View source for Bloch Publishing Company

{{Short description|Jewish publisher in the U.S.}}
{{Infobox publisher
| name         = Bloch Publishing Company
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| parent       =
| status       = Inactive
| traded_as    = <!-- or | nasdaq = -->
| predecessor  =
| founded      = 1854 or 1855 <!-- use {{start date and age|YYYY|MM|DD}} -->
| founder      = Edward H. Bloch
| defunct      = <!-- use {{end date and age|YYYY|MM|DD}} -->
| successor    =
| country      = United States
| headquarters = [[Jacksonville, Florida]]
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| keypeople    =
| publications = Books
| topics       = Judaism
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}}
'''Bloch Publishing Company''' is a [[Jewish]] [[publishing company]] in the United States. Founded by Edward H. Bloch in 1854, it is the oldest Jewish publishing company<ref name="pioneer">Robert Singerman, [http://blochpub.com/bloch_history.pdf “Bloch & Company: Pioneer Jewish Publishing House in the West”] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081120164556/http://blochpub.com/bloch_history.pdf |date=2008-11-20 }}, Jewish Book Annual, Vol. 52, pp. 110-30.</ref> and one of the oldest [[family business]]es, in the [[United States]].
==History==
Edward H. Bloch (born 1829, Grafenried, [[Bohemia]]; died 1906, [[Cincinnati, Ohio]]) founded the company in Cincinnati in 1854<ref name="bloch">Bloch Publishing Company [http://www.blochpub.com official website.]</ref> (another source says 1855).<ref name="pioneer" />  Edward's sister, Theresa Bloch, had married [[Rabbi]] [[Isaac Mayer Wise]] in 1844, and Edward's early activities were closely associated with those of his famous brother-in-law, who was laying the foundations of the [[Reform Judaism|Reform Jewish]] movement in the United States.  When Rabbi Wise moved to Cincinnati, Bloch followed him; Rabbi Wise founded ''The Israelite'' newspaper, and after a short time Edward Bloch took over as publisher. Renamed ''[[The American Israelite]]'' in 1874, and published by Rabbi Wise’s son [[Leo Wise]] after 1888, this newspaper is said to be the longest-running [[List of Jewish Newspapers in the United States|Jewish newspaper]] in the United States.<ref name="pioneer" />  Bloch also published the German-language ''Die Deborah'' in Cincinnati, and he initiated Jewish newspapers in St. Louis and Chicago, including the Chicago ''Reform Advocate'', founded in 1891 and edited by the influential Reform Rabbi [[Emil G. Hirsch]].<ref>[http://jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=169&letter=R "Reform Advocate"], in [[Jewish Encyclopedia]].</ref>
Bloch began by publishing Rabbi Wise's liturgies, hymnals, and other books for the Reform movement, and expanded to publish books and religious goods on a wide range of Jewish subjects as well as the occasional non-Jewish ones. He was also a successful manufacturer of flags; in fact, his obituary claimed that he was the inventor and first manufacturer of printed flags in the United States, although apparently this claim is not subject to independent verification.<ref name="pioneer" />
Edward's son, [[Charles E. Bloch]] (1861–1940), succeeded his father in control of the company. He opened a branch in Chicago and then moved the company to [[New York City]] in 1901 (although Edward Bloch remained in Cincinnati, and held the title of president, until his death in 1906). The company called itself "The Jewish Book Concern" and its New York building became the largest Judaic bookstore in the country. The company was then run in turn by Charles's son, Edward H. Bloch (1898–1982), and then by the second Edward's son, the second Charles E. Bloch (1927–2006). During this time, the small-book market declined and the company's operations contracted but continued.  After the second Charles' death in 2006, his son, Mitchell E. Bloch, took over as the fifth generation of the Bloch family to run the company, and the company relocated from its historic offices in New York to [[Jacksonville, Florida]].<ref name="bloch" /> As of 2021, the company no longer seems to be active.
