Pini Dunner B.A (Hons), formerly rabbi of London’s Saatchi Synagogue, is an avid collector of polemical and controversial Hebraica, with a very large, diverse private collection of such material. Many items in his collection are unknown and unrecorded, and relate to long forgotten, obscure controversies.

This is his first post at the Seforim blog in a series about rare polemical pieces from his personal collection.

Mercaz Agudat Ha-Rabbanim Be-Lita, Kovno, 1931

In the mid-1920s the rabbi and rosh yeshiva of Slabodka, R. Moshe Mordechai Epstein (1866-1934), left Lithuania to lead the newly established branch of his yeshiva in Chevron. In his place as rabbi of the Slabodka community he left his son-in-law, R. Yosef Zusmanowitz (1894-1942), renowned in the Lithuanian yeshiva world as the ‘Yerushalmi Illuy’. R. Zusmanowitz was a scholar of repute and a great communicator. The heads of the yeshiva, R. Boruch Horowitz (R. Epstein’s brother-in-law) and R. Yitzchak Isaac Sher (1875-1952; son-in-law of the Alter of Slabodka), were concerned that the young R. Zusmanowitz would also try and take over the yeshiva. They were totally opposed to his involvement in the yeshiva, especially as he was not enamoured with the strong concentration on mussar. Instead they appointed R. Zalman Osofsky as the rabbi of the town.

A fierce controversy erupted between the 2 factions. R. Zusmanowitz’s most vociferous supporter was R. Nota Lipshitz, son of the famous secretary to R. Yitzchak Elchanan Spektor, R. Yaakov Lipshitz. The fight became so personal that R. Lipschitz’s nephew was effectively expelled from Slabodka yeshiva simply because of his uncle’s support for R. Zusmanowitz. As a result, the nephew, and others, began to learn together with R. Zusmanowitz, thereby starting a rival Slabodka yeshiva. At its height the yeshiva had 50 students. Frightened of the competition, and of the fundraising confusion that was impacting on their income (Zusmanowitz fundraisers included the 2 Teitz boys from America), R. Horowitz and R. Sher arranged for the Agudat Ha-Rabbanim (R. Horowitz was chairman) to issue a psak that R. Zusmanowitz had to close his yeshiva. This decision was met with anger and derision by its supporters, but the yeshiva closed. None of the 50 students were allowed back into Slabodka yeshiva – except for R. Ephraim Oshry (1914-2003), and he was subsequently suspected of being a spy who had been planted by the Slabodka yeshiva in R. Zusmanowitz’s yeshiva.

In this stencilled poster, the Agudat Ha-Rabbanim vigourously deny that they had reported R. Zusmanowitz to the authorities as a subversive, as he and his supporters were claiming in posters, pamphlets and correspondence. They also explain that as R. Zusmanowitz refused to sign that he would not open a yeshiva if he won the elections that had been scheduled as a way to resolve the dispute, he had effectively ruled himself out of the election. The status-quo that established itself during this time was that R. Osofsky was the rabbi for the Slabodka yeshiva community and R. Zusmanowitz was the rabbi for the rest of the town. The whole controversy was viewed very negatively by those not involved, and particularly because R. Zusmanowitz’s opponents – who used a variety of nefarious tactics to get their way – were meant to represent the mussar movement and its ethical ideals.

R. Zusmanowitz later became the rabbi of Wilkomir – a position for which R. Yaakov Kamenetsky had been vying, and thought he had secured – when the previous rabbi, R. Arye Leib Rubin, father-in-law of the Ponevezher Rov, died in 1937. It was as a result of this that R. Kamenetsky came to America. He would later say that what had at the time seemed like a tragic failure had in fact saved his life and the lives of his family as he was spared from the Holocaust as a result. R. Zusmanowitz was not so lucky. He was killed in 1942. (With thanks to Rabbi Eliezer Katzman for much of the information concerning this controversy).

