. And the Schocken family hired her to redesign the Ha'aretz newspaper masthead in 1936, and it is still in use. And this is like the daily newspaper that like the folks read. Like this is still like a pretty.

Joe: Well circulated newspaper.

Bethany: Yeah. And so she is credited, for designing the Israeli passport, which was that design was in use until 1980. 

Joe: Wow. 

Bethany: She also designed the emblem for the city of Jerusalem. She does, she made designs for paper banknotes that weren't used, but she did submit them. But again, she collaborated with other these other people, and so sometimes it's not really clear. Like, who who was the lead or whatever. Her archive was donated to the Israel Museum after her death. I'm going to assume that you don't read Hebrew.

Joe: No.

Bethany: But here. So here, these different here are just different variations of typefaces she designed. And then these are some samples of things from specimens of the type in use. One of the things that's really challenging, this is, this magazine that was published in Yiddish and Hebrew. This is the, Milgraim like, masthead type title thing that she made for it.

Bethany: It looks different in Yiddish. This. 

Joe: Wow.

Bethany: Yeah. It's cool. 

Joe: Oh, these are so sick.

Bethany: They're so right. This is all. Also, this is just Wikipedia.

Joe: Yeah.

Bethany: Yeah, she has a media Category. In Wikipedia, there are five things, but still. So this is a type specimen. So this is and then it's some variations of it which are all named after I think it's Hebrew script practices. It's what those, they're all named after. So that's very cool. And, and then what's really neat, right. But this is some of her process work, so you can see, oh, how she put together the letter forms and like, like how we were talking about in our last episode, you know, how do you figure out spacing and glyphs and things like that?

Bethany: So one of the things is so fascinating about non Latin forms in this time period, which I'm using non Latin to just be very umbrella like is if you have people who aren't native speakers making them like they don't necessarily understand if that dot is in a slightly different place, it means something totally different.

Joe: umhmm
 Bethany: And so that change can deform what a language looks like. Because if you have a bunch of German type makers making things that they don't really know what they mean, then like stuff can get moved around. And then of course that's where it gets printed. And then that is what's seen as was, authoritative. So yeah.

Joe: Lost in translation in a couple of different ways of you know.

Bethany: Yeah, these process work. Like one of the things is, you know, how does Hebrew situate on the line because like, how it uses lines is different than, like the ascenders and descenders, like, don't work in quite the same way as they do in our Latinate alphabets. And so here are some more examples of stuff that she has made.

Bethany: Again, it's just a lot of really cool pictures of really beautiful things. Book stacks.

Joe: Big fan of a stack of books.

Bethany: Love a book stack, right. So you can see, you know, here, like the Seals. And this is like from that, at, she also did like, you know, this cool, like paper cutting and stuff. Like, it's just it's very cool. So there have been some exhibitions of her work. And her process work. So you can see like, oh you know, here's, here's what makes this glyph bold versus normal weight.

Bethany: And it's like, this is the measurements.

Joe: Oh wow.

Bethany: And like it gets really broken down.

Joe: Yeah. This is such my new detail, which of course, you know, is is the nature of the game when it comes to type design.

Bethany: Hebrew is so fascinating. I mean, we've talked about how, you know, type originally was imitating handwriting and then has sort of got into its own direction. And I think with Hebrew, you know, how does this calligraphic tradition that's like, you know, millennia old, you know, how does that continue to, to influence the type forms? It's just really it's just really cool, so beautiful.

Bethany: But yeah. So there's a lot of work documenting her process in her work. And she is the subject of academic articles and like, like this is someone who is on the more established, yes, end of our spectrum.

Joe: We cannot count the amount of things that we know about her on a hand.

Bethany: You know, not even two. We need like toes.

Joe: Multiple hands. Yeah.

Bethany: So you're going to get to hear me and Shani Avni from the Rochester Institute of Technology, who is an incredible historian of Hebrew type and design, really dig into her and sort of the larger questions about influence and authorship and credit and design. It's really great.

Joe: That's amazing.

[music]

Bethany: Can you tell us who are you? What's your name? What do you do? What what what trouble do you. Cause when you're, you know.

Shani: A lot of trouble. Yeah, yeah. Yes. Middle name trouble maker. Hi. And hello. And thanks for having me. My name is Shani Avni, and, I design and research and teach and consult and write and lecture. So I do a lot of things, on book history, printing history, and specifically type design and typography. And my focus is on, Jewish typography, meaning, a typography that uses the Hebrew script, the Hebrew scriptures, various different languages, and that's what I'm very excited about, very fascinated with.

And since 2020, I'm the Ismar David assistant curator at the RIT Cary Graphic Arts Collection, which means that part of my, work is devoted to the Ismar David papers. I have, really a dream job of kind of, being very, very close to the archive and, you know, facilitating access for other researchers that are interested in his work. And, everything that has to do with arrangement, description, preservation of the archive itself, which is completely new to me. I'm not a trained archivist by any means. 

