In 1454, Symon Ebreus, a descendent of Moses of Speyer (14th
cent.) in Germany, came to Soncino, in northern Italy. In 1483, his grandson, Rabbi
Israel Nathan, along with his two sons, Joshua and Moses, established the
world-famous printing press that became known after the town itself. However, in
1490, just seven years after, he and his family were expelled from Soncino,
because of the religious persecutions that took place during the rule of
Ludovico Maria Sforza (1452-1508), the Duke of Milan. Family members spread to different
places of Italy (e.g., Casal Maggiore, Naples, Brescia, Fano, Pesaro etc.) and
continued to publish books, both Jewish and non-Jewish. In 1527/8, Rabbi
Gershom, the son of Moses Soncino and grandson of Israel Nathan, moved first to
Salonika and from there to Constantinople, today, Istanbul. He, too, continued
in the tradition of his family and published many Jewish books. His son,
Eleazar b. Gershom Soncino also became a prominent publisher.
Other members of the Soncino family took residence in
different parts of the Ottoman Empire, still continuing with the publishing
trade. We find Gershom b. Eliezer Soncino in Cairo (in 1557); Moses Joshua
Soncino in Smyrna (c. 1715); some members even immigrated to Safed. One of the
latest in the business was Joshua, son of Moses Soncino who lived in the first
half of the 18th century (c. 1737).
In his collection of studies on Turkish Jewry[i], the
historian Avram Galante, mentions Rabbi Eliezer Soncino who was the rabbi of
the Italian community in Constantinople (late 1500’s) as well as a certain
Moises Sonsin, who lived in the late 1700’s. Galante also states that the city
of Smyrna had a neighborhood known as “Sonsino.” During my youth in Turkey, I
had heard that there were other Sonsinos in the country, but I never met them.
A word about the spelling of our name: In Italian, the
letter “c” in Soncino is pronounced as “tch,” like the “c” in “Chile” or
“cheetah.” In Hebrew, the same letter “c” was rendered by “tzadi,” and
pronounced as “Sontz/sino.” However, Turkish or Spanish does not have a letter
that is equivalent to the Hebrew “tzadi.” Besides, in Turkish, “c” would have
been pronounced as “dj.” I surmise that is the reason why the spelling of our
family name was moved from SonCino to SonSino, in line with the French and
Spanish pronunciation.
Today, the Sonsinos are spread all over the world. From our Sonsino
page in Facebook I know that there are Sonsinos in Latin America, in Israel, in
the States and other parts of the globe. The family is no longer engaged in the
printing businesses. The name was taken over by a Jewish-English publishing
company in 1929 (the “Soncino Press”) to honor the famous printers of the past.
Today Sonsinos are found in many professions. However, to my
knowledge, I am the only one in the world who is a Rabbi. At least there is one
more now.
Rabbi Rifat Sonsino, Ph.D.
March 2014
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