A Comprehensive (or close to it) List of New Seforim

by Eliezer Brodt

In a recent Mishpacha article [November 28, 2007, ‘Seforim Supplement’, p. 48] they quote Shlomo Biegeleisen, of Biegeleisen Books, as saying that “they receive sixty new seforim every single week!” The seforim market has exploded in the past few years and continues to grow daily. While it is impossible to keep up with everything that comes out we hope to keep the readers updated from time to time with some of the interesting things that are printed. This current list includes some of the many titles printed in the past few months.

Rishonim:

Mechon Haktav reprinted the Magan Avos from R. Shlomo Duran, the Tashbatz (663 pp.). This work was first printed in 1785 and than again in a photo-mechanical edition by Mekor in the 1960’s. The plus of this recent edition is mainly the clarity of the print as the earlier edition is almost impossible to read. The editors of this edition did not, however, include notes of any sort on the sefer.

Sefer Al Esek Hatorah, Shtei Dershos Lrabenu Harosh (Kiryat Sefer, 2007); 76 pp. [08-974-0626].
This volume is a small sefer written by the father of the Rosh on Limud Hatorah. It also includes two dershos of the Rosh. Parts of all this had been printed before in A. Freimann’s book on the Rosh. In this edition the editor rechecked the manuscripts and reprinting the whole thing all together. [For another work by this Mechon see this prior post].

One of the dershos of the Rosh included in this work had been printed partially before by Professor Israel M. Ta-Shma in a few places [Kiryat Sefer, then in the journal MiGinzei L’taslume Kisvei Yad Ha’Ivriyim pp. 51- 52, and most recently in his Knesset Mehakarim vol. two pp. 184 -186]. The second dersha included herein had been printed in its entirety by Y. Galinsky in his doctorate on the Tur, Arbeh Turim V’safrus Halacha Shel Sefard b’Meha ha’arbah Aser (pp. 36-37, 74-75). In one of the dershos the Rosh gives strong mussar to the crowd for shying away to do certain Mitzvos such as lighting the Menorah in shul. There is a small historical argument between Professor Ta-Shma and Galinsky regarding the death of the Rashba (ibid.) based on the correct reading of a few words in the manuscript.

Mechon Yerushalim released their Ramban on Chumash Shemos see here for their earlier volume.

Avkas Rochel (Ashdod, 2007); 103 pp. [08-853-1651]
The author of this work was Rabbenu Macir, a talmid of R. Yehudah, the son of the Rosh. This edition is a nice reprint of the original. It deals with topics such as Gan Eden, Gehenim, Olam Habah, Moshicah amongst many others.

Chumash:

Maggid Meisharim (Jerusalem, 2007); 550 pgs, Ed. R. Y. Cohen [02 586-0457].
This edition is very helpful as it provides a parallel translation of the entire sefer from Aramaic into Hebrew. The editor also included paragraph highlights and many helpful notes on the sefer but hardly adequate for what this work actual deserves. [A while back there was a series of three articles by R. Yehuda Leib Kelers, in the Tzefunous journal (1990-91), where he mentions that someone was actually starting such a project but as far as I am aware, nothing has come from it.]

Nachalei Afersomin (Jerusalem, 2007); 360 pp., [04- 864-0135].
This is a reprinted edition of the sefer from R. Rephael Balzam, a talmid of R. Meir Arik (and others). This work is on the Parsha, Mitzvos and Yomim Tovim. It includes an index and a nice short biography on the author. There are all kinds of styles of Torah in this work dealing with Kabbalah, Halacha and Machshaveh.

She’elot u-Teshuvot:

Shu”t Yeshuos Yakov was reprinted after not having been available for many years. This edition includes some nice new additions of Torah printed in various places. Hopefully there will be a full post on this Goan and his works shortly.

