Eliyahu Bachur in Isny

Eliyahu Bachur in Isny

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ELIYAHU BACHUR (1469 – 1549) IN ISNY  by: Dan Yardeni Dan Yardeni, an engineer by profession (Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, 1963), is entrepreneur specializing in cutting edge materials and materials production processes. As sideline,  he researches problems in the history of Hebrew books printing and printers. He also contributes articles to the Culture and Literature sections of Haaretz and other Israeli newspapers. This is his first post at the Seforim blog. A little street in Tel Aviv commemorates…

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Review of Shaul Stampfer, Families, Rabbis & Education

Review of Shaul Stampfer, Families, Rabbis & Education

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Review of Shaul Stampfer, Families, Rabbis and Education: Traditional Jewish Society in Nineteenth-Century Eastern Europe by Marc B. Shapiro The continuation of my last post will be ready soon, but in the meantime I am posting my short review of Shaul Stampfer’s new book. It appeared on the H-Judaic listserv, but since most readers of Seforim Blog probably did not see it, I am posting it here as well. For many years, Shaul Stampfer has been recognized as an authority in…

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Chanukah Posts & Dreidel

Chanukah Posts & Dreidel

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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…

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אדם דואג על אבוד דמיו / ואינו דואג על אִבוד ימיו

אדם דואג על אבוד דמיו / ואינו דואג על אִבוד ימיו

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In the prior post, Yitzhak discussed a phrase and its origins. We now present, a chapter from R. S. Askenazi unpublished works, related to the same topic. As mentioned before we are working on printing his writings. At this point three volumes are completely ready to print (with a few more on the way). While they still require financial assistance to see the light of day we are very close, only 5K is necessary. With the help of many people,…

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“Whence Worry?” – On the Murky Trail Of An Aphorism

“Whence Worry?” – On the Murky Trail Of An Aphorism

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by Yitzhak, of בין דין לדין [I am greatly indebted to Wolf2191 and Mississippi Fred MacDowell for reading an earlier draft of this essay and for providing numerous valuable references.] This past Rosh Ha’Shanah, my friend A.F. showed me a collection of various homilies of the Rav related to the days of Awe, “prepared, translated and edited by B. David Schreiber”. While browsing through them, I noticed the following passage: Every Jew must also ensure the continuity of future generations…

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A Picture is Worth a Thousand Questions

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Questions

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          A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND QUESTIONS By Eli Genauer Authors note: I would like to thank Dr. Peggy Pearlstein and Sharon Horowitz of the Library of Congress for their help in allowing me to assemble the various printed editions of the Talmud that I used in this article Amongst all the difficult tractates of the Talmud, Eruvin stands head and shoulders above most. The Gemara tries to describe in words what would normally take a picture to…

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