Book Review: Yosie Levine, Hakham Tsevi Ashkenazi and the Battlegrounds of the Early Modern Rabbinate

Book Review: Yosie Levine, Hakham Tsevi Ashkenazi and the Battlegrounds of the Early Modern Rabbinate

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Yosie Levine has tackled the enigmatic figure of Hakham Tsevi Ashkenazi (1658-1718), a man whose title alone beggars the imagination. At first blush, the terms “Hakham” and “Ashkenazi” present an oxymoron. The term “Hakham” is generally reserved for Sephardic sages. (An outlier would be Hakham Isaac Bernays of Hamburg [1792-1849], but that is a discussion for another paper.) Hakham Tsevi went so far as to add to his signature the letters samekh teth, in typical Sephardic fashion. (Levine grapples with…

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Were the Ba’alei Tosafos Familiar with Aesop or Buddhism?

Were the Ba’alei Tosafos Familiar with Aesop or Buddhism?

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I – The European Cheder Rebbi and the Ba’alei Tosafos While completing my Kollel studies in the early 2000’s, I took part in a well-run teacher’s training program. During one session, a noted Jewish educator shared the following first-hand experience: In speaking with an old-school European cheder rebbi years earlier, he asked that rebbi how he shared positive reinforcement with his young charges. The rebbi was confused by the question, so our instructor re-phrased it. This time, he asked the…

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Review of Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits, Jewish Women in Time and Torah

Review of Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits, Jewish Women in Time and Torah

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Ross Singer received rabbinic ordination from Professor Rabbi David Weiss Halivni, Rabbi Shear Yashuv Cohen, and Rabbi David Bigman. He has an MA in Talmud and Rabbinics from the Jewish Theological Seminary and is a graduate of the Mandel Jerusalem Fellows. He has published articles in The Edah Journal, The JOFA Journal, Amudim, Lehrhaus, The Jerusalem Post, and The Times of Israel. He is the translator of Gideon Katz’s In Silence and Out Loud: Yeshayahu Leibowitz in Israeli Context. Ross…

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Purim in Tehran: The Symbolic Devaluation of the Ahrimanic Republic

Purim in Tehran: The Symbolic Devaluation of the Ahrimanic Republic

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Dan (or, Dan D.Y.) Shapira is an Orientalist and grows more than fifty trees on the edge of the Judaean Desert. He’s a Full Professor at Bar-Ilan University. Some fifty years ago, my father brought home a small glass bottle of Iranian Coca Cola, no idea where from. I sat hypnotized looking at the bottle, with its Persian (well Arabic) letters, so beautiful. It was easy to understand that two letters stand for k, one for l, one for o…

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“I Do Not Understand a Single Word of What I Wrote in My Book”: Rav Kook, Saul Lieberman, and a Literary Mishlo’aḥ Manot Exchange

“I Do Not Understand a Single Word of What I Wrote in My Book”: Rav Kook, Saul Lieberman, and a Literary Mishlo’aḥ Manot Exchange

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The festival of Purim, with its customs and traditions, has long constituted a broad and fertile field for a vast body of research, folklore, and ritual practice associated with the “Jewish carnival.” The drinking of wine, the wearing of costumes (which have no foundation in early sources and, in the view of many scholars, were influenced by the Venetian carnival), the use of noisemakers for the purpose of “blotting out Amalek,” and the practice of mishlo’aḥ manot have all added…

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Ba-Yamim ha-Hem Ba-Zeman ha-Zeh: Were Jews Involved in Iran’s First Political Upheaval?

Ba-Yamim ha-Hem Ba-Zeman ha-Zeh: Were Jews Involved in Iran’s First Political Upheaval?

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The Persian Empire was founded via the conquests of Cyrus II following his rise to the Anshan throne in 559 BCE. Cyrus, celebrated in the Hebrew Bible as the liberator whose decree permitted the Return to Zion, was succeeded by his son Cambyses, who is not mentioned in the Bible. Cambyses was followed for a brief period by his brother [or someone claiming to be] Bardiya (known in Greek sources as Smerdis or Tanyoxarces), until Darius I overthrew him. The…

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S.Y. Agnon’s Forgotten Purim Parody

S.Y. Agnon’s Forgotten Purim Parody

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“Those Who Err All Their Days, and One Man Who Erred Not At All”—A Tale in Honor of Purim They were both mistaken in a matter of halakhah. Such is the way of the world: shrewd men commonly have ugly wives, while the wives of fools are fair. When the husband looked at his wife and saw how repulsive a creature she was—how ugly her countenance, how displeasing her face—he said in his heart: this proves that there is no…

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Beyond the Masthead of the Beys Yaakov Journal, 1923-1980 – Part 2: ‘Abomination’ or Scandal? Mistranslation, Journalism, and the Halivni Controversy