Shu”t Mateh Menashe from R. Menashe Statoh [By Hillel Statohn 368 pp. 718-382-0085].
The author was the Av beis Din of Tzafas over 150 years ago and was the father of R. Chaim author of the famous work Eretz Hachaim. This work was in manuscript for all these years. In the second half of this sefer they include a fascinating work of the author called Knessiah Leshem Shamaim, which had been printed before. The topic of this work is about an interesting custom that existed in many communities when someone was sick or childless. The custom was to do a whole elaborate process to appease the shedim (evil spirits), a sort of offering to them (a korbon of sorts). He discusses the entire topic explaining why it one is prohibited form doing such things. He deals with many topics such as the power of shedim in general. This work includes the Teshuvous of many gedolim of the time amongst them R. Chaim Palagai.

Shu”t Sharei Tzion from R. Ben Zion Sternfeld was reprinted after not having been printed for a while. Besides for including R. Ben Zion’s excellent teshuvos it includes many of his deroshos. This Goan is famous for giving the Chofetz Chaim haskamos on his Mishana Berurah, Shimiras Halaoshon and Likitei Halachos. This edition includes the Kuntres Darcha Shel Torah and Kuntras Sharei Tzion on the topic of the importance of a proper education for one’s children. This edition includes a small biography of the author. These two works were written in response to Maskilim whom complained about not learning dikduk etc. One point of great interest from these Kuntreisim is the great importance and emphasis these Gedolim held of teaching Chumash properly to the children. They held that through the proper study of Chumash eventually the children will pick up Hebrew. Today, many school systems would do well to learn from these Gedolim to have proper methods to teach Chumash properly.

Shu”t Mishanat Sachir was reprinted. The author, R. Teichtel, was one of the biggest Rabbonim pre World War II in Hungary. As is very well known, originally R. Teichtel was a rabid anti-Zionist, however, later he completely changed his mind and eventually authored the incredible work called Em Habonim Semaicha. He authored many teshuvos over the years and eventually printing one volume of the teshuvos. After his death, his son printed a massive volume of Shu”t thru Mechon Yerushalim. This work has been out of print for many years. It is fantastic in respects of both depth and Bikeius. The son printed another volume a few years later. This current edition includes the whole volume that was printed by Mechon Yerushalim and parts of the volume that was printed afterwards. The original volume that the author himself printed was not reprinted here. This edition also includes some pages of additions based on notes of R. Teichtel not printed before. Just to give one an interesting tidbit on this sefer:

About six years years ago a journal from Chabad in Budapest called Tel Talpiyot (volume two) printed a few pages (pp. 42-55) of very interesting exchange of letters between R. Teichtel and his son R. Shlomo. This son went from Hungary to learn in Slabodkah Yeshivah. In the letters to his father he writes a few times how everyone in Slabodkah Yeshivah heard of his sefer and they enjoy it. He writes how many people asked him for a copy of the sefer but he only gave it to a few people amongst them the Divrei Yecheskel (see pp. 47, 48, 50).

Shas and Halacha:

Mezareph Le’Chachmah (Jerusalem, 2007); 174 pp.
This particular work of R. Yosef Delmedigo (Yashar) has been the subject of much discussion for many centuries. Already R. Yehudah Aryeh Modena wrote that the views in this sefer are not the authors real opinions rather he was playing “games.” After that, Graetz and others and as recent as Barzilay have attempted to prove that Modena was correct. However, I feel after a careful reading of the sefer that it was by no means a joke and this was the author’s real opinions. Recently, Professor David B. Ruderman has shown that Delmedigo did not intend this work to be a joke or game of some sort. Ruderman does so in his classic work Jewish Thought and Scientific Discovery in Early Modern Europe (pp. 128-152) dealing with all the problems Geretz and others raised. Mezareph Le’Chanchmah is full of interesting topics and information just to list a few: authorship of Zohar (52), Rashi (49) and Rambam’s knowledge of Kabalah (37, 51), against R. Avraham Abulafiah (31), and when Nekudos are from (21-22). He has a whole section showing that there are no contradictions between Halacha and Kabblah. The Shach in Yoreh Deah quotes him in regard to eating meat after cheese (89:16).

