History
The initial development of typefaces for the printing press was often anchored in a pre-existing manuscript culture. In the case of the Hebrew press, Ashkenazi tradition prevailed and square or block letters were cast for Biblical and other important works. Secondary religious text, for example rabbinic commentaries, was however commonly set with a semi-cursive form of Sephardic origin. This was ultimately normalized as the Rashi typeface.
A corresponding but distinctive semi-cursive typeface was used for printing Yiddish. This was termed vaybertaytsh, where the Yiddish word vayber mean "women's", and taytsh means to render something intelligible in Yiddish. (Works printed in vaybertaytsh were largely intended for a female readership.)
Read more about this topic: Rashi Script
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