Beyond the Masthead of the Beys Yaakov Journal, 1923-1980 – Part 2: ‘Abomination’ or Scandal? Mistranslation, Journalism, and the Halivni Controversy

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In Part 1 of this study, it was argued that the Beys Yaakov Journal cannot be understood simply as an ideological mouthpiece of Agudath Israel, nor as an instrument of Orthodox withdrawal. Across decades, its editors repeatedly confronted intellectual challenges in public, publishing voices and materials that lay beyond the formal boundaries of Agudah authority and resisting the impulse toward protective silence. That does not mean it adopted liberal positions; rather, its conclusions fit squarely within the traditions of Ultra-Orthodox…

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Disenchantment with Zionism? Leon Roth and Yeshayahu Leibowitz on the Qibyā Raid

Disenchantment with Zionism? Leon Roth and Yeshayahu Leibowitz on the Qibyā Raid

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The infamous Qibyā reprisal raid (peʿulat tagmul), led by Major Ariel Sharon, later to become Israel’s Prime Minister, was the first military operation for which the young State of Israel was severely condemned by the UN, major nations, and the world Jewish community. It was carried out on the night of October 14, 1953, in response to many terror attacks by Arab fidāʾiyūn who had infiltrated Israel from Jordan, from the vicinity of the village of Qibyā. In particular, the…

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Do you recall Hrubieszow? Hrubieszow, Home to an Active Early Nineteenth Century Hebrew Press

Do you recall Hrubieszow? Hrubieszow, Home to an Active Early Nineteenth Century Hebrew Press

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A barely remembered Hebrew press, one credited with as many as forty books, although that number is uncertain, was active in Hrubieszow (Hrubyesho), Lublin district, in southeastern, Poland from 1816 to1821 and then intermittently until 1827. The variance in the number of titles printed may be attributed to the manner in which books are recorded, some titles being a composite of three works. In some instances, the town or the printers’ names are omitted from the title-page due to censorship…

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A Footnote on What the Chasam Sofer Did Not Say

A Footnote on What the Chasam Sofer Did Not Say

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The Problem. I’m the proud owner of a copy of Rabbi Shimon Finkelman’s Rav Pam: The Life and Ideals of Rabbi Avrohom Yaakov HaKohen Pam (second edition, seventh impression, June 2023, ArtScroll History Series, Mesorah Publications, Rahway, N.J.). It is a magnificently written and produced biography of Rav Pam, a close friend of my father, who like Rav Pam was a disciple of both Rav Shraga Feivel Mendlowitz and Rav Dovid Leibowitz. The biography captures Rav Pam as our family…

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Lecture at Young Israel Beth El of Borough Park featuring Rabbi Dr. Eliezer Brodt

Lecture at Young Israel Beth El of Borough Park featuring Rabbi Dr. Eliezer Brodt

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The event details are: Topic: “The Vilna Gaon in Fact and Fiction: Kol HaTor and Beyond.” Date: Wednesday, February 4. Time: 8:00 PM (doors open at 7:30 PM). Location: Downstairs in the social hall, 4802 15th Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11219. Entry: Men use the front door; women use the rear door. Program: Lecture followed by Maariv. Contact: 718-435-9020 | yibethel.org. (sign up for future events)

Saul Lieberman and his Ketubah, Driving on Shabbat, an Unusual Marriage Practice, Girls born on Friday, and More

Saul Lieberman and his Ketubah, Driving on Shabbat, an Unusual Marriage Practice, Girls born on Friday, and More

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For a long time, I have had an interest in Saul Lieberman. It has been almost twenty years since my book Saul Lieberman and the Orthodox appeared. I have also dealt with Lieberman in many Seforim Blog posts. A few years ago, I did a series of eighteen classes on Lieberman on Torah in Motion. You can watch the classes on Youtube here or listen to the podcasts here. A letter from Lieberman that has recently come into my hands…

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Tracing the “Footsteps of the Messiah”: From Li-Nevukhei ha-Dor to Maamrei ha-Rayah

Tracing the “Footsteps of the Messiah”: From Li-Nevukhei ha-Dor to Maamrei ha-Rayah

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Longtime readers of Seforim Blog probably remember the leak in 2010 of Rav Kook’s Li-Nevukhei ha-Dor (“For the Perplexed of the Generation”) onto the internet, and the publication of a censored version by Makhon ha-Rav Zvi Yehuda shortly thereafter. This was a previously unseen work of Rav Kook, written during his time as a communal rabbi in Boisk, Latvia, around 1903-1904. It contains a fairly clear and thorough philosophical presentation of a pre-aliyah Rav Kook attempting to respond to the…

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