Published: 3 November 2026
Last updated: 3 November 2026
When Henry Rosenbloom registered the name Scribe for his new book publishing venture in Melbourne 50 years ago, it was more of “a hobby, a diversion” than a full-time job. In those early years Scribe put out just a couple of books a year, with a focus on “serious non-fiction”.
And from the start, he was serious about was Jewish books. Scribe published Lily Brett's first two books; Arnold Zable’s debut book and also the first book of ‘Holocaust literature’ in Australia, Come Spring by Maria Lewitt.
“We published quite a few Jewish books in the early years,” Rosenbloom tells The Jewish Independent, and if we weren't publishing them, I was helping Jewish authors self-publish Holocaust memoirs. “But at a certain stage, I thought ‘I really don't want to wear this hair shirt any longer’. That was my own family's background, and I was saturated with it.
“Funnily enough, we've published many, many Jewish authors over the years, often not even knowing they were Jewish. Especially when there were American books that I acquired. It turns out that a lot of writers of non-fiction are Jewish. Who knew?”
Half a century on, while many small publishers have folded or been absorbed, Scribe has endured as a publisher of high-quality “serious non-fiction”. In recent years, one of the most challenging aspects of that commitment has been books about Jewish identity and Israel, which he calls “a very thorny” subject.
“We're unusual because we've published Anthony Lowenstein, and we've published Michael Gawenda. So it's very hard for people to draw a political bead on us.”
He says Scribe wears that as a badge of pride. “I've always been committed to publishing anybody who could argue a case well, and who expressed what I would call a humanitarian ethos, regardless of their politics. I think that underpins our outlook as a publisher.”