Bethany: Fun. 

Shani: And I'm kind of slowly falling in love with, with archiving as well. And then the, the more kind of, kind of future forward part of, focusing on the enhancement of this archive because there is a, it's a very large archive, but there are what I like to call the missing years, mostly the years that he worked, in Palestine, then Israel and again, the nature of this work is so ephemeral, right?

There was really no kind of awareness of, of or really need of, of keeping those work or even getting credit for that work. It was all commercial and, in very, let's say challenging circumstances that don't, didn't always allow for, for just keeping, you know, physical, artifacts. So kind of going back, digging in, trying to see if there's anything that can be acquired. And then with this research kind of, planning and, how to best share that, that information. And this is only part of my work in Cary.

Bethany: I mean, this is the joy, right. These things as you're like. And then also, just like the person I spend time studying, I also like detail cars and, like, am a baker and you're like a candlestick maker, a butcher, like, I have the whole.

Shani: But you know what? I really I really kind of see how everything is connected. Kind of literally. It's all connected. It's either, you know, a name that you know, that that is connected to both, collections or things that you learn from one, research that then serve you and the other research. It's it really is all, connected.

Bethany: So this leads us beautifully because you're clearly an educator, because you can pull people who are like, what about this thing over here? And you're like, yes, but how do we go back to the topic at hand? How did you get at the type history? I mean, clearly it's very cool, but, like what? What got you in this journey? More specifically.

Shani: So I, I was born in Israel. I grew up around Tel Aviv, and, I studied graphic design there. I did my, my undergrad, my BA there. And so Hebrew is my native tongue, Hebrew that is spoken in Israel specifically. And I remembered, really kind of discovering typography in typography lessons. And really kind of falling in love with letterforms.

It was, it was I think it was easy because, you know, I loved reading and and it kind of, again, it's all connected, you know, you read the content and all of a sudden you discover, you know, how, how much, power the form has. And I was so I was hooked like for from early on and I, I do remember being very frustrated in every like in terms of the history of, of Hebrew typography.

I had many questions and, you know, not a very focused library, not kind of not a lot of publication in Hebrew. And I was, you know, I was lucky enough to be able to both read English and to, order online books in English from Amazon. Remember when it used to be just an online bookshop? Back in the day?

Bethany: I do! we're so we're showing our age here but that's okay.

Shani: Exactly. Yeah but that was kind of my first steps into wait a minute, but why why does it look like this? Why does it not, you know, kind of just trying to figure out, and, and to kind of get some answers, and I, I learned that I just need to go way, way, way back kind of really, really, literally to the beginning.

And I think those questions just grew stronger with me kind of gradually graduating and starting my, just my career as a graphic designer, because there was always a sense, like a real problem, that there were not enough typefaces. We had a very small pool of, of fonts to choose from, and they couldn't do the things that I wanted them to do for me.

Right? I had a design brief, I had concepts, and I could see it happening for Latin groups, but it was just non-existing for Hebrew. And I think, it's what happened to me and to, you know, dear colleagues of mine that are that that have began to become, typeface designers. It was this approach of, and I'm quoting Lella, Massimo, by the way, that if you can't find a design, it, you know, it was like, I, I need this thing to do this, so I need to learn how to kind of create this tool that I can work with. Because when Gutenberg did all the things that he did, they were meant and they were built for the Latin script. And it's just it's fascinating to see what happens next. Right? So this amazing invention is spreading very fast around the world, and everybody acknowledges the power of it, but it's not meant to support others.

So what do you do? Right. So do you botch the script? Do you kind of force it into those, those, means of production? Do you change it? Right? Do you create simplified forms of letters? It's just it's it's fascinating. And it's also pretty sad sometimes to see. 

Bethany: Yeah.

Shani: Because you can see and Hebrew is is one example, you know, of, of that kind of phenomena. And, and, and a very big incentive for me to continue researching because if I for a minute now jump back to just what you mentioned about letterforms and how they were created by hand. Right. When you think about the, the shift from the written form to printed form that was done so meticulously for the Latin script.

That did not happen for Hebrew. Hebrew had to be forced into something that wasn't supposed to accommodate her or accommodate the, the script. Right. Yeah. And, and then, and then you see what happens and then you see the powers at hand, and then you see decisions that you that were made. Then you don't necessarily know why.

But that creates a sort of a convention. Right. That's what readers have.

Bethany: Right.

Shani: The choice is very limited. And what we see very clearly is how the understanding of the written form was lost as the years kind of as you, as you grow with, with the years. Because while there was always some kind of connection with, the, the writing tools and then how you translate them into making type in the Latin script, that did not happen, with Hebrew.