This current edition is printed beautifully, however, they edited out all the notes of Delmedigo’s student, R. Shmuel as well as some of the other stuff that were originally printed in this sefer. It is also lacking an index which would be very helpful with such a sefer enabling one to find all the treasures easily.

One original claim that I saw in the introduction of this edition and is recorded by many people and is in turn based on the Chida who states in R. Moshe Zechut’s name that the Delmedigo’s knowledge in kabbalah was not impressive based on specific things he writes in Mezareph Le’Chachmah. The page from Mezareph Le’Chachamah that lends credence to that opinion turns out that it was not from Delmedigo but instead from his talmid.

Kisvei Hagri (Jerusalem, 2007); 396 pp. [02 566-5240].
This a collection of the writings of R. Yaakov, Av Beis Din of Letichev. The author was born in 1730 and was rav there for many years. This was printed from manuscript for the first time by his descendants. The sefer has been waiting to be printed for nine generations. The editors put in lots of effort into this sefer giving you historical background. The sefer includes all kinds of genres, Chumash torah based on on old style pilpul, she’elot u-teshuvot, derush for all occasions (yom tovim etc.), hespedim, R. Yaakov’s tzavah and others. One of the many interesting things of interest in this sefer is a Megilas Yuchsin that R. Yaakov wrote. The editors put in much effort to track down lots of material about it. Also included is a list of his seforim collection (useful for certain fields of interest see for example Zev Gris, Hasefer K’Sochen Tarbus, pp. 65-72). Its unclear if the author was chassidish but he does quote from the Bal Shem Tov a few times.

Minhaghim and similar genre:

Chikrei Minhaghim (Cholon, 2007); 188 pp., [03- 556-3874]
This is a collection that focuses on Minhaghei Berlin gathered from many seforim including notes.

Orchos Hasofer (London, 2007); 173 pp.
This work is a beautiful collection of material about the Chasam Sofer gathered from a wide range of sources organized very nicely.

Bazel Hakodesh (Jerusalem, 2007); 334 pp.
This work is very interesting collection of material from R. B. Rakow collected together by his great-nephew. Topic ranges from chumash and halacha to stories he used to say over about various gedolim. Among the interesting discussions in this work are his opinions on learning and how to pasken, his connection with the Seridei Eish and his connection with R. Elyashiv resulting in getting R. Jonathan Sacks to take back what he wrote in one of his books [although the author does not mention R. Sacks by name] [See Marc B. Shaprio, Of Books and Bans, Edah Journal 3:2]. Another piece worthy of mention is his take on the Yeridos Hadoros question as it relates to learning.

Maseh Ish (Bnei Brak, 2007); 206 pp. Ed. R. Yabrov.
This is volume number seven of the on going series on the Chazon Ish. As with all such works there is lots of good stuff and some nonsense mixed in. This volume also includes a section on shemitah.

Halichos Kodesh (Brooklyn, 2007); 316 pp.[718 336-8971, 718 972-4078]
This is a collection of the hanhagohs of the whole year of R. Yisroel Rotenberg, Av beis Din of Kossin. He was killed by the Nazis. The sefer is from the notes of a close talmid of his. Its an extremely in depth description, providing a day by day going thru the whole year how he acted in each situation its full of interesting things.

History:

Rishimos Teshuvos Rav Sherira Goan (New York, 2007); 119 pp., ed. R. Nosson Dovid Rabinowitz [917- 753-5178].
This sefer includes an excellent history of Rav Sherira Goan from the most updated sources in the academic world. It also includes listings of all the Teshuvos of Rav Sherira Goan including many that were mistakenly attributed to others.

