Hebrew fonts?

Kivun didnt create any fonts. They used fonts by Shmuel Guttman. Some people love his fonts, some hate. Your rant about Friedlander is interesting, but how is this connected to our conversation about trop?

Re: Henri Friedlamder - such a sweet old man. He taught me a very important lesson in type design which the ArtScroll publishers overlooked. He did not want me to make the same mistake.

I mailed him a check for 100 shekels because I made the Hadasa font for use on the Mactintosh System 2 or 3. Some store paid me a thousand sshekels. He returned the check to me, writing that he sold the rights a long time ago to a European type foundry, now defunct, or bought out by Merganthaler, and was not entitled to the measly amount I sent him. Then he called me on the phone from I think Jerusalem to Kfar Chabad.

He wanted to speak to a Jew in Kfar Chabad. He didn't want hang up. If he wasn't religious before he called, he became religious before he hung up. I told him that he could be proud that ArtScroll typeset the Tanach in his Hadasa, and now most religious Jews in America used it to study Tanach. When he heard this, he crying like a baby for a long time.

Then, he approved what I made, praising it as being the most faithful ever made on the computer. He warned me of an error that I made, and mentioned that the rule he advised to follow was applicable to many type designs and many. Later, when I created the origonal Vilna type design used in the Romm Talmud, not the ugly replica made by Kivun, I saw that this rule was actually used also in Italy by the students of Bodoni who created the Vilna type face for Mr. Romm senior before he passed away. Hence, this rule taught to me by Mr. Friedlander was actually an ancient Jewish tradition.

>I believe the European printers knew what they were doing, as a famous early American type designers writes that the students of Bodoni were shown ancient Sephardic hand-drawn manuscripts of both the Vilna-like type design and in context hand-drawn samples of hand-drawn typesetting of Biblical Hebrew text, which contained nikkud taam meteg etc. combinations, carefully positioned following logical (computer-programmable) rules based upon an accepted Sephardic tradition.

Okay. I personally disagree.

>On the other hand, if we carefully research both Mr. Eliyahu Koren's type design and his so-called typesetting rules, we will find that they are based upon and derived from Ashkenazic hand-drawn manuscripts. I actually saw this myself, and I imagine Mr. Koren a"h regrets in heaven he neglected to cite and properly credit his source. I hope your firm corrects this gross error.

Um, incorrect. We have a book which has all this information.

>Speaking of Tzvi Narkiss, I saw actual drawings of letter forms in Hebrew from the Warsaw Ghetto in a similar sans-serif design popularized later by Mr. Narkiss. The disregard not to give credit to Holocaust victims by Mr. Narkiss is embarrassing.

I dont see why we are degrading Narkiss in this conversation.

>I would like to see these manuscript to which you refer that Koren and Narkiss used. At least, cite them, such as: date such and such, Hebrew U. library, bundle 770. Then, it be looked up.

Unfortunately, with work pressures, I dont really have time to start researching this for you.

>Is Henri Freidlander, formerly of the Hadasa Printing School, I think of Betzalel Academy in Jerusalem. He was an extremely honorable honest Jew, and proud that his Hadasa type design became the standard for the famous ArtScroll Orthodox American publisher based in Bzrooklyn, now the largest Jewish publisher in the world.

But he didnt design trop. What has he got to do with it?

>Harbs doesn't sell the features you allude to at his web site, so I question their existance. Also, John Hudson didn't acknowledge that he taught Tzvika Volt or OpenType, making me think that its his fabrication. Raphael, don't believe everything you hear.

Stop. 1. Just because Harbs doesnt sell something it doesnt mean has hasnt done it. He has. I saw it on his computer and he taught me how to do it. 2. Who said anything about John Hudson? Im confused as to how this got into the conversation. Just fyi, the person programming the trop for the Koren font is a freelance programmer called Arieh Marzel who is working for me on this project. Masterfont drew the font and have sole ownership on the license of the font.

