Tracing the History of Shavuos Night Learning

Tracing the History of Shavuos Night Learning

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Tracing the History of Shavuos Night Learning By Eliezer Brodt This article will trace some of the earliest sources for the Minhag observed by many to stay up learning Torah throughout the entire night of Shavuos.[1] At the outset I would like to note that the focus of this article will be not be about the exact seder that was learned i.e. Tikun Lel Shavuos.[2] Different versions of this article originally appeared in the Kulmos Supplement of Mishpacha in 2014 and then in English in…

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Augsburg and its Printers

Augsburg and its Printers

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Augsburg and its Printers: Printer of the Tur in Ashkenaz: Fragments Censored at the Beinecke’s Augsburg Mahzor By Chaim Meiselman Chaim Meiselman catalogs rare books for the Joseph Meyerhoff Collection, originally at Baltimore Hebrew Institute, now at Towson University. He is a bibliophile and intermittently a book dealer. This is his first contribution to the Seforim Blog. Last summer, I was at Yale University for a conference. Those who have spent time at Yale University will know that their libraries…

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New Book Announcement: Some New Works by Professor Yaakov Shmuel Spiegel

New Book Announcement: Some New Works by Professor Yaakov Shmuel Spiegel

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New Book Announcement: Some New Works by Professor Yaakov Shmuel Spiegel By Eliezer Brodt עמודים בתולדות הספר העברי, הדר המחבר, 521 עמודים וישמע קולי, 385 עמודים I am very happy to announce the recent publication of an important work, which will be of great interest to readers of the Seforim blog. The forth volume of, Amudim be-Toldot ha-Sefer ha-Ivri by Professor Yaakov Shmuel Spiegel, of Bar-Ilan University’s Talmud department. As I have written in the past, Professor Spiegel is one of the most prolific…

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The Not-So-Humble Artichoke in Ancient Jewish Sources

The Not-So-Humble Artichoke in Ancient Jewish Sources

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The Not-So-Humble Artichoke in Ancient Jewish Sources Susan Weingarten Susan Weingarten is an archaeologist and food historian living in Jerusalem. This is an adapted extract from her paper ‘The Rabbi and the Emperors: Artichokes and Cucumbers as Symbols of Status in Talmudic Literature,’ in When West met East: the Encounter of Greece and Rome with the Jews, Egyptians and Others: Studies presented to Ranon Katzoff on his 75th Birthday. Edited by D. Schaps, U. Yiftach and D. Dueck. (Trieste, 2016)….

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The Humble Artichoke

The Humble Artichoke

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The New York Times recently discussed a novel ruling of the Israeli Chief Rabbinate.  The Rabbanut held that artichokes fall into the category of prohibited foods.  This is not because they are listed as such in the Torah. Rather the expansion of the biblical category is because of a secondary concern, the presence of insects.  Those insects may reside in the heart which without opening the tight leaves that comprise the vegetable one is unable to determine if insects are…

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China and the Answer to the Last Quiz

China and the Answer to the Last Quiz

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China and the Answer to the Last Quiz Marc B. Shapiro I recently returned from China and one of my friends asked me if during my time there I found anything of relevance to the Seforim Blog. He did not mean the comment seriously, but in fact I did find something. Whenever I am in synagogues I make a point of examining their collection of books, as you never know what you might come across. In Beijing I was at…

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