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Category: Rabbinic Biography & Personalities

Pini Dunner — Mercaz Agudat Ha-Rabbanim Be-Lita, Kovno, 1931

Pini Dunner — Mercaz Agudat Ha-Rabbanim Be-Lita, Kovno, 1931

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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 Pini Dunner (London, England) In the mid-1920s the rabbi and rosh…

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Marc B. Shapiro – Clarifications of Previous Posts

Marc B. Shapiro – Clarifications of Previous Posts

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[The footnote numbers reflects the fact this is a continuation of this earlier post.] 1. I was asked to expand a bit on how I know that R. Barukh Epstein’s story with Rayna Batya is contrived. In this story we see her great love of Torah study and her difficulty in accepting a woman’s role in Judaism. Certainly, she must have been a very special woman, and I assume that she was, for a woman, quite learned. When Mekor Barukh…

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Elliott Horowitz — Isaiah Berlin on Meir Berlin (Bar-Ilan) and Saul Lieberman

Elliott Horowitz — Isaiah Berlin on Meir Berlin (Bar-Ilan) and Saul Lieberman

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of Bar Ilan University and co-editor of Jewish Quarterly Review, described Edmund Wilson’s unique Christmas card and some thoughts on the Talmud [see here]. This is his third contribution to the Seforim blog. We hope that you enjoy. Isaiah Berlin on Meir Berlin (Bar-Ilan) and Saul Lieberman Elliott Horowitz Although there have been some fine reviews of the collection of letters by Isaiah Berlin published in England under the title Flourishing: Letters 1928-1946 (Chatto and Windus, 2004), and in the…

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Rabbi Hillel Goldberg on Prof. Saul Lieberman

Rabbi Hillel Goldberg on Prof. Saul Lieberman

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Published several weeks ago, Rabbi Hillel Goldberg, Executive Editor of both the Intermountain Jewish News and of Tradition, has written a ‘Review Essay’ (“Discontinuities: The Case of Saul Lieberman,” reviewing Elijah J. Schochet and Solomon Spiro’s Saul Lieberman: The Man and His Work), in Tradition 40:3 (Fall 2007): 69-75. A PDF of this article is only available to subscribers to TraditionOnline and/or members of the Rabbinical Council of America. While the aim of a “Review Essay” is usually focused on…

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The Pitfalls of Disagreeing with the Gra

The Pitfalls of Disagreeing with the Gra

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Sunday, the second day of Hol HaMo’ad, was the 210th yahrzeit of the Gra. The Gra, a towering figure in modern Judaism, was not immune from criticism. His views, like any other’s were subject to scrutiny. And, at times, there were those who disagreed with the Gra’s conclusions. While this criticism should come as no surprise (and especially so in light of the Gra’s dim view of deference to prior authorities), some felt the Gra should be immune from any…

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Rabbinic Portraits

Rabbinic Portraits

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There is a discussion on the always-wonderful-blog On The Main Line regarding a portrait attributed to Rashi. Someone MENACHEM BUTLER raised the well-known collection of famous Rabbinic personalities which appeared on an edition of the Shulhan Arukh. The edition to which they are referring to is the Shulhan Arukh printed in Mantua in 1721-23. This edition includes the standard commentaries as well as the commentary of R. Gur Areyeh Finzi (d. 1753). On the title page Finzi (or the printer)…

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Barukh Dayan Ha-Emet: Rabbi Dr. Noah Rosenbloom

Barukh Dayan Ha-Emet: Rabbi Dr. Noah Rosenbloom

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For those who have not seen the obituary notice in the New York Times (Aug 14, 2007; B6), the Seforim blog records the passing of Rabbi Dr. Noah Rosenbloom, a pulpit rabbi for over fifty years and longtime faculty member at Yeshiva University’s Stern College for Women. He was the author of Luzzatto’s Ethico-Psychological Interpretation of Judaism: A Study in the Religious Philosophy of Samuel David Luzzatto (New York: Yeshiva University, 1965); Tradition in an Age of Reform: The Religious…

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The Legend of R. Yehuda Halevi’s Death: Truth or Fiction?

The Legend of R. Yehuda Halevi’s Death: Truth or Fiction?