So you had a very long time in history where you did not have designers, as we think of them today. You had, people that needed to create Hebrew fonts, for very small, you know, part of the market. And, and in some, in some kind of, you know, phases in history, you see where the process was more successful. You see that it was either done by someone who was familiar with the script and its nuances, or someone who was very invested in kind of familiarizing themselves to those nuances. And sometimes you just don't in those, I kind of call them designer-less fonts, are copies of copies of copies of someone who doesn't know what they're copying.

Bethany: Yeah.

Shani: But that is being cemented because that's what's available. Right? That's the only that's the only font that you can get. Right. And the whole if you can't make it, you can find, make it comes way afterwards, at least for, Hebrew, typefaces in, in, North America. There was a real need to provide Hebrew typefaces for, for scholars, for printing scholarly texts, which means that, again, this is not a typeface that is designed to service a Jewish community.

Bethany: Right.

Shani: They needed to, to print their works. In Aramaic, right, in Hebrew. So that was a very specific demand. So the, the first printed Hebrew, for example, in North America it's not something that that serves, the Jewish community. It's a completely different, purpose. And again, if you think of the designer and design brief and all those kind of process that we are, you know, that we, we are now invested in when or when our mind goes into kind of thinking of designing things or solving a problem…. That's it's a very different design brief.

Bethany: Yes. Yes it is. So today the episode, is thinking about Hebrew type, but really thinking about, Francesca Baruch, Baruch.

Shani: Baruch.

Bethany: Yeah, yeah. I can't do those Rs.

Shani: Yes, they're tricky.

Bethany: I can do English Rs, but others are like my Rubicon. So she's one of these. You know, she is designing type in this metal type era. We actually have a fairly robust archival record of what she did. Compared to some of these other designers where we might know their name and like, a date. So, like, she had a super prolific career. What are some highlights? And this doesn't have to be comprehensive, just highlights, for you of the things she made or how she worked or.

Shani: Yeah, I can think of a few some of them I had, you know, the privilege of kind of learning more about. So obviously more things to be excited, about, what first comes to mind is but seriously, there's so much. So the work that she did with the logo in the mast, the masthead of Haaretz newspaper, I think it's one of the, one of the best, case studies that I, that I really love teaching with.

Especially because this is one logo that is still being used today. Really, and has. Yes. And has survived, kind of so many eras and so many. Just think about the formats and, just the production methods and, and, and it really is a, one of those outstanding examples of, of timeless design, because the brief was answered in such a, in such a successful way.

That it's, it's just it's fascinating to see. So you're looking at when I'm showing you the students, we're kind of we're we can start from the end where, you know, you open your browser or your app and you're reading Haaretz newspaper. Maybe your parents are still subscribed to the to the paper or the newspapers. And you can you can actually hold it every now and then.

But then when you start at the very beginning, it's, it's you get kind of everything, you get design history, which is history. History. Right. Because you kind of design is all and nothing is created in a vacuum. And there's always, you know, again, it's, it's a, it's always a problem, solving a problem or a need that is met.

So and you can see, you can see it's, kind of incarnations before the Baruch was assigned. Then you can see what she did. You can have access to some of her sketches. It's not, you know, the full on analysis that I usually like doing when you, when you do have enough of those sketches again, nobody thought of I think most designers didn't or a be very kind of specific to the type of research that I've been dealing with in recent years.

But, it's, it's a, it's a very thrilling challenge to try and kind of reconstruct the process. And when you get to do it with those really iconic logos or things that are, you're still kind of consuming and seeing and reading and enjoying and get getting all their values kind of atmospherically. And until this day, it's, it's I really like that. It's kind of covering.

Bethany: This.

Shani: History. And, it was.

Bethany: 1936.

Shani: 39 when I think so, but yeah.

Bethany: Something it was the late it was the late 30s, early 40s when you read the masthead. So that's getting close to a hundred years. [editor’s note: it was 1936] But that's amazing, right? So cool.

Shani: Yeah, it's so cool. And again, there were like, specific things that you did there with the letters that kind of, yeah. So that, you know, that could be a whole course you should to a lesson about the logo, but it really is endless. Yeah. And then there is the Baruch typeface.

Bethany: Yes.

Shani: Which is again, a whole story of its own. And, and I recently got to research it and work with it more closely.

Bethany: So to are there can you tell you walk us through what you know about the typefaces that she designed? Yes. That would be really helpful for me.

Shani: Yeah, yeah. Of course. And we're talking about such so it's just such a small market. I mean, working on there's so much constraints. So from what I know, we have the first typeface, which is stem, and we have it, produced by Berthold in Germany, 1925 or 6, and later on in the 50s in Jerusalem.

