Ten years ago, I gave a Jewish history class on ArtScroll to mark its 40th anniversary. Now, a decade later, the publishing powerhouse is celebrating its golden jubilee. With a yearlong retrospective underway, I figured it was the perfect time to revisit a story that has hit remarkably close to home for so many of us.

ArtScroll isn’t just a corporate success story; it’s the saga of how American Orthodoxy evolved from a purely Hebrew-literate culture into a vibrant, bilingual Torah ecosystem.

It all started in Brooklyn in 1975. Rabbi Meir Zlotowitz was running ArtScroll Studios, a high-end graphic design shop producing invitations, ketubot, and awards. When a close friend tragically passed away without children, Zlotowitz wanted to honor his memory with something enduring. He decided to publish a fresh English translation and commentary on Megillat Esther.

He asked Rabbi Nosson Scherman, then a yeshiva principal in Boro Park, to write the introduction. The chemistry was instant, and the timing was electric: the first edition sold over 20,000 copies in just two months. They knew right away they had tapped into something profound.

With the encouragement and blessings of major Orthodox rabbinic figures—including Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, Rabbi Yaakov Kamenetsky, Rabbi Mordechai Gifter, and Rabbi Yaakov Ruderman—Zlotowitz and Scherman began expanding the project.

First came the other four Megillot, and then an extraordinary succession of projects: Chumash, Tanach, Siddurim, Machzorim, the Mishnah, the Haggadah, Jewish law and thought, biographies and history, children’s books, fiction, cookbooks, and eventually the entire Talmud.

By 1990, ArtScroll had already published more than 700 titles. Today, the company says it has produced more than 3,500 titles in five languages.

That growth tells you something important: ArtScroll wasn’t simply filling a gap in the Jewish publishing market. It was creating a new market.

For me, and for so many others, ArtScroll’s most personal impact came not from the Talmud, but from the Siddur.

Before ArtScroll, you could walk into shul, follow along, and recite the words, yet still miss the depth of what you were saying. The ArtScroll Siddur placed a lucid English translation and rich commentary right alongside the Hebrew. Suddenly, ba’alei teshuvah,........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)