An astute reader emailed me that it appears the new and improved edition of Making of a Godol has been banned. Although this edition attempted to “fix” some of the “problems” of the first, it appears that it has not satisfied it detractors. See here. I hope to get a copy of the letter referenced in the article, when I do I will post it.
While I don’t have the time to go through the entire Dei’ah veDibur article and demonstrate the extant of the copying, I will provide some of the more egreious examples. Here is a quote from the Dei’ah veDibur article (in italics) with the orginal Hebrew intersperced and my commnets in bold. One should remember that the original article was written in first person. The first manuscript that the Romm family obtained was Rabbenu Chananel’s commentary which now appears alongside the…
As per Menachem’s suggestion I have posted the pictures of the Widow Rom (Devorah) and Shafan HaSofer. These appear in Yahadut Lita, 1960, p. 296.
Although we have alluded to the fact that Haredim “borrow” from others without attribution, I have come across a particularly egregious example. Here, is an article discussing the Romm Press and what became known as the Vilna Shas. Although the byline states that it was written “by Yated Ne’eman Staff” this is a wholesale reproduction of R. Shmuel Feigenshon’s article on this topic. Shmuel Feigenshon (Shafan HaSofer) was the editor of the Rom press for many years. He wrote a…
As I noted previously, the Haredi mouthpiece Dei’ah veDibur had a rather insightful piece on the falicy of the Golem of Prauge. However, although the article ended with the hope that after bringing this fabrication to the readers attention people will only tell true stories. Shnayer Leiman, however, notes that the story itself in Dei’ah veDibur contains a rather glaring inaccuracy. The March 1, 2006 issue of _Dei’ah Ve-Dibur_ — a haredi journal — includes an essay entitled: “The Golem…
Although the Megilah only lists mishloch monot, matnot l’evyonim, and reading the Megilah as the customs on Purim, many others have become accepted. Most are of the ilk of boofunery or merrymaking. From making noise to drinking in excess, all have become part of the Purim landscape. With these, however, there are some lesser known customs. What is perhaps of interest is that it seems that there are those authorities that permit much if not all of these types of…
As some have mention in the comments to my previous post, the story of the Mahral and the Golem although many take it as true, it is not. Popularized by Rabbi Yudel Rosenberg, the work is a work of fiction, something even noted in a bibliography published of Rabbi Rosenberg’s works. Some of the people who discuss this are Ira Robinson, “Literary Forgery and Hasidic Judaism: the Case of Rabbi Yudel Rosenberg,” Judaism 40 (1991), pp. 61-78), Shnayer Z. Leiman,…
The newest version of the Talmud mss CD (the “Lieberman CD” or the “Sol and Evelyn Henkind Talmud Text Databank”), is now available. The newest version, using the Bar Ilan Responsa interface, includes transcriptions of all known mss of Talmud, including Cairo Genizah fragments at JTS, Cambridge and Oxford as well as scans of various mss (NOT those available via JNUL) of Talmud and Mishnah. It normally sells for $750 but if five (5) individuals get together they can each…
Gil has a nice post on the latest mythmaking regarding the Hazon Ish. Along those same lines, there is a farily well known story that goes something like this: An Orthodox person is sitting in the Jewish National Library and gets hungry. He takes out his lunch and then benches however, he does so in an audible tone. In his recitation he says the words שלא נכשל לעולם ועד. The librarian who is not Orthodox comes over to complain about…
A new sefer came out titled Ohron shel Chachomim. This work purports to collect the various laws and philosophy one should have for the Rabbis. The first section is just the basic law applicable to a talmid chacham, standing, not addressing by first name etc. In this section there is also a brief discussion about the “laws” of emunat chachmim. We are treated however to such laws as “not only is one obligated to follow the chachamim but also their…
There are those who claim the custom to celebrate Tu-beshevat as a holiday is based upon the book Hemdat Yamim. This book, according to many, was either written by Nathan of Gaza (Shabbati Zvi’s “prophet”) or one of follower of Shabbati Zvi. (This is contrary to the assertion in the Philogos that Nathan is not author, a contention which has little to no source). In Ha’aretz, an article appeared with this contention, namely the source for the Tu-beshevat custom is…
There is a new sefer which offers a translation of Onkelos published by Gefen books. Onkelos, which is considered the authoritative translation of the Torah has, unfortunatly, suffered from the difficulty people have in reading it. Instead, most English speakers rely upon other translation, some which do not follow Onkelos. This has now been remidied by this new book “Onkelos on the Torah: Understanding the Bible Text” by Israel Drazin and Stanley Wagner. The book is very user friendly. It…
Mary Roach in her excellent book “Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers” discusses some of the facinating facts relating to dead bodies. However, she does not discuss some of the more interesting Jewish incidents of dead bodies. The first is the fairly well known story of R. Yehuda Aszod (1794-1866). R. Aszod’s grandson wrote a biography of his grandfather. Portions of this biography are included in R. Aszod’s commentary on the Torah, Divre Mahri. “My grandfather never allowed for…