But we should go back to Berthold. We also print types we see in type specimen, the, Margaret if I'm pronouncing it well, stam which is a lighter version of stam, in the 1930s, we have Rambam which we think, Berthold kind of took, Baruch’s drawing for stam based it, on, on her design and created another version and the, involvement or consent of Baruch, within that process is, is not clear. She probably was not involved. And then there's the, the fourth one, which is called Rahel, which is just like Rambam again, another version. So, there was we started with some that, Francesca designed, and then we have three other versions that she probably not. But again, we need to kind of also take into consideration that pirating typefaces was as today, you know, it was a thing, it was easy to do. And it was done. So we, but we can never show the you know, the whole process of the typeface and the evidence for it. So three versions of Stam that probably were not authorized or really kind of designed by Baruch.

Bethany: So she, we know she made Stam, but the other three are like, fuzzy, like, influenced heavily by whether or not she actually did the drawings for them. We don't know is sort of what I get.

Shani: Yeah. And and to the best of like my knowledge and the resources, the resources that I've, seen she was not. She was not paid for it and she, she, she wasn't part of that process. But and it also speaks to the, you know, the technology of how easy was to, to make those kind of changes to your, to your design and just kind of do it, just produce it and so that's so we're still in the, in the 30s, which is one, but three other versions, chronologically speaking.

Shani: Then we're in the 40s and then the start to the show can, kind of conundrum, I don't know. Yeah, yeah. And you asked me specifically and it's a, it's a fantastic question because, you see, sometimes, the typeface referred to is Schocken, which is the family name of the person who commissioned, that typeface. And sometimes it's Schocken Hyphen Baruch.

Bethany: Yeah.

Shani: Which has the attribution and the credits, although, sadly, I don't have any conclusive answer for that. If someone out there has it, please, please let me know.

Bethany: Great.
 Shani: Especially because I'm seeing resources that are using it maybe interchangeably. I'll give you an example. There's, and there was an exhibition in 1985, in Tel Aviv, and, it featured several typefaces. I'm very curious about the curation of that exhibition, by the way. But it was it was a short, list of. Seven typefaces.

It was called the new Hebrew, letter, and it displayed, you know, the all those new exciting typefaces that were created, around the time where there was a true need for truth, for new Hebrew typefaces. So, so. And Franziska Baruch’s typeface appears there under Schocken. But when you look, when you look into the, into the catalog, they're showing all the Monotype, they're showing monotype proofs. They're talking about how it was produced for Monotype. So from what I know so far, the, the first like the initial commission was from Schocken for his, publication. That was in 1940s, and it was a few years when he was the only one, using that typeface only for his publication. And then only after a few years it became available for trade in terms of copyrights. And then we see documentation of the that is leading to the publication in 1947, in Monotype, and it's called Schocken-Baruch.

Bethany: Got it.

Shani: I'm, I'm kind of inclined to think that it's the same one in terms of the design.

Bethany: Okay.

Shani: Only it's not because it has nothing to do with the original drawings there. That's that's kind of the whole thing. But in terms of why we're still counting the typeset, the typefaces, right? So that would be that would be another one.

Shani: The and the next one, which is, maybe even a greater mystery is the Meyer Baruch.

Bethany: Okay.

Shani: Which I've been I've recently I've been kind of trying to just see if there's any piece of information out there. And I had, I had a very dear colleague of mine, in Israel who kind of, you know, who who helped me very much to go into the archives and kind of, you know, sift through other archives in connection and find nothing.

And what we know so far is that it was commissioned by Professor Leo A. Mayer, who was an orientalist. The word that we don't use anymore. Yes. And he so he commissioned both to design this typeface. We know that it was it was cast in the Netherlands, but that was that never appeared in the market. So I think that's the only kind of, checkbox I didn't, I didn't take. Yeah. To kind of see what, documentation can be retrieved from. And today, I have no idea. This is kind of my next list, but I've but in in Israel, I've been trying to just look at his, Mayer’s archive, his papers or anything that relates to him through the Hebrew University because he commissioned it for originally for the press of the university and there's nothing. For now it's nothing. And then we see again in the 1950s, it being, produced in the Jerusalem type foundry. And then we see it in the type specimen there. And that was the, the way the, their version. But, there is a monotype version of this, he, which is kind of the confusing bit. Yeah.

Shani:
 Bethany: Because Messner I'm like, yes. So it has this beautiful footnote, outline did this like. And I'm very glad to hear since you have spent, many more hours with this work than I have, that you are equally confused because, yes, it's like, okay, is this just deeply confusing or is it that I just I'm missing something obvious?

Bethany: And so I'm very pleased on a very personal note right now. But you're like, yeah, it's it's nuts because we can't actually count because it's like maybe three, but maybe eight like unclear. And you're like, great, okay.

Shani: Right, right.

Bethany: But yeah. And it's like because like Monotype was supposed to cast it, but like, maybe they did, but maybe they did it in London.

Shani: They did, they did. We did at least one version. And it was casted in ten points, which is very, very small.

Bethany: That's a tiny, wow. Yes, yes. Teeny teeny tiny.

