A Behind The Scenes Look at Two New Editions: Part Oneby Rabbi Eliezer Brodt A few weeks ago, while perusing through the new Seforim at the Girsa Seforim store in Jerusalem, I noticed a new מנחת פתים from ר’ מאיר אריק. At first I thought it was another plain old reprint of the original one. But a few friends tipped me off to it being much more than a reprint. So off I went to purchase the seforim. This is…
As a followup to a previous post, here is an excerpt from the obituary for R. Yosef Tzvi Dunner, zt”l, that appeared in Dei’ah veDibur: At the age of 19 he wanted to leave home to study in one of the illustrious yeshivas of Lithuania, but his father felt that given the dearth of rabbonim in Germany communities, before going to yeshiva he should study at a place that provides rabbinical training (smichus). He sent the young man to Beis…
In previous posts at the Seforim blog, we have attempted to highlight some of the more recently printed books, which are fairly easy to come by. However, I thought it worthwhile to mention some slightly older books, which are generally more difficult to obtain and where they can be obtained. I will highlight the contents of one store — Moznaim (718-438-7680) — in Boro Park. First, for literature of the Geonim, they have the Teshuvot HaGeonim. In this set, the…
A Lively History of Reprinting Rabbeinu YeruchemRabbi Eliezer Brodt In recent years, a host of critical editions of works on various rishonim have been published on all topics – some seeing the light of day for the very first time – on topics related to halakha, kabbalah, and chiddushim on the Talmud. These works have been made available via the major printing presses such as Mossad HaRav Kook, Machon Yerushalyim, Machon Talmud Yisraeli, Machon Harry Fischel and others.[1] However, one…
Some have already pointed out that Columbia University Professor Michael Stanislawski has a new book/thriller.[1] This book describes the murder of R. Abraham Kohn and the events leading up to it and its aftermath. Prof. Stanislawski attempts to discern whether, in fact, R. Kohn was murdered — Stanislawski thinks so — and in doing so, provides a wonderful description of Lvov (Lemberg) during the mid-nineteenth century. The basic background is that R. Kohn was a Reform Rabbi who became the…
Mossad HaRav Kook has just published the eighth and final volume of Rabbi Prof. Daniel Sperber‘s Minhagei Yisrael. This final volume includes a complete and comprehensive index of all eight volumes volumes of Minhagei Yisrael. For this reason alone this volume is worthwhile, as anyone who has used the prior volumes knows, at times topics are spread over multiple volumes, sometimes in footnotes, which makes it difficult to locate particular topics. The first index is comprised of multiple indices; Mishna,…