Dr. Aaron Ahrend, a senior lecturer in the Department of Talmud at Bar-Ilan University, has published many studies on Talmudic commentary and Jewish liturgy. The ancients established a sign by which one could determine on which days certain holidays occur. The sign is based on the pairing of the letters Aleph and Tav (א”ת) and the days of the Passover holiday. Thus is the sign: Aleph-Tav (א”ת) = the day of the week on which the first day of Passover…
1. In my post here I discussed the enigmatic plagiarizer Abraham Rosenberg. As we saw, in 1923 and 1924 Rosenberg published articles on the Jerusalem Talmud in the Orthodox journal Jeschurun, and he later published Al Devar Tikunei Nushaot bi-Yerushalmi. In this last work, Rosenberg refers to R. Chaim Heller as his friend. I and so many others assumed that “Rosenberg” was a pseudonym, but Moshe Dembitzer, the expert on everything related to R. Heller, has pointed out to me…
In giving the public this opportunity to learn more about the spiritual resistance of the Vilna Ghetto, we seek to immortalize the moral heroism of the victims of the Holocaust. And bring to light the phenomenon of the vitality and endurance of the Jewish people – throughout their long existence, laden with suffering and restrictions, it has forced them not to give up but to seek the means of self-expression and foster their traditions and culture no matter what adversity…
I have a sefer in my collection with a very busy Shaar Blatt: It is a Chumash printed by Yosef, Yaakov, and Avraham Proops in Amsterdam, 1767. The Chumash contains some of the normal additions, such as Targum Onkelos and Rashi, along with two additions which are indicated as being “ואלה מוסיף על הראשונים”. I would like to focus on one of these additions, the Sefer HaChinuch. Placing the words of the Sefer HaChinuch underneath the text of the Chumash…
מודעא לבית ישראל, ביטול מודעה, מודעה רבה, תשובות גדולי ישראל בנדון מצות מכונה בפסח, קיא + שיא עמודים, ע”י, ר’ מרדכי קנאפפלער וישראל טרעס I am very happy to announce the republication of the original seforim published at the beginning of the Machine Matzah Controversy in Galicia in 1859. One sefer, Modah Le’beis Yisroel is a collection of Teshuvot of those who were against Machine Matzah and the other one, Bitul Modah contains the Teshuvot defending Machine Matzah. This volume…
Rabbi Michael Broyde is a law professor at Emory University School of Law and the Projects Director in its Center for the Study of Law and Religion. His most recent Torah sefer is entitled “A Concise Code of Jewish Law For Converts”. This letter was written to someone after a shiur in 2017 on why there is no bracha on seeing a solar eclipse. 1. You are correct that I said that I thought there was no bracha on an…
Taj Art Auctions will hold its 13th auction this Sunday, April 7th (the catalog is available here). The auction contains many items worth highlighting, especially those related to historic Jewish libraries, as well as other unique books and ephemera. Recently, arguably, the most significant Jewish library reopened its doors. The National Library of Israel, housed at Hebrew University for decades, moved into its own building, designed by the starchitects Herzog & de Meuron, who count the Tate Modern among other…
For I give you good doctrine (lekah tov); do not forsake My Torah (Proverbs 4:2). The entitling of Hebrew books is a subject of considerable interest, varying as it does from the more common manner of labelling comparable works. Book titles generally reflect a book’s subject matter. In contrast, however, Hebrew book titles often reflect a subtle theme, considerably wide-ranging between books with a like title. This subject has been addressed previously, by me and by others, in the latter…
Review: Elliott Horowitz, Reckless Rites: Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence In 2017, the erudite and eclectic scholar Elliott Horowitz unexpectedly passed away. His oeuvre is exceptionally diverse, having authored more than seventy-five articles and reviews and five books, with topics ranging from studies on Italian art, Jews and coffee, the significance of the beard among Jews, comparing and contrasting Jewish and non-Jewish biblical exegesis, and Jewish violence (see his Academia page for most of them). Seven additional articles…
I. Introduction. Shortly after the Nazis captured Vilna on June 24, 1941, representatives from the “Special Detail of Reich-Administrator Alfred Rosenberg” (Einsatzstab des Reichleiter Alfred Rosenberg) arrived in Vilna. Their task was to loot the literary (and other) treasures of Vilna’s Jewish community, and to ship them to Frankfurt. Under the aegis of Nazi “experts” in Jewish matters, a slave-labor unit consisting at times of some 40 Jews was established. Like the other slave-labor units, the group gathered early in…
On January 26, 2024, I received an e-mail from an independent Italian Hebraica scholar with references and a bibliographical correction regarding a Seforim Blog article I had written about Rabbi Dr. Shimshon Morpurgo (1681-1740), a prominent medical graduate of Padua. In the correspondence, he refers to a manuscript housed in the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) Library that not only contains a record of the original semikha granted by Rabbi Yehuda Briel (c.1643-1722) to Shimshon Morpurgo, it also contains a second…
The post hopes to serve three purposes. One, the first section lists some new, interesting seforim, and thereby making the Seforim Blog readership aware of their recent publication. While those that sell books are seeing that book purchases keep dropping, books are still being published at full force. Second, to make these works available for purchase for those interested. Third, the last part of the list has some harder to find books, for sale. (This is a continuation of this…
Shmuel Lesher is the assistant rabbi of the BAYT in Toronto, Canada. You may reach him at shmuel.lesh@gmail.com. Tikkun Olam, translated as either “healing the world” or “repairing the world” is a phrase that evokes a variety of reactions today. This two-word Hebrew phrase has become known to many even outside of the Jewish world as the Jewish term for social action. In fact, while President of the United States, Barak Obama invoked tikkun olam in a speech he delivered…
There is a unique genre of video on youtube, facebook, or twitter, featuring Yeshivah students of a wide variety of ages, locations, and types of dress singing the song “Ashreichem Talmidei Chachamim” while standing or dancing around the Beit Midrash of their school or Yeshivah. The song, often also heard at wedding, praises the portion of students of Torah scholars with the following words: Praiseworthy are you, O students of the wise, As words of Torah are exceedingly beloved to…
With the proliferation of auction houses and the centralized platform of Bidspirit, there are auctions of Judaica and Hebraica on a weekly, if not more frequent, basis. One of the more recent entrants into this arena is Taj Art, founded in 2021 by Tomer Rosenfeld and Aron Orzel. This Sunday, December 24th, at 7 pm Israel time, Taj Art will be hosting their 11th auction, which includes some items of particular bibliographical and historical note. The full catalog is available…