Browsed by
Genre: Roundup & Bibliography

Purim roundup

Purim roundup

Comments 1 comment

(4.07.2006). This controversial book subtitled “Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence” discusses incidents of Jewish violence toward non-Jews on Purim and the way Jewish historians sometimes downplayed these incidents. Tussle Over Horowitz’s Book (10.11.2006) discusses the resulting fallout of this book, whose thesis was disliked by Hillel Halkin in Commentary. The Origins of Hamentashen in Jewish Literature: A Historical-Culinary Survey (2.28.2007), a classic post by Eliezer Brodt on this relatively recent Jewish custom. Judah Wistinetzky and Mishloach Manot to…

Read More Read More

Seforim Blog Pesach Roundup

Seforim Blog Pesach Roundup

Comments 0 Comment

Here’s a roundup of Pesach and Haggadah-themed posts at the Seforim Blog. I. Racy Title Pages Update II 12.01.2005. Discusses the title page of the Prague Haggadah of 1526. This particular Haggadah used an illustration of a nude woman in the Haggadah’s quotation of Ezekiel 16:7 (“I cause you to increase, even as the growth of the field. And you did increase and grow up, and you became beautiful: you breasts grew, and your hair has grown; yet you were…

Read More Read More

Chanukah Posts & Dreidel

Chanukah Posts & Dreidel

Comments 1 comment

Today’s New York Times has an editoral discussing Chanukah customs, including dreidel. The author, Howard Jacboson, who won the 2010 Man Booker prize, isn’t a fan. His take is pretty much summed up in this quote: “How many years did I feign excitement when this nothing of a toy was produced? The dreidel would appear and the whole family would fall into some horrible imitation of shtetl simplicity, spinning the dreidel and pretending to care which character was uppermost when…

Read More Read More

Shavuah HaSefer: A Recommended Reading List III

Shavuah HaSefer: A Recommended Reading List III

Comments 34 comments

Book week just began in Eretz Yisroel. As I wrote in previous years, in Israel, around Shavous time (some times right before some times right after), there is a period of about ten days called Shavuah Hasefer-book week. Shavuah HaSefer is a sale which takes place all across the country in stores, malls and special venues rented out for the sale. There are places where strictly “frum” seforim are sold and other places have most of the secular publishing houses….

Read More Read More

Yom Kippur Reading

Yom Kippur Reading

Comments 1 comment

First, we have Eliezer’s post discussing Teffilah Zakah, then we have his review of R. Yedidyah Weil’s Levushi Badim and its implications for Yom Kippur, Prof. Frimmer’s discussion about Sperber’s use of various leincies on Yom Kippur and whether they have broader application, Marc Shapiro’s discussion about the R. Soloveitchik Machzor (its towards the end of the post), a discussion about candles on Yom Kippur, the censorship of the statement that the Besamim Rosh is worthy of being burnt even…

Read More Read More

Some Rosh ha-Shana Readings

Some Rosh ha-Shana Readings

Comments 0 Comment

For those interested in posts relating to Rosh ha-Shana, aside from the most recent post regarding gifting knives, we discuss some of the history and personalities relating to the controversy of blowing the shofar when Rosh ha-Shana falls on Saturday here and see this recent article as well. This post (in Hebrew) discusses the custom of refraining from meat on Rosh ha-Shana. The bulk of the commonly recited piyutim on Rosh ha-Shana are attributed to R. Eliezer ha-Kallir who is…

Read More Read More

A Preliminary Bibliography of Recent Works on Birkat ha-Chamah

A Preliminary Bibliography of Recent Works on Birkat ha-Chamah

Comments 0 Comment

& Ish Sefer There are many works and articles on this topic and, as such, this is merely a preliminary attempt to deal with this burgeoning area of Jewish literature. [See also here]. For a great bibliographic note on the development of Seder Birkat ha-Chamah, including publications relating to birkat ha-chamah, see R. J. D. Bleich, Birkat ha-Chamah, pp.128-133. JNUL has put up a many of the editions of relating to subject here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here,…

Read More Read More

Initial Bibliography of Important Haggadah Literature

Initial Bibliography of Important Haggadah Literature

Comments 1 comment

All are aware of the proliferation of Haggadahs. Every year more and more are published thus making it difficult to know which versions are worthwhile. Thus, in this post I intend to focus on a listing a small bibliographical list of seforim relating to the Haggadah that are, in my mind, some of the most important ones. In light of the fact I am going to select a few Haggadahs from the many, a caveat of sorts is in order….

Read More Read More

Bibliography of Articles and Books on Nitel

Bibliography of Articles and Books on Nitel

Comments 1 comment

There are three books devoted to the topic of Nitel. Mordechai Menachem Goren, Hefaru Torasecha, Ma’amar Makif miMinhag Avosanu b’Yadanu Odos Lil haAfel Nitel Nacht UMinhag Yisrael l’Vatel meEsek haTorah, ,52, pages, 2004. This first contains a two page introduction and the next 52 pages discuss the custom, its sources, and the various opinions. The final 10 pages are some sources that are quoted in full. [Mordechai Menachem Goren], Hefaru Torasecha, (helek bet, b’inyanei haTekufa) . . . u’Migilas Nitel,…

Read More Read More

Two Links of Note

Two Links of Note

Comments 16 comments

First, just about the entire volume in memory of Dov Rappel is available for free online here. This includes articles by, inter alia, Moshe Halmish, Yosef Tabory, and Stefan Rief. Second, there is a new site which is attempting to compile a complete bibliography of books related to Jewish genealogy here. The site is run by a collector of Jewish genealogy books and hopefully he will be able to satisfy his goal.

Bibliography of English Translations of Medieval and Modern Rabbinic Bible Commentaries

Bibliography of English Translations of Medieval and Modern Rabbinic Bible Commentaries

Comments 21 comments

* Commentaries are arranged in chronological order, and then by book. For space and simplicity sake, works are identified only by their author’s and translator’s names or publishers; for further bibliographical information, copy and paste the call numbers into the JTS online catalog under “Search: Call Number begins with…” Items not (yet?) found in the JTS Library do not have call numbers associated with them and contain instead only basic bibliographic information. Only significantly lengthy (more than a chapter or…

Read More Read More

Listing of New Seforim

Listing of New Seforim

Comments 13 comments

What follows is a list of new seforim I have recently purchased; for prior lists see the “New Books Lists” on the sidebar. 1. Indices To The Emden-Eybeschuetz Controversy Literature by Gershom G. Scholem. As the title implies, this is an index, divided by person, book, and geographic place. Additional, many of the abbreviations used (R. Emden constantly uses abbreviations, many obscure) are explained. This index was culled from Scholem’s index cards where he kept these records. The editors have…

Read More Read More

New Book Lists

New Book Lists

Comments 0 Comment

There are two new list of out-of-print seforim available. The first, is via email, you can request the list from sba-at-sba2.com. The second is mainly a list of German imprints (it includes a couple of books Solomon Schechter owned) and can be viewed here. Additionally, Kestenbaum recently had their latest auction, unfortunately their catalog is no longer available online, but if you previously downloaded the catalog you can see the price results here.