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Wrestling with the Ketsot – Review of ‘New Heavens: The Ketsot ha-Hoshen and the Rise of Lamdanut’, by Noam Samet

Wrestling with the Ketsot – Review of ‘New Heavens: The Ketsot ha-Hoshen and the Rise of Lamdanut’, by Noam Samet

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“…We also studied the Ketsot ha-Hoshen… The book was expensive, and my brother obtained a copy for consultation and decided to transcribe it in his fine handwriting. Only after prolonged arguments with me did my brother agree that we should first study it, and after each sugya and topic decide what was worth copying. We maintained this method throughout the two years we spent at Telz. Day after day we worked through the Ketsot ha-Hoshen, the Netivot ha-Mishpat, the novellae…

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Book Review: Yosie Levine, Hakham Tsevi Ashkenazi and the Battlegrounds of the Early Modern Rabbinate

Book Review: Yosie Levine, Hakham Tsevi Ashkenazi and the Battlegrounds of the Early Modern Rabbinate

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Yosie Levine has tackled the enigmatic figure of Hakham Tsevi Ashkenazi (1658-1718), a man whose title alone beggars the imagination. At first blush, the terms “Hakham” and “Ashkenazi” present an oxymoron. The term “Hakham” is generally reserved for Sephardic sages. (An outlier would be Hakham Isaac Bernays of Hamburg [1792-1849], but that is a discussion for another paper.) Hakham Tsevi went so far as to add to his signature the letters samekh teth, in typical Sephardic fashion. (Levine grapples with…

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Review of Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits, Jewish Women in Time and Torah

Review of Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits, Jewish Women in Time and Torah

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Ross Singer received rabbinic ordination from Professor Rabbi David Weiss Halivni, Rabbi Shear Yashuv Cohen, and Rabbi David Bigman. He has an MA in Talmud and Rabbinics from the Jewish Theological Seminary and is a graduate of the Mandel Jerusalem Fellows. He has published articles in The Edah Journal, The JOFA Journal, Amudim, Lehrhaus, The Jerusalem Post, and The Times of Israel. He is the translator of Gideon Katz’s In Silence and Out Loud: Yeshayahu Leibowitz in Israeli Context. Ross…

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A New Halakhic Compendium of Jewish Belief

A New Halakhic Compendium of Jewish Belief

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Professor Y. Tzvi Langermann is Professor Emeritus of Arabic at Bar Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel. He has published widely on science, religion, and philosophy in medieval Jewish and Islamic cultures. Over the past thirty-plus years Rabbi Eliezer Melammed (b. 1961) has been issuing volumes of up-to-date rulings on halakhah. The series, called Peninei Halakha (“Pearls of Halakhah”) is very popular; on sale in most Israeli bookstores, it is also now freely available online, translated (in part at least)…

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Book Review: ‘After Revelation: The Rabbinic Past in the Medieval Islamic World’, by Marc D. Herman

Book Review: ‘After Revelation: The Rabbinic Past in the Medieval Islamic World’, by Marc D. Herman

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Dr. Marc Herman’s After Revelation: The Rabbinic Past in the Medieval Islamic World (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2025) examines shifting conceptions of Torah she-beʿal peh within the Judeo-Islamic world from the geonic period through the time of Maimonides. Beginning with Rav Saadya Gaon and concluding with the Rambam, Herman traces a gradual reorientation away from the geonic understanding of Torah she-beʿal peh as wholly revealed toward the Maimonidean position, in which human interpretation plays a constitutive role in the formation…

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Book review – Nafshi BiShe’elati: The Halakhot of Mental Health

Book review – Nafshi BiShe’elati: The Halakhot of Mental Health

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T.J. Hooper was a precedent-setting tort case in 1932. Two tugboats, one of which was The T.J. Hooper, were towing barges. During a storm, the barges sank, and their cargoes lost. The owners of the cargo sued the barge owners, who in turn sued the tugboat owners. The barge owners claimed that the tug operators were negligent because they failed to equip their tugs with radios that would have warned them of the bad weather. The tugboat companies defended under…

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Review of Rav Zvi Hirsch Grodzinsky’s Taharas Yisroel

Review of Rav Zvi Hirsch Grodzinsky’s Taharas Yisroel

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Shmuel Lubin is a doctoral candidate in biology and creator of “The Rishonim” podcast. ר’ צבי הירש גראדזענסקי טהרת ישראל, הלכות נדה, לראשונה מכתב יד, ע”י מכון תפארת צבי, [נדפס ע”י מכון עלה זית], תקסח עמודים The publication of a new sefer on Hilchos Niddah is not necessarily cause for celebration in the often-saturated world of halachic literature. But when such a publication is based on an early 20th century manuscript from the American heartland, it at least merits a…

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Two Books by R. Bezalel Naor, R. Meir Simhah of Dvinsk, Michael Lerner, and More

Two Books by R. Bezalel Naor, R. Meir Simhah of Dvinsk, Michael Lerner, and More

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1. R. Bezalel Naor is well known for his enormous contributions to what we can call “Rav Kook Studies”. His outstanding translations and analysis have cemented his reputation as one of the leading interpreters of Rav Kook, as well as the most prolific writer on Rav Kook in English. I personally owe a great debt to Naor, as can seen in my forthcoming book on Rav Kook (though I suspect he will reject some of my readings). Yet many are…