Tohar Haloshon, ed. Rothschild (Jerusalem, 2007); 80 pp.
The theme of this sefer is to show that the historical acceptance of the Hebrew language – Ivrit, was, according to the author, a very tragic story. The author shows through the statements of Ben Yehudah and Y. Klausner how anti-Jewish they were. He also shows which terrible methods they used to make this the language spoken amongst Jews in Eretz Yisroel. The book, however, is not to objective, rather it is presented in a very kannois way but all in all is still an interesting read to see a glimpse into that time period.

Olkieniki Radin Vilna (Jerusalem, 2007); 454 pgs, by R. Kalman Farber [02 571-1727, 03-731- 2149].
This is a diary of R. Farber of these places before World War Two and especially during the War. Among the interesting sections of this book are his accounts of his Rabaeim R. Naftoli Trop (known as Granat) and the Chofetz Chaim.

Yosor Yasroni (Bnei Brak, 2007); 469 pp., by R. Yitzchak Gibralter [03-618-8360]
This is a book about Kovno, R. Gibralter home town. This is a very interesting book which gives one a very nice picture of Kovno before World War Two not a typical Artscroll like history.

Journals:

Heichel Ba’al Shem Tov, issue 21,189 pp.
There are two articles of interest in this latest issue one, an article from R. Chaim Rapoport on the minhag of Chasidim of seeing ones rebbe in general and other areas relating to this topic.

One of the sources on the topic which he brings is from a teshuvah of R Yakov Kahna in his Shu”t Toldos Yakov (available here) (no. 33, pp. 72-74, in particular). What is specifically interesting about this teshuvah is his discussion of the Gra and his stance against Chassidim. He basically writes that the Gra made a mistake – he was fooled by false witnesses! What is interesting about this is this R. Yakov Kahan grandfather was the Gra brother author of the Maleos Hatorah! [I hope to return to this R. Yakov Kahana in a future post soon as his teshuvos are extremely interesting.]

Another point of interest, found in a different article, is a discussion of a grandson R. Chaim Volzhiner, Reb Eliyahu Zvi Soloveitchik, who became close with chassidus. The author references the extremely rare sefer by the Manhattan doctor, Arthur (Dov) Hyman, on this highly interesting personality.

Additions to earlier lists:

In an earlier post on new seforim I mentioned a sefer from R Chaim Vital.

Here is some updated information on it as I have had more time to go thru it a bit. This sefer was printed by R. N. Levi. This sefer is based on the handwritten copy of R. Chaim Vital himself. This volume was part of the famous Musaef collection. The rumors on the street are that this sefer legally ended up in the hands of dealers who cut it up page by page and sold each page for $15,000. After all the pages of the sefer were sold it was printed in this beautiful edition. This actual work was actually six parts a few of the parts were printed many years ago including haskomos of R. Kook [vol. 2, printed in Jerusalem, 1906] and more recently by Mechon Ahavat Sholom. It appears that there is still a part not printed which was to be found in the Ger Rebbi’s pre-World War II collection, which is currently still missing. As to the specific style of this sefer it is not heavy Kabbalah as there is much niglah in here. There are pieces of torah on everything – from chumash, aggdah gemaras and Mesectos Avos. Also included are many dershos which he said at chausunas, brisim and for hespedim. The dating of the sefer has been debated between R. Yakov Hillel and R. Manzur as to if this was before or after he learnt by the Arizal. Basically it seems that the bulk of the work was written before his learning with the Arizal and additions were added in by him throughout his lifetime.

