Browsed by
Language: English

A Conversation with Professor Benjamin Brown on the Publication of ‘Hasidic Leadership in Israel: Past and Present, Spirit and Matter’

A Conversation with Professor Benjamin Brown on the Publication of ‘Hasidic Leadership in Israel: Past and Present, Spirit and Matter’

Comments 11 comments

This article presents an English translation of an insightful interview with Professor Benjamin Brown, conducted by Moshe Shochat for his blog, Sefarim ve-Kitvei Yad. Published online on July 26, 2025, and available here), the interview marks the occasion of Professor Brown’s newly published book, Hasidic Leadership in Israel: Past and Present, Spirit and Matter (Jerusalem: The Israel Democracy Institute and Magnes Press, 2025; Hebrew). This translation appears at the Seforim Blog with the kind permission of both Moshe Shochat and…

Read More Read More

Jewish Communal Workers, Preacher’s Kid Syndrome, and Sefer Shmuel

Jewish Communal Workers, Preacher’s Kid Syndrome, and Sefer Shmuel

Comments 5 comments

This article is dedicated to the memory of HaRav Gedalia Dov Schwartz, zt”l, – whose 5th Yahrtzeit was on Erev Chanukah, the 24th of Kislev 5786 (2025). Rav Schwartz was an overflowing spring of Halachic guidance, wisdom, and practical rabbinic advice. I will always feel indebted to Rav Schwartz for the numerous times he graciously shared his vast knowledge — as well as his compassionate heart — with me. ______________________ . . . וכל מי שעוסקים בצרכי צבור באמונה, הקדוש…

Read More Read More

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

Comments 10 comments

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…

Read More Read More

The Haftarot of the Sabbaths of Hanukkah and the Haftarah of the Sabbath of Rosh Ḥodesh Tevet

The Haftarot of the Sabbaths of Hanukkah and the Haftarah of the Sabbath of Rosh Ḥodesh Tevet

Comments 0 Comment

In the Babylonian Talmud (Megillah 31a) it is stated that the haftarah for the Sabbath of Hanukkah is from “the lamps of Zechariah,” and if Hanukkah coincides with two Sabbaths, the haftarah for the first Shabbat is from “the lamps of Zechariah” and the haftarah for the second Shabbat is from “the lamps of Solomon.” Rashi there explains that “the lamps of Zechariah” refers to the haftarah beginning: “Sing and rejoice” (Zechariah 2:14), and that “the lamps of Solomon” refers…

Read More Read More

Chanukah Controversies, Customs and Scholarship: A Roundup & Update

Chanukah Controversies, Customs and Scholarship: A Roundup & Update

Comments 3 comments

We are working on creating a better system to navigate past posts [please contact us at Seforimblog-at-gmail if you are interested in volunteering]. In the interim, here is a collection of Chanukah-related posts along with some new material: (As an aside, the Seforimblog’s internal style guide uses the Ashkenazic transliteration of the holiday name. Nonetheless, each author has the freedom to use whichever they prefer.) Controversies and Contested History Nearly every aspect of Chanukah has sparked debate. The holiday’s most…

Read More Read More

Slobodka

Slobodka

Comments 11 comments

Seforim Blog Editors: In 2016, Dr. Tikochinski published his work Lamdanut, Mussar, and Elitism (Mercaz Shazar, in Hebrew). Thanks to new translation tools, the process has become much easier. We will be posting a chapter of this work every week or two. As this is a work in progress, we appreciate your patience. Introduction: What, in its deepest sense, is the Slabodka doctrine of Gadlut ha-Adam—the greatness and nobility of the human being? How did this idea take root in…

Read More Read More

Of Clowns, Giants, Mules, and Centaurs: The Enigmatic Anah

Of Clowns, Giants, Mules, and Centaurs: The Enigmatic Anah

Comments 8 comments

Yecheskel Sklar, a student of Beth Medrash Govoha in Lakewood NJ, is the author of various essays and kuntreisim. His most recent work – an overview of a debate in Amsterdam between Rabbis Sasportas and Morteira about false witnesses – can be purchased on Amazon. The verse tells us that Anah is he (or she ) who found הימם in the desert while herding the donkeys of his father . What exactly are הימם? What exactly did Anah do regarding…

Read More Read More

KEDUSHAH, KEDOSHAH, OR B’K’DUSHAH in KEDUSHAH D’YESHIVAH?