Shani: And I think there were others. So a very good resource, for this would be a type specimen by, Doctor JF Coakley. And it's called the Hebrew typefaces of the Jericho Press. That's, that's the typeface that he produced with his notes. And I was I actually started my, my kind of hunt for more information through him trying to see because he was, he tried to like back in the years to contact the establishments.

Shani: Did that have miles records and he wasn't successful. And I was like I'm going to give it another shot. You know, today speaking Hebrew with the curators and with the archives. And there's nothing it seems at the moment. Then there's nothing. But you can never know. You can never know. Things just kind of turn up.

But for a number seven, there is a number eight is the number eight, but it was never produced. And you can find, in. So it's the kind of, you know, the Bible, the, catalog and books that, was published and it's called New Types, three Pioneers of Graphic Design. And it was published in, first in Israel in Hebrew, and then it was translated, parts of it were translated into English, and which I suspect that that chapter, that was wait, I want to I want to see specific and going back to the exhibition catalog, in the Hebrew version, she writes about another typeface that was designed in 1953 or 4, for Stemple. And we only have sketches and it was never completed. So we can edit in a way to the list at least of designing, you know, another typeface.

Bethany: Incredible.

Shani: And there's a crucial problem with, with Hebrew letters, in terms of differentiation. If they look very, very much alike, they basically look like, you know, just a bunch of squares.

Bethany: Yeah.

Shani: They're all very rectangular. Not a lot of ascenders. And descenders.

Bethany: Glad you said that because that's. Yeah. Yeah. So it looks like,

Shani: Right. No, but but it's true. It's if you look at it, it is what it is. Right. But then and the vocabulary is very limited and the vowel marks are a whole other issue. But just think of how many mistakes. You like how many variables you're introducing into one word that can then be read in six different ways.

Bethany: Just like these typefaces. It's like she made three typefaces she made. I'm seeing some connections. Like pretty soon we're going to have like a pinboard with like, red yarn, and it's going to be so I the only digital revivals. Speaking of. Yes, brochures, typefaces, where Stam Mf and then a Stam Hasofer MF, that master font made.

Bethany: Are there any other digital revivals that you're aware of? Of her work?

Shani: So, yeah. And also, again, you know, I'm kind of, I am a broken record because. Yeah, because we're broken. Need to be so again. Right. So, the original designs and the original typefaces are rarely the ones that we're seeing today in their digital forms. And we touched on, piracy and digital credit and copyrights and everything.

So the, the, the versions that are currently available are versions. Right. They're not the authentic or, you know, Yeah. And the whole copyright issue is extremely controversial in that case. Yeah. And that's all I'm going to say. So I'm not aware of any other, okay. You know, revivals or I don't know, maybe I'm in the making. I'll be very happy to hear what I am seeing, and I love seeing that. And I'm really hoping to see more art typefaces, that are inspired by Baruch’s work. So there's one typeface by that is a, who, who kind of based the whole typeface on this and calls it Ezra Baruch. So his whole and he's kind of tracing is his process. So it's kind of, you know, it's a homage to her work. So that's very straightforward. But when you look at more current type, designs, especially from, type designers who are also, you know, dabbling in the history or are doing, the, the process that we like that includes historical, learning and references.

So and I keep seeing that it really makes me very happy. And there's, there's one example that comes to mind. There was recently a typeface by Adi Sturm. It's called NonText. And there's one character in there, just one little final letter. It's a final Sadeq, which means that it's, it's an alternative form of one letter that appears only when that letters is, at the end of words, so that they could look differently.

It's, it's the same. The same letter, but it has two different, forms. And that his final study is, is when you look at it, and his typeface, and then you go to, to shock and go, it's like. And of course, so it was a revival, of inccuabla typefaces. So, you know, when I see that in a, in a current, well-designed typeface, my heart explodes, I love it.

Bethany: Yeah. 

Shani: And it is beautiful. It really is.

Bethany: Other things that you really love, just looking at, that she made by hand or in graphic design, I think.

Shani: What, what I'm most interested or what I'm kind of growing more interested on is, and commercial work. And I think you, you specifically asked about it, her work after like, from the 70s until her death? Basically, yes. Why was.

Bethany: She doing.

Shani: Right?

Bethany: So lacuna of like, right made all this stuff in the 40s and then it's just radio silence.

Shani: Yeah. Because that has not been researched yet. Right. And, okay, I know that. So, my colleague, is doing her PhD now on women, designers. And I hope you will include the work and, you know, and that would be an opportunity to learn, more because now we were focused on, you know, on that early, time of really establishing the, and of the state of Israel.

But yet, you know, there was there were more years that she was active in. And this is so it's one thing that kind of, you know, started this interest for me because she, I know that she did a lot of she worked a lot with, book publishers. And with signage. So these are again two kind of different, mediums which most, commercial artists did, you know, all of the time.