>If I wanted to make a sale, and I was dishonest, I'd try to sell you the Brooklyn Bridge as well. After all, its such a nice bridge, and a bargain, too.

again, Im confused. Who is selling what to whom? I wasnt selling anything. I am pointing out that if you want teamim in the correct position there are a number of routes to go. I happen to have an opinion on the correct positioning of trop, Harbs has another opinion, and I guess you have another opinion too. When I do trop work for clients such as Chabad, United Synagogue, Talam, Gefen Publishing and of course Koren, I happen to follow the Koren system because I think it makes sense. Zvi Narkis was also kind enough to explain to me part of his system too. The only discrepency was the zarka and segol which Koren does differently from Breuer and I got advice from an expert in trop explaining that both these systems are acceptable so for all work except for Koren, I follow the Breuer positioning of the zarka and segol (incidentally Unicode messes up here because of the confusion).

Come on, Raphael. Vanilla only taste great, anot chocalate. With all due respect, this is not intellectually.

Very fine typography, like beauty, is a subjective art, not a science or medicine, as you not only humbly suggest, but emphatically state.

I believe the European printers knew what they were doing, as a famous early American type designers writes that the students of Bodoni were shown ancient Sephardic hand-drawn manuscripts of both the Vilna-like type design and in context hand-drawn samples of hand-drawn typesetting of Biblical Hebrew text, which contained nikkud taam meteg etc. combinations, carefully positioned following logical (computer-programmable) rules based upon an accepted Sephardic tradition.

On the other hand, if we carefully research both Mr. Eliyahu Koren's type design and his so-called typesetting rules, we will find that they are based upon and derived from Ashkenazic hand-drawn manuscripts. I actually saw this myself, and I imagine Mr. Koren a"h regrets in heaven he neglected to cite and properly credit his source. I hope your firm corrects this gross error.

Speaking of Tzvi Narkiss, I saw actual drawings of letter forms in Hebrew from the Warsaw Ghetto in a similar sans-serif design popularized later by Mr. Narkiss. The disregard not to give credit to Holocaust victims by Mr. Narkiss is embarrassing.

I would like to see these manuscript to which you refer that Koren and Narkiss used. At least, cite them, such as: date such and such, Hebrew U. library, bundle 770. Then, it be looked up.

Is Henri Freidlander, formerly of the Hadasa Printing School, I think of Betzalel Academy in Jerusalem. He was an extremely honorable honest Jew, and proud that his Hadasa type design became the standard for the famous ArtScroll Orthodox American publisher based in Bzrooklyn, now the largest Jewish publisher in the world.

Harbs doesn't sell the features you allude to at his web site, so I question their existance. Also, John Hudson didn't acknowledge that he taught Tzvika Volt or OpenType, making me think that its his fabrication. Raphael, don't believe everything you hear.

If I wanted to make a sale, and I was dishonest, I'd try to sell you the Brooklyn Bridge as well. After all, its such a nice bridge, and a bargain, too.

Eliyahu Korens system of positioning is considered to be the correct one. Zvi Narkis also uses the same system. The reason that European printers didnt do it in the same way was because of technical reasons not because they thought that their way was correct.

What Koren did in the 60s which was considered unique, was that each nikud and trop was positioned manually with letraset. This was extremely tedious (and not very consistant). It was labour intensive and expensive. Today, there is no technical reason not to correctly position nikud and trop just as there is no reason not to use full ligatures, true small caps and old-style figures in English.

I dont agree with your vanilla/chocolate comment. The correct positioning was researched extensively in ancient manuscripts by both Koren and later Narkis. This is why their opinions were accepted as being correct. They were/are (Koren passed away nearly 10 years ago, Narkiss is still with us (round the corner as it happens)) the authority on this system and I wasnt aware that anybody didnt follow their system.

I know that Harbs has ingenious ways of making the positioning easier, but these are programming fixes to make it easier. In the redigitisation of the Koren font that Im currently working on, the teamim sit correctly according to the Koren system which proves that it can be programmed correctly if one wants to.

