A.L. Monsohn Lithography
[5] The press was relocated to the Mamilla section of Jerusalem, outside the Old City, and later to Yosef Ziv Street in the Tel Arza neighborhood.
The founders of the Monsohn press produced Jewish-themed color postcards, greeting cards, Jewish National Fund stamps, and maps documenting the evolution of the Jewish settlement in Eretz Israel in the nineteenth-twentieth centuries (e.g., Moses S. Klier's Mappat Eretz Yisrael Ve-Suriya, 1903; Mappat Eretz Ha-Qedosha Li-Gvuloteha, 1905); religious material such as decorative plaques for synagogues,[6] portraits of Old Yishuv rabbis such as Shmuel Salant, Mizrah posters indicating the direction of prayer for synagogues, memorial posters, and posters for Sukkot booths;[7] color frontispieces for books such as Pentateuch volumes and the early song collections of Abraham Zvi Idelsohn (e.g., Shire Zion, Jerusalem 1908); artistic wedding invitations; and labels, packaging and advertisements for the pioneering entrepreneurs of Eretz Israel.
[10] The Monsohn Press received special permission from the city's rabbis to print for Christians and Moslems, so long as the material could not be used to proselytize.
Early items for tourists included collections of Flowers of the Holy Land (c. 1910–1918)—pressed local flowers accompanied by scenes from the Eretz Israel countryside and relevant verses from the Bible, edited by Jsac Chagise (or Itzhak Haggis), an immigrant from Vitebsk, and bound in carved olive wood boards.
[12] Shortly after World War I Monsohn (now spelled מונזון) used zincography to produce the prints included in the Hebrew Gannenu educational booklets for young children illustrated by Ze'ev Raban of the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design and printed in Jerusalem by Hayim Refael Hakohen (vol.
[13] In 1934 Monsohn moved into the new, western part of Jerusalem, in a shop with four presses and 30 workers, including Abraham-Leib's sons, David, Yosef, Moshe and Shimon, and his daughter Raytse's husband, Abraham Barmacz.
Among their clients were members of the Ginio, Havilio, and Elite families, and Shemen, Dubek, and other renowned national brands, manufacturing products such as wine, candies, oil, and cigarettes.
[14] They also printed movie and travel posters, and government posters, postcards and documents, hotel luggage labels, receipts for Bikur Cholim Hospital and other local institutions, metal charity boxes, Melnik, Rosin & Co. (Jerusalem) embroidery designs (c.1900), and Sabbath and Jewish holiday cloth covers for hallot.
1901]), recipient of the Yakir Yerushalayim award),[15] were responsible for the press in its final stage, during which it also produced Jewish National Fund calendars, posters for the government—including the fourth Independence Day (Israel) poster;[16]—and other state agencies (e.g., Youth Aliyah), color maps, challah covers, illustrations of animals in the Bible, tourist brochures, full-color megilloth (e.g., for El-Al) In the 1950s responsibility for the press was divided between Yosef Monsohn, who continued the production of lithographic prints (followed by his son, Elyakim Monzon), and Shimon Monzon, who produced printed books and booklets, especially photo-offset editions of Hebrew sacred works, of which they printed over 80 (e.g., Mishnah Berurah, 6 vols., 1950;[17] Miqra'ot Gedolot, 5 vols., 1955;[18] Ḥoq Le-Yisrael, 5 vols., 1956;[19] Shulhan Arukh, 2 vols., 1956–1957;[20] Zohar, 5 vols., 1958–1960;[21] Moreh Nevukhim, 3 vols., 1960[22]).