KEDUSHAH, KEDOSHAH, OR B’K’DUSHAH in KEDUSHAH D’YESHIVAH?

Comments 10 comments

In his classic study of the content and evolution of Jewish prayer, Abraham Millgram (Jewish Worship, p. 134) asserts that “the most significant addition to the liturgy after its redaction at Yavneh was that of the Kedushah, a prayer in which the community of Israel together with the heavenly host proclaim God’s holiness.” Yavneh was the town in which rabbinic Judaism retrenched after the destruction of the Second Temple in the year 70 C.E. Millgram further contends that the Kedushah…

Read More Read More

Eliezer and Joseph ben Naphtali Hertz Treves: Hebrew Publishers, briefly, in the Mid-Sixteenth Century

Eliezer and Joseph ben Naphtali Hertz Treves: Hebrew Publishers, briefly, in the Mid-Sixteenth Century

Comments 3 comments

A Hebrew press was briefly active in Thiengen (Tiengen) in 1560. The publishers, from the distinguished rabbinic Treves family, were Eliezer and Joseph ben Naphtali Hertz Treves. The brothers only published six (possibly seven) books before being forced to close by a meeting of the leaders, both Protestant and Catholic, of the Swiss Confederation in June 1560, who feared that they were about to print the Talmud. The Treves family was noted for the many rabbinic scholars and communal leaders…

Read More Read More

Reading Over the Brisker Rav’s Shoulder

Reading Over the Brisker Rav’s Shoulder

Comments 30 comments

with a short postscript. Seforim Blog readers can get a 50% discount on a subscription to the Jewish Review of Books by using this link. Golden Ledgers by: Dan Rabinowitz To get to the Judaica Research Centre archives in the Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania, you have to navigate through a series of passageways, across dark, empty rooms, and step over high thresholds. As your eyes adjust to the light, you are welcomed by rows of metal shelves filled…

Read More Read More

Eli Genauer: The Evolution of a “רש״י ישן” as Presented by Artscroll Rashi Breishit 12:2 – “ואעשך לגוי גדול”

Eli Genauer: The Evolution of a “רש״י ישן” as Presented by Artscroll Rashi Breishit 12:2 – “ואעשך לגוי גדול”

Comments 4 comments

The term “רש״י ישן” in printed editions often appears after a comment recorded in parentheses. An example of this is Rashi in Breishit 12:2. Here is how it looks in the first edition of the Artscroll Stone Chumash printed in November 1993 Rashi’s comments are recorded as follows Comment #1 ואעשך לגוי גדול. לְפִי שֶׁהַדֶּרֶךְ גּוֹרֶמֶת לִשְׁלֹשָׁה דְבָרִים, מְמַעֶטֶת פְּרִיָּה וּרְבִיָּה וּמְמַעֶטֶת אֶת הַמָּמוֹן וּמְמַעֶטֶת אֶת הַשֵּׁם, לְכָךְ הֻזְקַק לִשְׁלֹשָׁה בְּרָכוֹת הַלָּלוּ, שֶׁהִבְטִיחוֹ עַל הַבָּנִים וְעַל הַמָּמוֹן וְעַל הַשֵּׁם: Comment…

Read More Read More

Depicting Difference: The Tower of Babel and the Language of Sacred Art

Depicting Difference: The Tower of Babel and the Language of Sacred Art

Comments 1 comment

“For form is only the manifestation, the shape of content.” Ben Shahn, The Shape of Content, p. 72 Genesis chapter 11 presents the narrative of the Tower of Babel, detailing how, contrary to the divine directive to disperse and populate the earth, the descendants of the flood’s survivors congregated in a single city and commenced construction of a substantial tower. God intervened to prevent further cooperation among them by disrupting their shared language, thereby introducing linguistic diversity, which ultimately ceased…

Read More Read More

Reflections & Two Hespedim: R’ Eliyahu Greensweig & R’ Dovid Kamenetsky

Reflections & Two Hespedim: R’ Eliyahu Greensweig & R’ Dovid Kamenetsky

Comments 2 comments

A few months ago, I launched my new podcast, Musings of a Book Collector, a deep dive into the world of rare and fascinating Jewish books (information can be found here). Some episodes are available to enjoy for free (here and here), while exclusive content is reserved for subscribers. You can also purchase individual episodes here. Any form of Sponsorship is helpful and appreciated (here). Over the past month, the seforim world has lost several remarkable figures, true seforim people….

Read More Read More