Shani: And there are some covers that she did for two publishing houses did are one of them at least is still exists in a way today. So there's the Bialik Institute where she did a logo for the, for the publishing house, and I think she also did the covers, from the 60s, the 50s onwards.

Shani: And then there was another publishing house, called the Tarsheesh. And it was it was bought by a bigger publishing house called ver in the 80s. But I think that there might be more cover, art for books than we're aware of.

Bethany: That's cool.

Shani: So I would really be interested. The few samples that I have are, again, you know, caligraphically beautiful and very, very smart. There is one specific cover that I'm that I'm, kind of pointing out to my students who can't read Hebrew, by the way.

Bethany: Right.

Shani: Most of them at least. And they, she did a cover for Macbeth, and she was able to use that one, one of the very few letters of the Hebrew alphabet that has a descender. It's the course and her lettering that's the cover.

Bethany: Dagger!

Shani: Exactly. And that's the cover. It's a green cover. It has the word Macbeth in Hebrew at the top. And then the descender of the course is elongated, and it's not even it's not illustrated as a dagger. It suggests the dagger.

Bethany: Oh, that's even better. So it's like not dripping blood or anything. All right. It's it's just like, that's cool.

Shani: Right. So yeah. No, no those kind of these this level of skill and, sophistication of things that are again, you know, timeless and very powerful and very well executed. So, I mean, there must be more, right? I think it must be more. She was working with a publishing house. Right? Yeah. And the other thing that I'm curious about is her signage work.

So there's a lot of and I think that that that started in the, in the mid 50s in Israel. Because we know that she did signage for the Weitzman Institute, for the Hadassah Hospital for the Hebrew Union College and the Hebrew University. And these are carvings, some of them are carvings and, you know, in stores that are still there. But I, I was not able so far to kind of learn more about this. So we need more research there. Yeah.

Bethany: Yeah. That's cool.

Bethany: Totally switching gears, just totally going away. You ran this workshop in July of 2023 where you cast and printed the deformed Monotype of Schocken-Baruch.

Shani: Baruch, I know it’s hard.

Bethany: I know yeah, I, I appreciate your willingness to not laugh at me out loud every time. 

Shani: Of course.

Bethany: Schocken-Baruch and what is a deformed font? That's my first question. Right. What is that?

Shani: Yeah. So this is this is, you know, this is how I, this is how I call it now, just because. Yeah, I love it just because I'm kind of studying or trying to study, actually, I'm not able to see the, the original outlines yet there in the Jerusalem Museum. Sorry. The Israel Museum in Jerusalem with Baruch’s archives.

Shani: And sadly, you can only access them, physically.

Bethany: And you're in New York.

Shani: I'm, I'm in Rochester, New York. Yeah, yeah. That's hard. So I'm hoping, you know, to to at some point be there and have, you know, have a closer look. But again, in, in the Hebrew version of three new types Hebrew graphic design, there is, an article by Philip Mesner that, the specific about that really crucial, phase when you're talking about type design production, because the initial outlines are drawn by hands, by the designer, and then everything happens in order to make it something that you can create, the matrix from and then cast the letters.

And that whole process was, you know, to put it mildly, went sideways. Right. It's, it's and again, I have I haven't seen in myself and I know that, you know, we took it was doing, a visual analysis on this as well. So, verbally, I can tell you from the resources that the, the differences that were made to the letterforms. I mean, to me, this sounds like, What we're seeing now is completely different. And this is why you kind of call it deformed, because, I mean, just kind of just think try to visually visualize this, when Baruch is, receiving the initial, sketches from Monotype right after that, they are trying to modify these outlines to be, engraved.

She sees that the horizontal strokes are too thick. That creates a very low contrast, which is so problematic in Hebrew. And again, another another podcast. Okay. But so just the ratio between the thicker lines and the thinner lines and how much that then influences readability for one example. Right. The joints are too rounded.

And when you look and there are some with, with the catalog, there are some scans of her writing, kind of sketches, not real outline but kind of leading to the outlines. And it looks completely different. It's way more rectangular, which to me maybe makes more sense because we're also learning here that that typeface was commissioned as a book face.

And what we're seeing now is, to me, feels very, very decorated, very black.

Bethany: Yeah.

Shani: Kind of so maybe that wasn't even the brief. So who's the designer now? Right. And then that really blew my mind. All the letters were slanted to the right. So somewhere in that process an angle was introduced to the letterforms. So just reading the three lines, I'm like, okay, we have a new typeface, you know.

Bethany: Which like also is weird since you read Hebrew right to the left.

Shani: So why it would have you. Yeah. Again, it's it's a very good point.

Bethany: Okay. Okay. Just trying to put the like, how that…

Shani: Right. Yeah. No, and we don't know. We don't know why these specific, changes were made. Right? We do know that, or most probably no one that really spoke the language or was familiar with, nuances of the script made these changes. And we most certainly know that some changes had to be made because you need to, to, to, to stick to a very strict, division of units.

