The Seforim Blog – Page 154 – All about Seforim – New and Old, and Jewish Bibliography

“Derashot Shel Maran: A Little Studied Aspect of Maran Ovadiah Yosef’s Weltanschauung” at the Michtavim blog

January 25, 2008 admin Comments 0 Comment

In a recent post at the Michtavim blog entitled “Derashot Shel Maran: A Little Studied Aspect of Maran Ovadiah Yosef’s Weltanschauung,” I discuss a shift within the research and writings of Dr. Kimmy Caplan from the area of sermons of historical American rabbis to the contemporary haredi community and contemporary Orthodox historiography (the latter which will be the subject of an upcoming post at the Michtavim blog). I believe that his varied areas of research have reunited in his recent…

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Pini Dunner — Mercaz Agudat Ha-Rabbanim Be-Lita, Kovno, 1931

January 21, 2008 admin Comments 18 comments

Pini Dunner B.A (Hons), formerly rabbi of London’s Saatchi Synagogue, is an avid collector of polemical and controversial Hebraica, with a very large, diverse private collection of such material. Many items in his collection are unknown and unrecorded, and relate to long forgotten, obscure controversies. This is his first post at the Seforim blog in a series about rare polemical pieces from his personal collection. Mercaz Agudat Ha-Rabbanim Be-Lita, Kovno, 1931 Pini Dunner(London, England) In the mid-1920s the rabbi and…

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About Rabbi Avraham Korman

January 20, 2008 admin Comments 0 Comment

In his recent post at the Seforim blog, Prof. Marc B. Shapiro mentioned Rabbi Avraham Korman [at note 33] and as some readers have requested additional information on the latter, please see below:

Marc B. Shapiro – Clarifications of Previous Posts

January 16, 2008 admin Comments 59 comments

Clarifications of Previous Posts by Marc B. Shapiro [The footnote numbers reflects the fact this is a continuation of this earlier post.] 1. I was asked to expand a bit on how I know that R. Barukh Epstein’s story with Rayna Batya is contrived. In this story we see her great love of Torah study and her difficulty in accepting a woman’s role in Judaism. Certainly, she must have been a very special woman, and I assume that she was,…

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Leket Yosher – A Closer Appraisal in Light of a Recent Controversy

January 14, 2008 admin Comments 21 comments

In a recent discussion in the journal Or Yisrael concerning the permissibility of using ArtScroll gemaras — for PDFs of the articles, see here — one source deserves closer scrutiny. In particular, some authorities who are against the use of ArtScroll gemaras cite to a passage in the Leket Yosher in support of their opinion. Thus, an examination of the Leket Yosher is appropriate. The Leket Yosher was compiled by R. Yosef ben Moshe (1423-c.1490), a student of R. Israel…

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Marc B. Shapiro – Forgery and the Halakhic Process, part 3

January 11, 2008 admin Comments 13 comments

Forgery and the Halakhic Process, part 3 By Marc B. Shapiro I thought that I had exhausted all I had to say about Rabbi Zvi Benjamin Auerbach’s edition of the Eshkol — see my first two posts at the Seforim blog, here and here [and elaborations] — but thanks to some helpful comments from readers, there is some more material that should be brought to the public’s attention. Even before looking at this, let me express my gratitude to Dan…

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