The editor of this edition besides for presenting the work with nice layout and some sources include a basic history of R. Chaim Vital and his works. They consulted R. Y. Avivi who is a renowned Talmid Chacham and expert on Kabblah. Just to point out some minor comments on it. For some strange reason they quote a lot of material from M. Benayhu, but they can not properly write his name and instead refer to him as “the author of the Toldos HaAri” (for example see pp. 18, 19, 24, 31 and many more. They also can not properly write that he wrote the Sefer Yosef Bechrei which they also quote (pg 8, 14) or his Dor Eched baAretz (p. 72). Nor could they quote Avraham Yaari by name (pp. 45, 54) or Professor D. Tamar (pp. 48, 60) or Professor Tishbi (p. 67). What the problem in quoting these scholars name is beyond me. One more point in the end they deal with the sefer Kabalah Maseios of R. Chaim Vital making no mention that parts have been printed already. I have elaborated earlier on this particular sefer in this post (link). As an aside in the latest issue of Mekabtzeul from Ahavat Sholom they printed some more pieces from this work.

If anyone has any information about this author — see here (PDF) — please email Barnettesq@optonline.net.

To the Editors of the Seforim blog:

I thank C.G. and Menachem for their thoughtful comments regarding Tradition at the Seforim blog (see “The Ongoing Debate on the Usage of Print vs. Electronic Journals: Perspective of an Ivy League PhD Student,” available here). Since I understood the post to be using the example of Tradition for a larger phenomenon of deciding between print and electronic journals, I will also try to relate to this ongoing discussion in the context of explaining Tradition’s situation. I should note from the outset that I write only from my limited experience and perspective as the online editor, and that these views are strictly my own, although they have certainly been shaped by discussions with Tradition’s editor, Rabbi Shalom Carmy, and Rabbi Basil Herring, executive Vice President of the Rabbinical Council of America, publisher of Tradition.

When I first became Tradition’s online editor this past spring, I asked the same questions regarding making Tradition free online. C.G. raises the issue in particular with regard to university students, who get electronic access to many journals through their university. I initially raised it, however, in the context of offering it online to the wider public.

This issue has been raised multiple times, by readers and editorial board members alike. Everyone would like to see Tradition available to as wide of an audience as possible. Unfortunately, it has been deemed unfeasible, at least for now, for the following reasons:

1) Despite the fact that Tradition is edited on a volunteer-basis, producing the journal 4 times a year costs tens of thousands of dollars. Rising printing and mailing costs as well as other factors have increased the cost of print journals, which is one of the major factors propelling different journals to publishing an online-only journal. While producing an online journal still costs money, the costs are definitely reduced – you do not have to pay for paper, ink, design, layout, shipping, etc…

If we made Tradition entirely free online, however, the feeling is that the print subscription would drastically decrease, especially with younger subscribers who are willing to print out journal articles for shabbat reading, and thereby undermine the financial stability of the journal.

Many people, however, continue to find a printed journal as a more enjoyable reading experience, as they do with magazines like The New Republic, Commentary Magazine, etc. This was, indeed, the concluding point of the article in The New Yorker by Princeton University professor Anthony Grafton, linked at the Michtavim blog. Yet the initial cost of printing even one copy of the journal is quite expensive, and one needs to preserve a minimum number of print subscribers in order to maintain the financial viability of the printing.

To a small extent, costs could be limited by reducing the number of editions published per year, but then you lose out on the joy of receiving a new edition on a more frequent basis, and the seasonal dialogue that it generates.

2) Tradition’s sponsor, the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA), does not have the funding to entirely absorb these costs. While Tradition Fellows generously cover an important amount of these costs, we must still pass some cost on to the reader. We are, of course, regularly pursuing other sources of revenue, and our outside funding has increased substantially in recent years, but these resources are finite. Tradition also has to be sensitive to not accepting money from organizations or individuals that might attach ideological or editorial strings to their contributions.

If anyone, however, knows of potential donors or foundations, we’d of course be happy to hear from you.

Given that information, I proposed making a number of changes that we have adopted including offering online-only subscriptions for a reduced price, and giving a further reduction for students, which we have now implemented at www.TraditionOnline.org. We continue to have reduced prices for multi-year subscriptions.