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Review of Jay R. Berkovitz’s The Pinkas of Metz

Review of Jay R. Berkovitz’s The Pinkas of Metz

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Jay R. Berkovitz, Protocols of Justice: The Pinkas of Metz Rabbinic Court 1771-1789, (2 vol., 222 pp. +1084 pp.), Brill 2014 Jay R. Berkovitz, Law’s Dominion, Jewish Community, Religion and Family in Early Modern Metz,(404 pp.) Brill 2022 A decade ago, Professor Jay Berkovitz, a Professor and Chair of Judaic and Near Eastern Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, published the Pinkas (record book or register) of the Rabbinic Court in Metz. Jews began living in Metz, a town…

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Review of Ha-Sefer ha-Kollel (Kitāb al-Ḥāwī) by Rabbi David ben Saʿadya al-Ger

Review of Ha-Sefer ha-Kollel (Kitāb al-Ḥāwī) by Rabbi David ben Saʿadya al-Ger

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Marc Herman is an assistant professor in the Department of Humanities and a core member of the Centre for Jewish Studies at York University. His research focuses on Jewish and Islamic intellectual history in the medieval Mediterranean. He is the coeditor of Accounting for the Commandments in Medieval Judaism: Studies in Law, Philosophy, Pietism, and Kabbalah (Brill, 2021) and his monograph, titled After Revelation: The Rabbinic Past in the Islamic World, is under contract with the University of Pennsylvania Press….

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Do We Cut Off or Bury One’s Head in the Sand?

Do We Cut Off or Bury One’s Head in the Sand?

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Review: Elliott Horowitz, Reckless Rites: Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence In 2017, the erudite and eclectic scholar Elliott Horowitz unexpectedly passed away. His oeuvre is exceptionally diverse, having authored more than seventy-five articles and reviews and five books, with topics ranging from studies on Italian art, Jews and coffee, the significance of the beard among Jews, comparing and contrasting Jewish and non-Jewish biblical exegesis, and Jewish violence (see his Academia page for most of them). Seven additional articles…

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A Review of Parashas Hamelech – Al Mitzvas Hakhel, by Rabbi Moshe Parnes

A Review of Parashas Hamelech – Al Mitzvas Hakhel, by Rabbi Moshe Parnes

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Jackson, NJ Sefer Parashas Hamelech on the mitzvah of Hakhel offers a unique and illuminating contribution on one of the lesser-studied mitzvos of the Torah. It fits the modern genre of encyclopedias on arcane subjects, while also combining elements of older and more established trends in Torah publications, weaving it all together in deft scholarly fashion. It is both an exhaustive accumulation of sources primary and secondary on its topic as well as a lively sefer iyun, providing fresh and…

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Review: Contemporary Uses and Forms of Hasidut, edited by Shlomo Zuckier

Review: Contemporary Uses and Forms of Hasidut, edited by Shlomo Zuckier

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When the ‘Ilui of Denenburg was in Lublin, he visited the Rabbi of the city, the Gaon Rabbi Shneur Zalman [Fradkin]. Upon parting, he asked him if there is to be found in Lublin another gaon. Rabbi Shneur Zalman replied: “There resides here Rabbi Zadok HaKohen, a great gaon.” The ‘Ilui of Denenburg went to the “Kohen,” who received him with great honor. (Shmuel Ungar, Sefer Toledot Hakohen mi-Lublin, ed. Zevi Moskowitch [Jerusalem, 1966], chap. 9, p. 36) When the…

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Review of Mavericks, Mystics, & False Messiahs: Episodes from the Margins of Jewish History by Rabbi Pini Dunner (Toby Press, 2018)

Review of Mavericks, Mystics, & False Messiahs: Episodes from the Margins of Jewish History by Rabbi Pini Dunner (Toby Press, 2018)

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The first chapter of this book sets the tone by introducing the reader to the oft-retold story of the famous 17th century false Messiah, Shabbetai Tzvi (1626–1676), and how he and his handler Nathan of Gaza bamboozled much of world Jewry. As the story unfolds, more and more people began to believe that Shabbetai Tzvi was indeed the scion of David sent to redeem the Jewish people, but the story climaxes with Shabbetai Tzvi’s conversion to Islam from which point…

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WHEN HISTORY IS HIS STORY A Review of R. Dovid Kamenetsky’s “Rabeinu Chaim Ozer: Raban Shel Kol B’nei Ha’golah”

WHEN HISTORY IS HIS STORY A Review of R. Dovid Kamenetsky’s “Rabeinu Chaim Ozer: Raban Shel Kol B’nei Ha’golah”

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is a fellow in the Wexner Kollel Elyon and director of Asicha Seminars, an online learning program for women. This is Jonah’s first contribution to the Seforim Blog. OF HISTORY AND STORY When asked to describe the difference between recording history and telling stories, the prolific historical fiction novelist, E.L. Doctorow responded, “The historian will tell you what happened. The novelist will tell you what it felt like.” Doctorow’s assessment is unsurprisingly insightful, highlighting the benefits and drawbacks of both…

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