The Seforim Blog – Page 104 – All about Seforim – New and Old, and Jewish Bibliography

Announcement: Special shiur by Rabbi Yechiel Goldhaber

April 16, 2013 admin Comments 0 Comment

The readership of the Seforim Blog is invited to a shiur that will be taking place Thursday night [8 Iyaar; 18th April] at 9PM. The shiur will be given by the noted author Rav Yechiel Goldhaber of Eretz Yisroel [link]. He has authored many wonderful articles and works on a wide range of topics most notably Minhagei Kehilos about customs, and Kunditon (link) about the Titanic, and the Cherem on Spain. The subject of the Shiur is The influence of…

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Israel ben Shabtai [Hapstein]. ‘Avodat Yisrael – Book review by Bezalel Naor

April 9, 2013 admin Comments 13 comments

Israel ben Shabtai [Hapstein]. ‘Avodat Yisrael (B’nei Berak: Pe’er mi-Kedoshim, 5773 / 2013). 66, 738 pages. Reviewed by Bezalel Naor Rabbi Israel ben Shabtai Hapstein, the Maggid of Kozienice (or more commonly, the “Kozhnitser Maggid”) (d. 1814) was a major figure in the third generation of East-European Hasidism founded by Rabbi Israel Ba’al Shem Tov, and specifically, a towering luminary within Polish Hasidism. Like his contemporary Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liozhno (and later Liadi), Rabbi Israel studied under Rabbi Dov…

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Borders, Breasts, and Bibliography

March 22, 2013 admin Comments 70 comments

Borders, Breasts, and Bibliography By Elliott Horowitz Dan Rabinowitz has provided us which a characteristically learned pre-Passover post on the Prague 1526 Haggadah, specifically concerning the illustrations on its borders, and from those borders continues on to the always contentious subject of breasts, a bare set (or rather, two bare sets) of which he claims may be found on the title page of that edition. Indeed, on both the right and left borders of the title page may be found…

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The Cup for the Visitor: What lies behind the Kos Shel Eliyahu?

March 18, 2013 admin Comments 28 comments

The Cup for the Visitor: What lies behind the Kos Shel Eliyahu? By: Eliezer Brodt In this post I would like to deal with tracing the early sources for the Kos Shel Eliyahu. A version of this article was printed last year in Ami Magazine (# 65). This post contains a few corrections and additions to that version. A much more expanded version of this article will appear in Hebrew shortly (IY”H). One of the memorable parts of the…

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A Few Comments Regarding The First Woodcut Border Accompanying The Prague 1526 Haggadah

March 15, 2013 admin Comments 3 comments

A Few Comments Regarding The First Woodcut Border Accompanying The Prague 1526 Haggadah The Prague 1526 edition of the Haggadah is one of the most important illustrated haggadot ever published. It is perhaps the earliest printed illustrated haggadah for a Jewish audience and served as a model for many subsequent illustrated haggadot.[1] The earliest printed haggadah with illustration was published in 1512 in Latin and for a non-Jewish audience. That haggadah contains six woodcuts, and was intended as a response…

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Torah mi-Sinai and More

March 11, 2013 admin Comments 8 comments

Torah mi-Sinai and More by Marc B. Shapiro 1. Some people have requested that I do more posts on theological matters, as I have done in the past. So let me begin with what I think will be a three-part series on Torah mi-Sinai. In a previous post, available here, I mentioned R. Shlomo Fisher’s rejection of R. Moshe Feinstein’s view that R. Yehudah he-Hasid’s “biblical criticism” was not authentic. As R. Fisher put it, R. Moshe assumed that even in the…

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