==Notable Books==
Bloch Publishing published a wide variety of books of Jewish interest, both scholarly and popular,<ref name="KaestleRadway2015">[[Jonathan D. Sarna]], "Two Ambitious Goals: American Jewish Publishing in the United States", in {{cite book|author1=Carl F. Kaestle|author2=Janice A. Radway|title=A History of the Book in America: Volume 4: Print in Motion: The Expansion of Publishing and Reading in the United States, 1880-1940|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_mXqCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA387|year=2015|publisher=University of North Carolina Press|isbn=978-1-4696-2582-9|page=387}}</ref> including such classics as ''A Book of Jewish Thoughts'' by Rabbi [[Joseph Hertz]];<ref>{{ISBN|978-0-8197-0651-5}}</ref> ''[[Peony (novel)|Peony]]'' by [[Pearl S. Buck]];<ref>{{ISBN|978-0-8197-0593-8}}</ref> [[Joseph Klausner]]'s ''Jesus of Nazareth'';<ref>{{ISBN|978-0-8197-0565-5}}</ref> and [[Hugo Bettauer]]'s ''[[The City Without Jews (novel)|The City Without Jews]]''.<ref>{{ISBN|978-0-8197-0594-5}}</ref>
Bloch Publishing produced a series of long-running Jewish cookbooks that were influential in the development of [[American Jewish cuisine]].<ref name="kitchen">{{Cite book |last=Kirshenblatt-Gimblett |first=Barbara |title=Getting Comfortable in New York: The American Jewish Home, 1880-1950 |publisher=[[Jewish Museum (New York)|The Jewish Museum]] |year=1990 |isbn=9780873340656 |location=New York |pages=75–105 |language=en-US |chapter=Kitchen Judaism |chapter-url=https://www.nyu.edu/classes/bkg/web/kitchenjudaism.pdf |chapter-format=PDF |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130602200306/https://www.nyu.edu/classes/bkg/web/kitchenjudaism.pdf |archive-date=2013-06-02 |url-status=dead}}</ref> ''“Aunt Babette’s” Cook Book''<ref>“Aunt Babette” [pseudonym for Bertha F. Kramer], ''“Aunt Babette’s” Cook Book'' (Cincinnati, Bloch Publishing, 1889). An [https://n2t.net/ark:/85335/m5cq2b online copy of ''"Aunt Babette's" Cook Book''] is available at [[Michigan State University]]'s website [http://digital.lib.msu.edu/projects/cookbooks/index.html ''Feeding America: The Historic American Cookbook Project.'']</ref> was first published in 1889 and was the first truly successful American Jewish cookbook. Along with traditional Jewish recipes, it also contained an extensive selection of recipes for ''[[treif]]'' (non-[[Kosher]]) ingredients such as pork, oysters, and shellfish, and in this and other ways reflected its roots in the [[assimilationist]] tendencies of the 19th-century [[Reform Jewish]] movement.<ref name="kitchen" />  After many years of success, in 1918, Bloch replaced ''"Aunt Babette's" Cook Book'' with a more Kosher-observant successor, Florence Kreisler Greenbaum's ''The International Jewish Cook Book'',<ref>Florence Kreisler Greenbaum, ''The International Jewish Cookbook'' (New York, Bloch Publishing, 1918). An [https://n2t.net/ark:/85335/m5pt0d online copy of the second edition] of this book, published in 1919, is available at [[Michigan State University]]'s website [http://digital.lib.msu.edu/projects/cookbooks/index.html ''Feeding America: The Historic American Cookbook Project.'']</ref> authored by a [[Hunter College]] graduate; Bloch billed it (not quite accurately) as "the first strictly kosher cook book ever published in English in this country."<ref name="kitchen" />  In 1941, Mrs. Greenbaum's book was replaced by a more modern, expanded volume, ''The Jewish Cook Book'', written by [[Mildred Grosberg Bellin]], a [[Smith College]] graduate who had already written a successful, smaller menu planner/cookbook for Bloch called ''Modern Jewish Meals''.<ref name="kitchen" />  Bellin's encyclopedic, 3,000-recipe cookbook was most recently revised and reissued in 1983 as ''The Original Jewish Cookbook''.<ref>[[Mildred Grosberg Bellin]], ''The Original Jewish Cook Book'' (New York, Bloch Publishing, 1983), {{ISBN|0-8197-0058-4}}.</ref>
==Footnotes==
{{reflist}}
==External links==
*{{commons category-inline}}
{{Jacksonville Corporations}}
{{Authority control}}
[[Category:Book publishing companies based in Florida]]
[[Category:Jewish printing and publishing]]
[[Category:Companies based in Jacksonville, Florida]]
[[Category:Jews and Judaism in Cincinnati]]
[[Category:Publishing companies established in 1854]]
[[Category:American companies established in 1854]]
[[Category:1854 establishments in Ohio]]