Eretz Yisrael. As I have written in previous years every year in Israel, around Shavous time, there is a period of about ten days called Shavuah Hasefer – Book Week (see here, here here, here here and here). 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 strictly “frum” seforim are…
1. A few people have wanted me to comment on the recent debate between Rabbis Barry Freundel and Zev Farber about the so-called Partnership Minyanim in which women lead Kabbalat Shabbat. See here. The issue goes back to R. Freundel’s article in Tradition 44:2 (2011) on the topic. I was planning to respond to this article when it first appeared, and even wrote some pages, but I never completed the piece. Since the issue has once again surfaced, now is…
’s new book, Further Studies in the Making of the Early Hebrew Book (Leiden, 2013), the Seforim Blog is happy to present this abridgment of chapter 13. Deciphering the Talmud: The First English Edition of the Talmud Revisited. Michael Levi Rodkinson: His Translation of the Talmud, and the Ensuing Controversy Marvin J. Heller The Talmud, the quintessential Jewish book, is a challenging work. A source of Bible interpretation, halakhah, ethical values, and ontology, often described as a sea, it is…
Recent years have seen a breakthrough regarding the elusive identity of “Monsieur Chouchani,” the mysterious vagabond who in the capacity of mentor, exerted such an incredibly profound effect upon the Nobel-laureate novelist Elie Wiesel as well as the philosopher Emmanuel Levinas in the post-war, post-Holocaust years in France. I am referring to the identification of Chouchani as none other than Hillel Pearlman, an early student of Rav Kook in his short-lived Jaffa Yeshivah. Pivotal to the identification (which we shall…
One of the greatest and most unique Torah scholars, Sephardic or otherwise, of the past 100 years was R. Shlomo Eliezer Alfandari . His life spanned about a century and his prolific rabbinic career included stints in Istanbul, Damascus, Safed and Jerusalem. Besides for being an outstanding scholar with a near-photographic memory he was also extremely diligent and was a prodigious writer of responsa and novellae. Additionally, he was renowned as an independent thinker and outspoken critic of many of…
The readership of the Seforim Blog is invited to a shiur that will be taking place Thursday night [8 Iyaar; 18th April] at 9PM. The shiur will be given by the noted author Rav Yechiel Goldhaber of Eretz Yisroel [link]. He has authored many wonderful articles and works on a wide range of topics most notably Minhagei Kehilos about customs, and Kunditon (link) about the Titanic, and the Cherem on Spain. The subject of the Shiur is The influence of…
Rabbi Israel ben Shabtai Hapstein, the Maggid of Kozienice (or more commonly, the “Kozhnitser Maggid”) (d. 1814) was a major figure in the third generation of East-European Hasidism founded by Rabbi Israel Ba’al Shem Tov, and specifically, a towering luminary within Polish Hasidism. Like his contemporary Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liozhno (and later Liadi), Rabbi Israel studied under Rabbi Dov Baer, the Maggid of Mezritch (who led the Hasidic movement after the death of the founder, Ba’al Shem Tov). Unlike…
Dan Rabinowitz has provided us which a characteristically learned pre-Passover post on the Prague 1526 Haggadah, specifically concerning the illustrations on its borders, and from those borders continues on to the always contentious subject of breasts, a bare set (or rather, two bare sets) of which he claims may be found on the title page of that edition. Indeed, on both the right and left borders of the title page may be found rather curious figures with non-human faces but…
In this post I would like to deal with tracing the early sources for the Kos Shel Eliyahu. A version of this article was printed last year in Ami Magazine (# 65). This post contains a few corrections and additions to that version. A much more expanded version of this article will appear in Hebrew shortly (IY”H). One of the memorable parts of the seder night is during Shefoch Chamascha when we open the door for Eliyahu Hanavi to come…
The Prague 1526 edition of the Haggadah is one of the most important illustrated haggadot ever published. It is perhaps the earliest printed illustrated haggadah for a Jewish audience and served as a model for many subsequent illustrated haggadot. The earliest printed haggadah with illustration was published in 1512 in Latin and for a non-Jewish audience. That haggadah contains six woodcuts, and was intended as a response to the infamous anti-Semite Pfefferkorn’s screeds against Judaism. The woodcut accompanying the first…
1. Some people have requested that I do more posts on theological matters, as I have done in the past. So let me begin with what I think will be a three-part series on Torah mi-Sinai. In a previous post, available here, I mentioned R. Shlomo Fisher’s rejection of R. Moshe Feinstein’s view that R. Yehudah he-Hasid’s “biblical criticism” was not authentic. As R. Fisher put it, R. Moshe assumed that even in the past everyone had to accept Maimonides’…
It is with great pleasure that I announce two seforim I have just printed: כוסו של אליהו הנביא, נפתולי מנהג בהתרקמותו, ר’ יהודה אבידע זצ”ל, נדפס לראשונה בירושלים תשי”ח, ועתה יצא לאור במהדורת צילום עם הוספות שונות ומפתח ותיקונים שנמצאו בגנזי המחבר ע”י אליעזר יהודה בראדט, כריכה רכה, 84 עמודים. קונדיטון, מזיגה ראשונה, ר’ יחיאל גולדהבר, לשאלת חרם על ספרד משפטיך תהום רבה אסון: הטיטאניק מנקודת מבטו של העולם היהודי, כריכה קשה, 204 עמודים. Twelve years ago I began researching…
In honor of Purim, I’d like to discuss a few aspects of humor in the Talmud . But first, a short overview of topic of Jewish humor in general. A lot has been written about Jewish humor . A very good overview of Jewish humor, in general, is that of Avner Ziv in the second edition of Encyclopedia Judaica, under the entry “Humor” . However, most of the piece is about Jewish humor from the eighteenth century and on, with…
This article is a summary of a longer article which will appear in his forthcoming book Esther Unmasked: Solving Eleven Mysteries of the Jewish Holidays and Liturgy (Kodesh Press), pp. 129-167. In this article, we will explain how scholars were finally able to identify Achashverosh in secular sources. We will also show that Esther can be identified in secular sources as well. Finally, we will utilize these sources to shed light on the story of the Megillah.Before we get to…