We of course want to expand our reach deeper into the academic arena, and are currently working with our institutional subscribers to increase electronic access to affiliates of their universities, which we hope will ultimately happen, in one form or another, in the coming months. In addition to my duties at Tradition and as a Ram in Yeshivat Hakotel, I myself am also pursuing a PhD in Jewish Philosophy at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and understand that our generation of students and professors prefer taking advantage of their electronic library priviliges.

In many ways, the rising costs of printing and digitalization have forced journals to ask themselves whether they are a magazine or a research journal. The former cater to a more popular audience, and expect subscriptions from a larger audience while seeking profits. The latter limits themselves to a more limited, academic audience, and therefore mostly seek library subscriptions (at extremely high prices) to cover the costs of issues that come out on a less frequent basis. I do not agree with C.G.’s assessment that academic journals exclusively (or almost exclusively) impact currents of thought. I think magazines with a scholarly tone but a clear “public intellectual” agenda have a tremendous amount of impact, like First Things.

Having never discussed this with the editors, I’d venture to say that Tradition is somewhere in between a magazine and a journal, leaning more toward the latter in both its frequency and tone. It is a scholarly (though not purely academic) journal with a public service agenda, addressed to an intellectual religious community rather than exclusively a professional academic coterie.

Whatever one might make of that assessment, it remains clear, however, that we do not publish Tradition for-profit, and continue to publish it, lishmah, for the sake of disseminating and encouraging Orthodox Jewish thought.

Another initiative was to “offer more,” so to speak, for the subscription. In addition to creating the website to increase availability, we are now in the final stages of an extensive process to digitize all 50 years of Tradition in an indexed and searchable PDF online archives. The alpha release of the full archives will hopefully happen in the next month. When that happens, individual subscribers (both print and online-only) will have full access to all 50 years of Tradition, and non-subscribers will be able to purchase individual articles for a small fee (again comparable to other magazines), as they can do already for those issues currently online.

As Grafton noted in his piece, the OCR technology is far from perfect, and produces a number of typos, particularly when irregular fonts are used, like in footnotes. Hebrew can also be a problem. Nonetheless, the overall technology remains wonderful, and having spent numerous hours this past week going through the archives online, I can testify to the blessings of digitalization, and I think that this will be a wonderful service to both the academic and broader communities.

I should also note that all of Rav Soloveitchik’s writings that were first published in Tradition will be available for free to the wider public. (For copyright reasons, The Lonely Man of Faith will be available in a read-only format).

Especially given access to 50 years of Tradition, we think that our subscription prices are pretty reasonable. You can check them out here.

Another new and popular phenomenon common to magazines, but not to journals, involves special online-only features on the website. Our new books of interest section has already begun and is in the process of being expanded, and we hope in the next months to have blogs and other online-only features, all of which will be available for free to the wider public. Obviously, these changes also cost money, and we have worked to procure grants for the archives scanning (over 1300 articles!).

Anyone interested in sponsoring or dedicating other features of TraditionOnline should please contact me.

When these changes go into effect, we plan to explore online advertising, which we hope will create revenue to keep subscription costs down or even reduce them. Of course, we want to make sure that all ads are appropriate for our site, and that our intellectual and religious integrity is not compromised by any of our financial affiliations. That is why we have, for now, elected not to use Google ads.

In other words, I think within its resources, Tradition is doing a thoughtful job of balancing its agenda, different audiences, and new technology. If at some point we can make Tradition available for free online, we will do it. We continue to explore different options, seeking to spread our articles to as broad of an audience as possible. Please feel free to contact me directly if you have further questions or suggestions.

On a separate but related note, another element of the online world is that it expands the opportunities of different people to be involved with the journal. TraditionOnline is looking for limited number of qualified volunteers to assist with certain editorial elements of our expanding online presence. If you are interested, please be in touch with me.

