A Response to Yaakov Rosenes
…Tom, Dick, and Harry can print a sefer, and increasingly many of them choose to do so. While much of what he writes comes as no surprise to those who…
Some Assorted Comments and a Selection from my Memoir. part 1
…how R. Soloveitchik appears on the title page of one sefer as “Av Beit Din of Boston.” And now R. Gorelik’s biography is outrageously distorted.[5] Yet in the end, it…
Rare Letters, Controversial & Valuable Hasidic Books – Genazym Auction
…community there.” (See Jonathan’ Meir’s recent critical edition of the Megalah Temirim that provides additional evidence of the book burning. Sefer Megale Temirin, ed. Jonathan Meir (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 2013)…
Eli Genauer: Breishit 9:18 – Noach’s Family or Noach’s Drunkenness?
…here that “Cham is the father of Canaan”. This is how it appears in the Artscroll Elucidated Rashi[1]: Yet the author of the Sefer Yosef Da’at (Prague 1609) writes that…
The Perils of Ignoring Precedent: Alterations in the Kaddish Prayer
…in the Jewish Theological Seminary library of a manuscript of R. Sofer’s defense of R. David Kimhi’s Sefer HaShorashim which R. Sofer notes was completed in 1637. Reif, in his…
TU BISHVAT: TREE AND THOU
…re-imagine NASA’s spectacular photographs as screenshots capturing the magnificence of the third day of Creation described in Sefer Bereishit, the Book of Genesis – a gathering of waters followed by…
Book Review: Yosie Levine, Hakham Tsevi Ashkenazi and the Battlegrounds of the Early Modern Rabbinate
…a man by employing Sefer Yetsirah. The Hakham’s own ancestor, Elijah Ba‘al Shem of Chelm, created such a humanoid. (The Hakham’s son, Rabbi Jacob Emden, would later address this very…
Birkat Ha-Hammah in the Old Jewish Cemetary of Frankfurt
…witness is R. Asher b. R. Eliezer Ha-Levi (circa 1598-1660), an Ashkenazic merchant and rabbinic scholar who lived most of his life in Alsace. In his Sefer Zikhronot (Berlin, 1913),…
Zvi Hirsch Masliansky: Memoirs from the Hebrew Periodical Ha-Doar
…three books at the time: [the Hebrew grammar book] “Talmud Leshon Ha-Ivri”, “Sefer Ha-Brith” [on basic sciences] and the Russian translation of the Book of Isaiah. These three books supplied…
What Became of Tychsen?: The Non-Jewish ‘Rabbi’ and his “Congregation” of Jewish Medical Students
…explains and apologizes for the delay in repayment. Tychsen routinely loaned money to the Jewish students. Salomonsen then reports that he was unable to obtain the sefer (shu”t Rabbi Moshe…
Apostates and More, Part 1
…vol. 2, p. 134. [9] Ha-Magid, May 7, 1885, p. 144. [10] Ha-Magid, June 25, 1885, pp. 208-209. [11] See his autobiography in Sefer Zikaron le-Sofrei Yisrael ha-Hayyim Itanu ka-Yom…
New seforim, books and some random comments
…writes similar ideas. It also includes a photocopy of one of the earlier manuscripts of the work. Just to point out some minor issues with the sefer. It does not…
Talmudic Humor and Its Discontents
…quoted. It is often difficult to find where a source is discussed. [6] אפרים דוידזון, שחוק פינו, חולון תשל”ב. The layout is very similar to that of Bialik’s “Sefer Ha’agadah,”…
Tevie Kagan: The Enigmatic R. David Lida Part II
…(c.1663-1700), the noted Sabbatean Kabbalist, and supposed prophet of the Sabbatean movement in Poland, to whom Lida is referring. Zoref wrote the Sefer Ha-Zoref where, among other things, he proclaimed…
R. Hershel Schachter, Gedolim, Rachel Morpurgo, and More
…Zuriel published the following works by Naftali Hertz Wessely: Gan Naul, Sefer ha-Midot, Migdal ha-Levanon, and Hikur Din. The first two books have been published before, but Zuriel has included…