The Seforim Blog

Legacy Judaica will be holding its latest auction on April 4th. The auction includes a few lots regarding agunot and comprehensive attempts to annul marriages.  In the early 20th century, especially in the aftermath of WWI, some tried to find global solutions to the massive agunah problem.  To those books offering solutions were those which disputed the validity of those solutions.  There is a lot of ten historic books on the controversies and a lot of letters from American rabbis. …

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A Short Note Regarding an Illustrated Title Page and A Possible Unicum   There are a series of books, Seder ha-haʻarakhah ve-haHanhagah, that record the tax law and taxes paid by the Mantuan community and were published in Mantua. [1] The taxes were calculated by communally elected assessment formulators.  The taxes were used to support the entire communal infrastructure, including the administration of communal organizations and funds for the poor.  As today, each person would provide an accounting of their…

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For a collection of posts on Purim see here.  These deal with topics as diverse as Jewish humor and parodies, a series on the the origins of hamantaschen (and here and here), banging at the mention of Haman’s name, piyutim for Purim, mishcholot manot, identifying the personalities of Megliat Ester in secular sources, how to approach the story of Ester with children by the late Elliot Horowitz, as well as a couple posts regarding his book on Jewish violence and…

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