I recently had an enjoyable conversation with a former roommate and friend, back from our days at Yeshivat Kerem B’Yavneh, who is currently nearing completion of a doctorate at the graduate school of an Ivy League institution in computer science, about his views on using print vs. electronic journals. Our discussion centered on the notion that a journal Tradition, published by the Rabbinical Council of America (RCA), a leading institution of American Modern Orthodox Judaism, charges a fee of $25.00 per year (or $15.00 to students) for non-Tradition subscribers. Parallel journals from within the Modern Orthodox community, like The Meorot Journal (formerly The Edah Journal), published by Yeshivat Chovevei Torah and the Torah u-Madda Journal, published by the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (RIETS) of Yeshiva University, are published in both print and electronic formats, thus allowing their publications to be read by individuals from throughout and beyond the geographic and ideological world of Orthodox Judaism.

Below is a lightly-edited version of a letter that I received from my roommate and friend C.G., posted at the Seforim blog with his express permission.

Dear Menachem,

Regarding our conversation about Tradition, we discussed whether graduate students use online journal access through their universities. In my experience, not only do they use the online access, they only use the online access. I know that in 4 years as a PhD student at Columbia I have looked up an article that wasn’t online exactly once. There is just too much material online and too many accessible journals for me to bother going to the library to photocopy a journal that is behind the times. (The one time I did go was for a seminal article from the 70’s that it is de rigueur in my field to cite.) If I had to pay for the article, even a few dollars, there is no way I would have done so. My experience is that other PhD students take the same approach – for all intents and purposes, an article that isn’t freely available to us online doesn’t exist. (By free, I mean “free to me,” as in either free or available through a University’s e-journals program.) Free abstracts isn’t much of a help either, if the article isn’t free. It isn’t even that I’m particularly cheap – it simply makes no economic sense for me to pay. There is always another article you can cite, and considering the hundreds of articles I read before each paper I write, the cost of a few dollars per article would add up pretty fast. It’s the equivalent of replacing a library with a bookstore – if I have to pay for every book I read, I’ll read a lot fewer books, and if most of the books I want are free but a few cost money, it would take a lot to interest me in the ones that I need to pay for.

The New York Times discovered this recently; charging even a small fee for their opinion pages drastically reduced the impact of their columnists on popular thought, which is part of the reason that they are suddenly free again. (Incidentally, they were smart enough to make themselves free to academics even when they were charging the general public). New York Times continues to charge (the general public) for archived articles and I guarantee that this has reduced the frequency that archived articles are cited by non-academic researchers. New York Times can afford to do this because the fact is that they were the paper of record for more than a century and if you are researching news from the 1930’s you don’t have a lot of other choices. However, a small journal that isn’t widely known outside of a relatively small circle doesn’t have the same power.

I will admit that $15 a year is a fairly nominal cost, and if I was planning on citing Tradition a lot I would pay it, much as I pay for various magazines. However, the key here is that I would only do that if I already knew that Tradition was full of material for me. If I came across a Tradition article and I wasn’t familiar with the journal or didn’t think I’d be citing many Tradition articles, I’d just click along to the next result on Google. This is the reason that it’s standard practice in my field to make your own articles available online for free – the easier it is for someone to get it, the more likely it will have an impact. I also concede that my field (computer science) is more “online” than other fields. However, a lot of my friends are in graduate programs and an informal straw poll says that the same is true for other fields. A friend in psychology told me that an article that isn’t free online “doesn’t exist” and a close friend who was researching a Jewish Studies topic in conjunction with the chair of a university department told me that anything he needed to pay for or even needed to go to the library for wasn’t worth his time when there were ten other articles that were free.

My opinion: Tradition’s current pricing is perfectly fine for a magazine. If that’s the model they are aiming for, it’s entirely sustainable, and it’s what most magazines do, as their goal is to maximize subscriptions and revenue. However, an academic journal usually has a different goal of having an impact on the currents of thought in the broader field, and in that respect, if even 25% of researchers are like me and my friends (though, to be honest, I suspect that 95% are) then Tradition is making a big mistake.

Just my opinion of course. Be well,

C.G.