So you need to control the proportion. You have only maybe 3 or 4 groups of proportions and the width of the, of the letters. Which one goes where. Right? Which letter you can maybe slightly extend and which, which letter you absolutely can't. And that's just one example of how of all those adjustments that needs to be done. And it should be done so carefully. And if you're not familiar with enough with what you're doing, you're introducing all those, you know, alien shapes into it, and you're creating something new.

Bethany: Wow.

Shani: So, it's it's a deformed typeface. This is me being kind of harsh

Bethany: I like it. No. It's good. 

Shani: Yeah, because then again, you know, I'm, I'm really looking forward to to be able to kind of look at the things myself and maybe, you know, have more ideas. But and having said that, it still maintains something that none of the other typefaces that were available at the time, it was in and I see it, I think I see it today. I saw it very profoundly with when we were doing the workshop and just how the participants related to, or kind of reacted to the shapes of the letterforms.

And again, when I'm looking at it through the circle perspective and what I know now, to me it feels that. Yes, because this, these letters were done by a designer. By someone who was well versed with Hebrew writing. And it's all kind of it's all shapes and forms. And with someone who consciously, did this as a revival typeface, it's a very careful, carefully designed typeface that speaks to traditional typeface from a certain time and place.

Right. All the other typefaces that are the fonts that they could choose from in order to set their type, their, their printing, were those either those kind of designer-less typefaces, or Frank-Rühl, which is, kind of, the, the most it's, it's the most popular and the most used, typeface kind of in the history of those of the Hebrew script.

Bethany: Like, like the Times New Roman or like Arial or like that kind of like ubiquity.

Shani: It has. Exactly. And again, fascinating case study in its own right. But when I look at the shapes, I see that it was designed by a Jewish scholar and not necessarily a calligrapher. I see that in the when I compare, you know, I it's I think it's pretty evident and you can see it in the approach to the letters.

Again, it was a different brief. You know, those two typefaces are meant to kind of do different things. But, I think the kind of the, atmospheric kind of value that, Schocken-Baruch has was nothing that the other typefaces could offer. And I saw it, I saw that in, you know, in the choices and in the kind of just reactions when I, when I was kind of talking about, the history of this typeface.

Bethany: So, are there what is going to happen next with that project do you plan to do more with. 

Shani: Great question. That is a great question. I hope will be able to will be able to do it again. Again. Nobody does anything alone. I had Richard Kegler who's a printer and, book artist and a typeface designer and just, you know, just a wonderful person who solves, you whose ability to solve a problem is really mind blowing.

I, I just admire him. So I collaborated with him in kind of making this workshop happen. And we did it in the, letter foundry and, press of the Bixler is, Winnie and Michael. Winifred and Michael Bixler, have been, casting English monotype typefaces and typesetting and binding and really kind of supporting educational, studies and literature artists for more than 50 years now.

Damn. Yeah. And it's been just their work, their knowledge, their own hospitality is really beyond anything that I can that I've ever experienced. And, you know, we all group together to make this, very intensive workshop happen. You know, we named it Hebrew Type Intensive. And I think we you really stood up to the to the title.

And I'm really hoping we'll be able to do it again. I was really pleased to see, first of all, the outcome. I mean, the portfolio of the, of the prints and just the level of, dedication, is clearly shown. And I'm, I'm so happy and kind of proud of all the participants. They all came from kind of different backgrounds. We all had different relations to that, to the Hebrew letter. But I love that just the outcome really speaks for itself. And I think is everything in life it would be a matter of resources, you know, funding, time. But hopefully, yeah, hopefully we'll be able to do it again.

Bethany: If only we had unlimited access. One of those things.

Shani: Exactly how much.

Bethany: Time? So do you have I we only have a few minutes left, but I just want to sort of wrap up. Do you have any tips or advice for people who are interested in learning more about Hebrew type history, or working with maybe non Latin letterforms more generally?

Shani: I, I think I can only kind of speak to my experience, to how things kind of developed for me and what I found crucial, just for, you know, a deeper understanding and I would say go as far as back, like, as farther back as you can. I think for me, starting with this wish to learn more about typography and then really understanding the process only after I learned about the development of the Hebrew script, and then only after I learned how to write it. That was for me, you know, the where the penny dropped. Right.

So it's going as back as you can to kind of understand how one process kind of, influenced the other and then doing as much as you can, with your hands. So learning how to draw the letters so you would familiarize yourself with the skeleton of the, of the letter, trying it in different writing tools or, you know, the ductus and how it how it kind of, can manifest in different tools, just really kind of doing an inside out and of experience, a really deep experience.

