Book week 2022 By Eliezer Brodt Book week just began in Eretz Yisrael. Continuing with my now fifteenth year tradition B”h, every year in Israel, around Shavuos time, there is a period of about ten days called Shavuah Hasefer – Book Week. Many of the companies offer sales for the whole month. Shavuah HaSefer is a sale which takes place all across the country in stores, malls and special places rented out just for the sales. There are places where…
Psalms 117:1-2: Why Are the Goyim Praising God?[1] By Mitchell First MFirstAtty@aol.com In Hallel, has only two verses: 1) Praise Hashem all goyim; Laud him all the umim. 2) For his ḥesed is great?[2] עלינו and the emet of Hashem is forever, Halleluyah. Why are the nations of the world to be praising God? Because his ḥesed is great on the Israelites? Does this make sense? I first read about this interpretive issue in Rabbi Hayyim Angel’s excellent article…
How Jews of Yesteryear Celebrated Graduation from Medical School: Congratulatory Poems for Jewish Medical Graduates in the 17th and 18th Centuries: An Unrecognized Genre Rabbi Edward Reichman, MD Edward Reichman, Professor of Emergency Medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, is the author of The Anatomy of Jewish Law: A Fresh Dissection of the Relationship Between Medicine, Medical History and Rabbinic Literature (Published by Koren Publishers/OU Press/YU Press, 2022), as well as the forthcoming, Pondering Pre-Modern(a) Pandemics in Jewish…
Guide and Review of Online Resources – 2022 – Part II By Ezra Brand Ezra Brand is an independent researcher based in Tel Aviv. He has an MA from Revel Graduate School at Yeshiva University in Medieval Jewish History, where he focused his research on 13th and 14th century sefirotic Kabbalah. He is interested in using digital and computational tools in historical research. He has contributed a number of times previously to the Seforim Blog (tag), and a selection of…
Legacy Judaica‘s Spring auction is on May 8, 2022. The catalog includes some especially rare first editions, Siddur ha-Shelah, (no. 119), Mesilat Yesharim (no. 45), a volume of the Bomberg edition of the Talmud (lot 10), and some other items of interest. Sefer Evronot, Offenbach, 1722, (lot no. 63) is an unusual Hebrew book because it includes paper cut-outs that are reattached to the book and form an interstellar calculator allowing precise determination of the calendar. Despite the celestial nature…
New seforim lists, Seforim sale, Highlights of the Mossad HaRav Kook Sale. By Eliezer Brodt This is a the second in a new series which I hope to post monthly. The post (and series) hopes to serve a few purposes. It has a list of about one hundred items. The first section lists some new interesting seforim and thereby making the Seforim Blog readership aware of their recent publication. Second, to make these works available for purchase for those interested….