Kalir, False Accusations, and More

Kalir, False Accusations, and More

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Kalir, False Accusations, and More by Marc B. Shapiro 1. I now want to return to Kalir and the criticism of me. To recap, I had earlier mentioned how Artscroll originally correctly identified Kalir as post-tannaitic, but later changed what it wrote in order to be in line with Tosafot’s opinion that he was a tanna. Some think that it is wrong to criticize Artscroll by using academic methodology instead of judging them by traditional sources, since they don’t recognize…

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The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Some Remarks On Aristotle, Dante Alighieri, Immanuel of Rome, R. Moshe Botarel and Bertrand Russell

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Some Remarks On Aristotle, Dante Alighieri, Immanuel of Rome, R. Moshe Botarel and Bertrand Russell

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The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Some Remarks On Aristotle, Dante Alighieri, Immanuel of Rome, R. Moshe Botarel and Bertrand Russell by: Yitzhak, of בין דין לדין. For nearly a millennium, the name “Aristotle” has resonated within Jewish culture (as within European culture generally) in a way difficult for we moderns to fully grasp. Not merely a philosopher (or even the Philosopher, as he is often designated), he represented (accurately and justly, or otherwise) a weltanschauung, or even a cluster of them:…

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New Book Announcement

New Book Announcement

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New Book Announcement  By Eliezer Brodt   הציץ ונפגע, אנטומיה של מחלוקת חסידית, דוד אסף, ידיעות ספרים ואוניברסיטת חיפה, 541 עמודים.  Just released, from University of HaIfa and Yedioth Achronoth, Hazitz Unifgah (הציץ ונפגע), the much-anticipated work by Professor David Assaf on the Sanz Sadigura controversy (see here about this book, on Prof. Assaf’s extremely interesting blog). This controversy began in 1869 and continued for a while afterward. This is the first work to document at great length (541 pp.) all…

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Halakhah and Haggadah – Manuscript Illustrations and their Halakhic and Customary Significance

Halakhah and Haggadah – Manuscript Illustrations and their Halakhic and Customary Significance

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This post is part of a series of posts regarding illustrations adorning manuscript and print Haggadot. Our first post dealt with a new work on the topic and can be viewed here. In this post we will focus upon the some of the Halachik implications of these illustrations. In many Ashkenazic manuscripts, the Passover illustrations begin chronologically earlier than the Seder. Many begin with the preparation of the matzah. For example, in the Second Nuremberg Haggadah[1], (the manuscript is online…

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New seforim list with some random comments

New seforim list with some random comments

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New seforim list and some random comments By Eliezer Brodt This is a list of some of the recent seforim I have seen around during my seforim shopping. This is not an attempt to include everything or even close to that. I just like to list a wide variety of works. I note by some of these works that I can provide a table of contents if you request so, via emailing me at, Eliezerbrodt@gmail.com ספרים א. אוצר הגאונים מסכת…

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A review of Marc Michael Epstein’s The Medieval Haggadah, Narrative & Religious Imagination

A review of Marc Michael Epstein’s The Medieval Haggadah, Narrative & Religious Imagination

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Marc Michael Epstein, The Medieval Haggadah, Art, Narrative & Religious Imagination, Yale University Press, New Haven & London: 2011, 12, 324 pp. Most discussions regarding the Haggadah begin with the tired canard that the Haggadah is one of the most popular books in Jewish literature, if not the most popular, and has been treasured as such throughout the centuries. Over sixty years ago, Isaac Rivkin noted that as a matter of fact, only since the 19th century has the Haggadah…

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