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Among the more famous kinos that we recite on Tisha B’Av is Zion Halo Tishali. This kinah was written by one of the greatest paytanim, R. Yehudah Halevi author of the classic Kuzari. This piyut is about the author’s passion to walk on the holy soil of Eretz Yisrael. In the Artscroll commentary on the kinos, R. Avraham Chaim Feuer writes an ancient manuscript states that R. Yehuda Halevi composed this kina while journeying towards Eretz Yisroel and recited it…

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god or God: A Review of Two Works on the Names of God

god or God: A Review of Two Works on the Names of God

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Last week I picked up a new sefer titled Nekadesh es Shimcha. What caught my attention was that it included not only Nekadesh es Shimcha but also the work Meleches haKodesh from R. Eleazar Fleckeles (most well-known for his Teshuva m’Ahava). What follows is a short biography of R. Fleckes, a review of Meleches haKodesh, and a review of the new sefer – Nekadesh es Shimcha. R. Eleazar Fleckeles was born in 1754 in Prague. He was a direct descendant…

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The Other Works of R. Yehiel Mihel Epstein, Author of the Arukh HaShulhan

The Other Works of R. Yehiel Mihel Epstein, Author of the Arukh HaShulhan

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Almost every Friday morning, I get a call from a fellow seforim addict asking me what’s new on the market. The past few weeks, he had been complaining to me that the market is dry, and nothing of note has been put out. Yesterday, he told me that finally one interesting thing came out the night before: a collection of the writings R. Yehiel Mihel Epstein (1829-1908), the author of the Arukh HaShulhan, called Kitvei Ha’Arukh HaShulhan. So off I…

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Marc B. Shapiro: Obituary for Prof. Mordechai Breuer zt”l

Marc B. Shapiro: Obituary for Prof. Mordechai Breuer zt”l

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Professsor Mordechai Breuer passed away on the twelfth of Sivan, 5767. It is a great loss for the world of Jewish scholarship as well as that of Orthodox Jewry. Breuer, born in Frankfurt in 1918, was the great-grandson of R. Samson Raphael Hirsch, the grandson of R. Shlomo Zalman Breuer, who succeeded Hirsch as Rav of the Frankfurt separatist community, and the son of Dr. Isaac Breuer, the leading theoretician of the Agudah (although the latter’s philosophy would later diverge…

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Obituary for R. Yosef Tzvi Dunner, zt”l (Dei’ah veDibur)

Obituary for R. Yosef Tzvi Dunner, zt”l (Dei’ah veDibur)

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As a followup to a previous post, here is an excerpt from the obituary for R. Yosef Tzvi Dunner, zt”l, that appeared in Dei’ah veDibur: At the age of 19 he wanted to leave home to study in one of the illustrious yeshivas of Lithuania, but his father felt that given the dearth of rabbonim in Germany communities, before going to yeshiva he should study at a place that provides rabbinical training (smichus). He sent the young man to Beis…

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Rabbi Yosef Tzvi Dunner (1913-2007), the final surviving musmakh of the Berlin Rabbinical Seminary

Rabbi Yosef Tzvi Dunner (1913-2007), the final surviving musmakh of the Berlin Rabbinical Seminary

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HaRav Yosef Tzvi Dunner, who recently passed away in London at the age of 94, was the scion of a prominent European rabbinical family and father and grandfather of noted British Orthodox rabbis, Rabbi Abba Dunner and Rabbi Pini Dunner, respectively. In a recent email correspondence with Professor Marc B. Shapiro, author of the landmark biographical study of Rabbi Yechiel Yaakov Weinberg and several articles related to the leaders of the Berlin Rabbinical Seminary, he informed me that Rabbi Yosef…

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A Behind the Scenes Look at the Banning of HaGaon

A Behind the Scenes Look at the Banning of HaGaon

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It appears that at least one controversial book can not escape being criticized even after a significant passage of time. In this case, R. Dov Eliach’s book the R. Elijah, Gaon of Vilna, published five years ago and, at the time, subject to some harsh criticism, is the subject of a new magazine – אמת מול שקר (Truth Against Lies) published by “the Institute for Truth and Faith.” That is, the entire purpose of this magazine is to disproving and…

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