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Category: Journals & Periodicals

Beyond the Masthead of the Beys Yaakov Journal, 1923-1980 – Part 2: ‘Abomination’ or Scandal? Mistranslation, Journalism, and the Halivni Controversy

Beyond the Masthead of the Beys Yaakov Journal, 1923-1980 – Part 2: ‘Abomination’ or Scandal? Mistranslation, Journalism, and the Halivni Controversy

In Part 1 of this study, it was argued that the Beys Yaakov Journal cannot be understood simply as an ideological mouthpiece of Agudath Israel, nor as an instrument of Orthodox withdrawal. Across decades, its editors repeatedly confronted intellectual challenges in public, publishing voices and materials that lay beyond the formal boundaries of Agudah authority and resisting the impulse toward protective silence. That does not mean it adopted liberal positions; rather, its conclusions fit squarely within the traditions of Ultra-Orthodox…

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Between Authority and Inquiry: Beyond the Masthead of the Beys Yaakov Journal, 1923-1980 – Part 1

Between Authority and Inquiry: Beyond the Masthead of the Beys Yaakov Journal, 1923-1980 – Part 1

In December 1961, the Israeli edition of Beys Yaakov, the educational journal of the Agudath Israel–affiliated school system, published an article that sits uneasily with standard accounts of Agudath Israel’s twentieth-century intellectual posture. Issue 6 of its second year reprinted in full a study on the archaeological and halakhic problems surrounding the base of the Temple menorah. The identity of the author is therefore institutionally consequential. Rabbi Dr. Yitzhak Isaac Halevi Herzog served as the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel…

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New volume of Mekhilta Journal Announcement

New volume of Mekhilta Journal Announcement

מכילתא, כתב עת לתורה ולחכמה, ר’ עדיאל ברויאר, יעקב ישראל סטל ומשה דוד צ’צ’יק (עורכים), גליון ב, כסלו תשפ”א, 323 עמודים Volume two of the new Journal Mekhilta just came out. Similar to the first issue it has an all-star lineup of writers on great topics. Copies of this volume are available for purchase through me (while the limited edition lasts) and will help support the efforts of the Seforim Blog. Contact me at Eliezerbrodt@gmail.com For sample pages contact me…

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New Journal Announcement: Mekhilta

New Journal Announcement: Mekhilta

מכילתא, כתב עת לתורה ולחכמה, ר’ יואל בינדר, עדיאל ברויאר, יעקב ישראל סטל ומשה דוד צ’צ’יק (עורכים), גליון א, כסלו תש”פ, 364 עמודים A new Journal just came out tonight called Mekhilta. The volume begins with their mission statement and will be published biannually. The first issue has an all-star lineup of writers on great topics. Some of the writers are Professor Simcha Emanuel & Rabbi Yakov Stahl (on the Minhag of saying Pitum Haketoros); I have written about both…

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Message from Professor Haym Soloveitchik

Message from Professor Haym Soloveitchik

In the newly-published issue of the Jewish Quartlerly Review (Spring 109:2), there is an exchange between Robert Brody and Haym Soloveitchik on the “Third Yeshivah of Bavel” (https://muse.jhu.edu/issue/40354). Professor Soloveitchik’s reply is in two parts: Part I in JQR and the continuation–Part II– on his website.. At the conclusion of his reply in JQR, he refers the readers to Part II on his website: “Those interested in my replies to all of Brody’s other objections can turn to my website,…

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Conservative Conversions, Some Grammatical Points, and a Newly Published Section of a Letter from R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik

Conservative Conversions, Some Grammatical Points, and a Newly Published Section of a Letter from R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik

1. Since I mentioned R. Ovadiah Hoffman in the last post, I would be remiss in not noting that he and his brother, R. Yissachar Dov, recently published volume 4 of Ha-Mashbir, devoted to R. Ovadiah Yosef. It can be purchased here. The volume contains a previously unpublished letter by R. Ovadiah Yosef that I provided, dealing with a rabbi who improperly converted people. It also contains a number of other noteworthy sections, such as R. Ovadiah’s notes to R….