If you can then progress to metal type, when you have the opportunity of typesetting yourself and just learning how time consuming is, and then also taking everything that you do in the, in, like in the physical world and then going back to a virtual reality, like a digital world and opening InDesign, and looking at the terms or looking at how your document looks like, right, looking at that rectangle, white space and thinking about, letterpress printing, and realizing, you know, oh, it's here because, and not it's not just a random term and it's not just kind of, a thing that comes up out of thin air. I don't know, it's a long take for advice is it's great.

Bethany: It's great to it's great too, I love it I mean, that is something when I was trying to, in the I got funding to do this, the initial push on this program, and I had gotten feedback on one of my applications, earlier that had been like, you know, but like, so, like whatever, like type design, why does that matter? And I was like, so everything that we take in as text now is based in this shit.

Shani: Like, yes.

Bethany: We're going to cut this out, obviously for being too real, but it's just like, so, you know, that document thing you have in your computer that is based on, like, what people were doing hundreds of years ago? 

Shani: Exactly.

Bethany: As based on, like, other things. And so, like, try and tell me why design doesn't matter, like, come at me.

Shani: Absolutely.

Bethany: You know, you have to say that nicely in a grant application you can do like.

Shani: And obviously you did so and.

Bethany: I did I did it did work out. I was very happy. My project was very different than everyone else in the cohort

Shani: I'm sure. Fantastic.

Bethany: Yeah, I didn't I didn't realize, I didn't realize I was basically signing up to do another master's worth of work on something I didn't really know anything about, in a summer, but I did it, so it was great.

What's next for you? What's next on the horizon for your own work and your own? So, I mean, you clearly have many things you're doing, which is cool. But anything exciting there that you want us to look for?

Shani: Wow. There's just lots of things in different stages of, making, there's my ongoing, ongoing research of Ismar David's work. There's the online website that, we keep uploading new visual material and the is the research material, and hopefully there will be a book, will be an exhibition and there'll be, you know, more workshops and more things to kind of really, again, just explain why his work, was important.

There is one thing that kind of, well, a few things that I'm, as I'm kind of learning more, I'm really hoping to be able to kind of exploring what, in one capacity or the other. But as I mentioned, kind of, you know, go back going back and trying to look back as far as the farthest as possible.

I've been looking at Hebrew incunabula recently and kind of find my way into thinking about a descriptive bibliography for the Jewish Book. And at the moment and again, I'm kind of really at this early stages of, of exploring this kind of side of bibliography. At the moment. I have two books that, are specifically talking about the lack of descriptive bibliography for the Jewish books.

So who cut the typefaces? Who printed them? What was their name? So we have we have kind of vague ideas. We have very limited information about that. But everything that has to do with the Jewish Book as an, as a printed object, and it's description is, for now, the resources that I have were written in 1975, and I'm really curious to see, you know, what has changed from since then, because I'm sure I'm sure it has progressed to some degree.

But there was one quote that I kind of and I don't know if it felt like, because like, is this like a new thing that I should be doing? But there was something that there was one paragraph that spoke specifically about the typefaces, and it spoke to the fact that there was no current authority that can research and provide the information about the typography. And I'm like ooooh…

Bethany: Oh…..

Shani: So should I become a book historian now? Maybe because maybe I can do two things and kind of as a type designer, maybe have a more kind of practical view on this. So I'm, I don't know. It's there now and I'm trying to see if there is a way for me to tackle it. And maybe the third and final kind of really, ambitious, I can't even call it a project. It's just something that I have a really sense of urgency, regarding, is just trying to first locate and possibly even rescue or salvage, just lost, Jewish type artifacts. And there are they are existing in museums or archives or, you know, some institutions, some private presses, but there are still, both typefaces and, handmade molds and matrices of historic Jewish type that, you know, first of all, we need to save and then we can see if we can, make it, be workable again, because all those materials are, you know, they're industrial objects. They're meant to be worked with, not kind of shelved somewhere. And then if we can research them and find out more, there's definitely more out there.

Bethany: This has been incredible. I've had, it's been such a delight, like a real delight and a real pleasure.

Shani: Thank you. I had so much fun. The time has flown.

Bethany: Where where do you want people to find you? Online or in real life for, you know, do you? Yeah.

Shani: In real life, please, please do yourself a favor and come to it to the Cary Graphic Arts collection. I would be so happy to meet you there. And to kind of show you this amazing resource and how many things you can you can do with it. So, Yeah. So come to, to Rochester and drop me a line and make an appointment, and, you won't regret it.

Shani: And if you can't come to Rochester, you can check, I guess my website, that is https://www.shaniavni.com/.

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Bethany: This is Bethany Qualls, the creator and producer of re uncovered. Our editor is Joe DeGrand, and we are supported by listeners like you. Want to hear even more? buy us a coffee and get access to our bonus content from the re uncovered archive. Reach out at reuncoveredpodcast@gmail.com or find us on the socials. Thanks for listening.