Thank you, Raphael, for your very enlightening answers. I had a very close friend that people called Raffy in Hebrew; I called Richard, by his English name. He was shot and killed in the first war in Lebanon. He left a newly married wife in her second month of pregnancy.

I also like you declare the merit of nikkud, taam etc. in the correct position, though we know that the correct position is subjective like beauty. Some artists appreciation typography where the correct position follow the graphic rules popularized by Eliyahu Koren, for example.

Others reject his talented contribution, like many of his peers, and prefer other valid rules popularized by hundreds of European printers over a two hundred year period. I don't think upper overstrikes like shin dot (a MicroSoft issue) didn't behave differently that their lower cousins.

If what you say is correct, and your know him well, I wish he joined this discussion, as his expertise would broaden our perspectives.

I like chocalate; you like vannila. Neither is more right, or more wrong.

By kerning I did not mean to refer to the conventional use of kerning, or the adjustment of space between letter so all the letter combination appear consistantly equal. Sounds democratic, doesn't it?

Rather, I was referring to a different form of kerning to allow for vowel and taam overstrikes. Here a negative value value would be applied to one letter and an equivalent positive value, and then the overstrike (zero width values) glyph would not 'jump' below the wrong character in the pair, but the space between could be slighted affected. Talk about about tedious!

Anyway, after OS X.3, this was no longer necessary. Forget Windows! It could be done on Windows until Unicode and OpenType.

No, my friends dont call me Raffy. But feel free to call me Raphael.

Your argument that nobody notices is like saying there is no point in have the nikud placed in the correct position. I dont agree. Obviously I dont move the trop manually in InDesign, either I use my external tool or I have it programmed into the font.

Kerning is the spacing between two letters, diacritic positioning is the position of a number of diacritics (up to 4) with respect to one letter and of course I need to keep the kerning. So if I kern the tav and the yud, then all the diacritics (trop and nikud) around the nikud have to remain in the same place regardless of the kerning between the tav and the yud. If you kern between the tav and the nikud and then the nikud and the trop and then the trop the yud and thats not even worrying about a dagesh or a shin dot!

Yes Harbs knows this very well indeed. He is one of the world experts on the subject!

Do friends call you: "Raffy"?

As you correctly point out, one can noodge, or move slightly individual graphic elements, like the vowel points (nikkud), accents, and taamim (trop - cantoral marks) under a Hebrew letter, in InDesign ME, using kerning tools provided in InDesign.

This is a tedious process, requiring much patience and a fine eye for detail. It borders between fine typography, addiction to perfection, and obsession - maybe even madness! Because who really cares anyway? Most people don't notice it. And only another type specialist can appreciate it - and he or she is so picky, they'll just complain anyway, right Rephael?

Your distinction between kerning and diacritic positioning in Tag fascinates me from a theorectic point of view, as you qualify it by warning its painfully slow (to make or to display). Please elaborate.

Does Harbs know this well, or his talent ismore on the programming side?

of course you can manually move the teamim using the diacritic positioning which is definately doable for a short (and I repeat short) amount of text.

I have a solution whereby I store a set of search and replaces (the equivalent of a kerning table in Tag language, but of course isnt kerning at all since its diacritic positioning). Its slow, painful but works.

I have done it for Fontbits NewHadasaS and Livorna. So technically speaking you dont actually need OT programming at all.

The question is, if I understand it correctly, is how to enter new text of Biblical Hebrew material, i.e. Hebrew words words, vowels, accents, and cantorial marks, also known as taamei mikra or taamim, or to import such material into an InDesign ME (Middle East) program for bi-directional text.

Two things are needed. An input system, and a compatible Hebrew OpenType font with Unicode characters for taamim with also OpenType programming information for automatic alignment of the vowels, accents and taamim. Without the latter OT programming, the presence of the Unicode characters is useless.

As Raphael mentioned, correctly made OT Biblical fonts are rare.

Call FontWorld at 718-686-1099 or visit at www.fontworld.com to acquire high quality professional OT Biblical Hebrew fonts.