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the universe and its purpose and order. I looking for. Then we went on to publish career, I learned how to get things done,
became fully Orthodox gradually, but it the festival machzorim with Rabbi Sacks’ so I think I’m good at visualizing the right
felt comfortable as I was able to stay in the translation and commentaries, and many projects, choosing the right people and
same shul, with the same friends. of his other highly popular books under empowering them to get them done. But
our Maggid imprint. as I said, I’m only a wannabe academic,
What came first, the idea of going into so I have little-to-zero editorial input.
We publish over a hundred books a year
publishing or the idea of making Aliyah? Rabbi Sacks once said of you that you and we have a fabulous team of editors
have reinterpreted the classic works of
We didn’t want to stay in England or go Judaism for our time, and you’ve done on whom I can totally rely, and I have
back to the States, and we both loved Israel absolutely no interest in getting involved
and had a lot of friends here and used to so brilliantly. Did you have a special in something that’s going well.
visit a lot, so it was a logical decision. We relationship with him?
made Aliyah in the summer of 1999 and it I think I had an excellent professional So how much of Matthew Miller is there
was the best move we ever made. Since relationship with Rabbi Sacks. We didn’t do in Koren?
I was blissfully out of a job, I needed to small talk; he was my moral rebbe. In fact,
reinvent myself. I had always loved books, many of the meetings and conversations I talk to many people and I get to hear
but I knew very well that I didn’t have the we had were more like private classes. By what they are looking for. This helps me
capacity to write them myself. So instead, the way, I worked very hard to promote contribute ideas for various new series.
I decided to enable others to write, and I Rabbi Sacks as a serious thinker in Israel. But in general, I want to publish books that
started The Toby Press. The best-known He wasn’t known much here in the early address issues we’re wrestling with in the
title I published under this imprint was 2000s, but now, for example, the huge Orthodox world. We need to know how
Yehuda Avner’s The Prime Ministers. Steimatzky bookshop chain, which doesn’t to talk to our children, and to ourselves,
really stock much Judaica, is selling large about issues of moral value. You’re not
going to get that from the secular world.
How did you become involved with quantities of Rabbi Sacks’ works in the Some parts of the Orthodox world tend to
Koren Publishers? Hebrew translations that we publish. talk down to you, whereas what we need
After a few years, I began to feel that what is a way to talk with, not down.
I was doing was not very satisfying. I had What came next?
heard that Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks We started putting out a wide range of Do you have a sense of pride that you’ve
zt”l, whom I had gotten to know a little books for a broad tent Orthodoxy under created all this?
while I was still in England, was looking the Maggid imprint, and many of the most
for a Jewish publisher to produce his siddur prominent scholars and writers began to That’s not how I think… but I don’t want
internationally and also his Jewish-themed publish with us. I was soon approached by to sound disingenuous. I know that this
books in English. At about the same time, Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz’s son and advisory is important; of course I know that I’m
I learned that the families that owned staff and we became his sole Hebrew and enabling great thinkers to communicate
Koren were looking to sell. Koren had English publisher. Rav Steinsaltz zt”l, who their thoughts to a broad public. That’s
always pushed all my buttons; its beautiful had spent over four decades creating his what I do. I don’t create; I’m an enabler for
typography – which is something with monumental elucidation of the entire creation. And I’m never satisfied.
which I’ve always been obsessed – its very Talmud in modern Hebrew, partnered with
high academic standards, and its Zionist us to launch the groundbreaking Koren
identity. Talmud Bavli, which is both elegant and
user-friendly in the Koren style. It includes
What attracted you about Rabbi Sacks’ a new English translation, together with
siddur? Rav Steinsaltz’s explanations, color
illustrations and many other tools to aid
I am my own target audience, and I felt that in understanding the text. I never thought
combining the elegance and logic of the in my wildest imagination that I would
Koren design with the profound learning, ever be publishing a Talmud, but it’s been
moral depth, and sheer eloquence of the very successful. David Olivestone
Sacks translation, and also his extensive was director of communications at
the Orthodox Union in New York
commentaries, would make it a siddur Do you have a hand in everything that before making Aliyah to Jerusalem
that would appeal to the intellect, the with his wife Ceil in 2013. He has
thirst for spirituality and to the eye. The you publish? published numerous articles on
Koren Sacks Siddur was a great success, as I know where I’m good and I know where Jewish cultural and historical topics.
it clearly filled a niche that people were I’m not. In my previous 25-year business

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