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Jews, Baseball, and The Yiddish Press

Jews, Baseball, and The Yiddish Press

Dr. Eddy Portnoy is Senior Researcher and Director of Exhibitions at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. He is the author of the recently-published (and much acclaimed, and fun) book, Bad Rabbi: And Other Strange but True Stories from the Yiddish Press (Stanford, 2017), available here. This is his second contribution to the Seforim Blog. His previous essay, “The Yiddish Press as a Historical Source for the Overlooked and Forgotten in the Jewish Community,” was published here. Jews love baseball!…

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The Yiddish Press as a Historical Source for the Overlooked and Forgotten in the Jewish Community

The Yiddish Press as a Historical Source for the Overlooked and Forgotten in the Jewish Community

Eddy Portnoy is Senior Researcher and Director of Exhibitions at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. He is the author of the recently-published (and much acclaimed, and fun) book, Bad Rabbi: And Other Strange but True Stories from the Yiddish Press (Stanford, 2017), available here (https://www.amazon.com/Bad-Rabbi-Strange-Stories-Stanford/dp/150360411X). This is his first contribution to the Seforim Blog. Sanhedrin 25 has this pretty well-known, somewhat rambling bit about what sorts of people are trustworthy enough to serve as witnesses in court. It’s pretty…

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New book announcement: Yeshurun volume 36

New book announcement: Yeshurun volume 36

This past Wednesday the thirty sixth volume of the Torah journal Yeshurun was released. As I am on the editorial board of this journal, I normally do not write a review of new volumes for fear of being biased, or the appearance thereof. In keeping with my stance, I will not write a review below, but rather just highlight some of the topics in the volume. Normally, Yeshurun is a bi-annual, with a new volume published before Rosh Hashanah and…

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Zvi Hirsch Masliansky: Memoirs from the Hebrew Periodical Ha-Doar

Zvi Hirsch Masliansky: Memoirs from the Hebrew Periodical Ha-Doar

Introduction. Zvi Hirsch Masliansky, known as “The National Preacher” (1856-l943), was a member of the Hibbat Zion movement in Russia from the time of its inception in l882, and served as its itinerant preacher in the early 1890s. After his expulsion from Russia in 1895, he went to the United States, where he became a leading figure in the integration of the mass immigration of Eastern European Jews to American life. He wrote memoirs of those two periods of his…

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חז”ס ופולמוס חנוכה

חז”ס ופולמוס חנוכה

‘מאי חנוכה’ מאת זרחיה ליכט תמונה מהחכם חיים זליג סלונימסקי חיים זליג סלונימסקי (1810-1904), המכונה חז”ס, היה אחד מגדולי המשכילים במאה ה-19. חכם גדול בתורה ובמדע שפעל הרבה להפיץ השכלה עולמית בקרב עמו. כמעט עד סוף ימיו נשאר חז”ס נכבד בין בעיני הרבנים מצד חכמתו בתורה ונאמנותו לשמירת המצוות, ובין בעיני המשכילים מצד חכמתו במדע. אך בעת זקנותו אבד עמדתו החיובי בקרב הרבנים ע”י כתבה אחת שפרסם בעיתונו ‘הצפירה’ (דצמבר 1891). בחנוכה של שנת 1891 פרסם חז”ס מאמר בדפי העיתון,…

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Hitzei Giborim, Tzitzit, and R. Meir Mazuz

Hitzei Giborim, Tzitzit, and R. Meir Mazuz

1. In 1969 the journal Moriah appeared, published by Makhon Yerushalayim. From its beginning, this journal published manuscript material from geonim, rishonim, and aharonim, together with Torah articles by contemporary scholars. This created a model that was later followed by a number of other journals. It also became a model for how to publish memorial volumes, as these generally also contain a section of material published from manuscript. Together with the interest in manuscripts, there has developed what can only…

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Hakirah, Metzitzah, and More

Hakirah, Metzitzah, and More

Hakirah has performed a valuable service in dealing forthrightly with the matter of homosexuality. Issue no. 13 (2012) contains R. Chaim Rapoport’s “Judaism and Homosexuality: An Alternative Rabbinic View,” which I think is an outstanding presentation of the alternative to what has seemingly become the “official” haredi position in this matter. This “official” position is, in my opinion, so misguided that I would like to say a few words on the topic, since R. Rapoport did not go far enough…

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German Orthodoxy, Hakirah, and More

German Orthodoxy, Hakirah, and More

1. I recently published a translation of Hirsch’s famous lecture on Schiller. You can see it here. At first I thought that this lecture remained untranslated into English for so long because of ideological concerns. (I still think that this is the reason it was never translated into Hebrew.) Yet before the article appeared, I was informed that the reason it did not appear in the English translation of the Collected Writings of Hirsch was not due to ideological censorship,…

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Blazing Critics

Blazing Critics

Recently, the question of how critical a reviewer should be was raised by Pete Wells’ review of Guy Fieri’s Times Square restaurant. In that review, Wells eviscerates everything about the restaurant. For example, he asks Mr. Fieri: “Hey, did you try that blue drink, the one that glows like nuclear waste? The watermelon margarita? Any idea why it tastes like some combination of radiator fluid and formaldehyde?” Needless to say, Mr. Fieri was not pleased and he fired back, alleging…

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