Menachem Schmelzer, Senior Distinguished Scholar at the Library's John W. Kluge Center, presented a lecture, "The Royal Court Preacher and the Hebrew Book: Early Enlightenment and Hebrew Publishing in Prussia, 1700-1750" on Dec. 7, 2004 at the Library of Congress.

In his talk, Schmelzer examined the role of an influential figure in the Prussian court, the christian theologian and scholar D.E. Jablonski, who founded the Hebrew press in Berlin in 1690. Schmelzer discussed Jablonski's life, work and his activities as the publisher of Hebrew books in order to shed light on the spread of secular culture and the ideals of Enlightenment and religious tolerance among the Jews of the time.

Schmelzer has published books, articles and reviews in the fields of medieval Hebrew literature and Jewish bibliography and was the editor of Aron Freimann's "Union Catalog of Hebrew Manuscripts and Their Location" (1974), Alexander Marx's "Bibliographical Studies and Notes on Rare Books and Manuscripts in the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America", (1977) and the poems of Isaac ben Abraham Ibn Ezra (1980).

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