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Rabbi Nosson Scherman (, born 1935, Newark, New Jersey) is an American Haredi rabbi best known as the general editor of ArtScroll. He is widely considered to be the father of modern-day English Torah literature.
Scherman worked as a rabbi (teacher) for about eight years at Yeshiva Torah Vodaath of Flatbush, later known as Yeshiva Torah Temimah. Afterwards he was a principal at Yeshiva Karlin Stolin of Boro Park for six years.
In late 1975, Zlotowitz wrote an English language translation and commentary on the Book of Esther in memory of a friend, and asked Scherman to write the introduction. The book sold out its first edition of 20,000 copies within two months. With the encouragement of Rabbis Yaakov Yitzchok Ruderman, Mordechai Gifter, Moses Feinstein, Yaakov Kamenetsky, and others, the two continued producing commentaries, beginning with a translation and commentary on the rest of the Five Megillot (Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations and Ruth), and went on to publish translations and commentaries on the Torah, Prophets, Talmud, Passover Haggadah, and .
In its first 25 years, ArtScroll produced more than 700 books, including , history books, children's books and secular textbooks, and is now the largest publisher of Jewish books in the United States.
Scherman contributed translations and commentaries for ArtScroll's Stone Chumash, the ArtScroll and , and the Stone Tanakh. He served as general editor of the 73-volume translation Schottenstein edition of the Talmud from 1990 until 2005.
Scherman attributes his strong English language skills to the stronger general-studies departments that yeshivas had when he was a student, and his correspondence with two out-of-town high school classmates, Mendel Weinbach and Nisson Wolpin. He has said: "During the summers we used to write letters. Does anyone correspond today? We wrote to each other – that helped. We tried to outdo each other; we were big-shot teenagers. The only way to learn how to write is to write." He was also among the contributors to The Jewish Observer.Some of his articles are available online including contributions such as The Crisis of Leadership ( The Jewish Observer, April 1975, p. 3), Shmittah ( The Jewish Observer, December 1972, p. 22), and The Mandate to Communicate Torah in the Vernacular: Excerpts From a Presentation to an Eleventh Grade ( The Jewish Observer, April 1998, p. 27).
He was the editor, beginning in 1970, of Olomeinu and editor/co-author of some Best of Olomeinu reprints.
Selected bibliography
Zlotowitz and Scherman are the general editors of ArtScroll's Talmud, Stone Chumash, Tanakh, Siddur, and Machzor series. They co-authored Megillas Esther: Illustrated Youth Edition (1988), a pocket-size Mincha/Maariv prayerbook (1991), and Selichos: First Night (1992). They have also produced a host of titles on which Scherman is author and Zlotowitz is editor.
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