Mishloah Manot: An Insight of the Rav zt”l
…Thank you so much for the beautiful basket of fruit which you sent us for Purim. We appreciate greatly the thought behind your kind gesture. As an attentive and intelligent…
Identifying Achashverosh and Esther in Secular Sources
…secular sources for the main plot of the Purim story, the threat to destroy the Jews in the 12th year (3:7)? We do not, but this is to be expected….
Rabbis &: History A Review of the Koreh HaDorot, Ahavat Shalom ed
…Elliot Horowitz has a excellent extremely comprehensive chapter on local Purims throughout history. One of the Purims he discusses is the Purim of Cairo (pp. 286-89) he mentions that we…
A Mild Case of Plagiarism: R. Abraham Kalmankes’ Ma’ayan Ha-Hokhmah
…more properly labeled today as paragraphs. Thus, several of the “chapters” consist of no more than15 lines of print (and, sometimes, even less). Scattered throughout the book are occasional comments…
A Few Comments Regarding The First Woodcut Border Accompanying The Prague 1526 Haggadah
…Rokeah published in Fano in 1505.[6] But that title page is really one of the more basic forms of the title page, known as a “label title page” providing only…
Kitniyot and Stimulants: Coffee and Marijuana on Passover
…and grasses are in rows, and everything is so clean, it is a testament to human intelligence. Every plant is labeled. There are plants from America, Portugal and Turkey all…
Who was Reb Shlomo?
…rolled into one, with a touch of Sholem Aleichem and Mark Twain.[1] Indeed, Shlomo just didn’t seem to fit into any restrictive defining label. Menachem Daum, in a video report…
The Anonymous Author of Tikkunei Zohar and Ra‘ya Mehemna: An Antinomian or a Radical Maimonidean?
…modern mystery novel by Richard Zimler, The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon [Woodstock, NY: The Overlook Press, 1998], p. 44.) One who found absolutely outrageous the labeling of the Mishnah as…
Beyond the Masthead of the Beys Yaakov Journal, 1923-1980 – Part 2: ‘Abomination’ or Scandal? Mistranslation, Journalism, and the Halivni Controversy
…“Ideological Labels Changing Along With the Label-Makers,” The New York Times (12 November 1970): 45,48; Israel Shenker, “Man and Machine Match Minds at M.I.T.: 5th Conference on Artificial Intelligence Seeks…
Which Direction is North?, Geographical Mistakes, and our Woke Universities
…to the day as Shushan Purim due to the influence of Yiddish. In Hebrew—and this is how Sephardic writers refer to the day—it is called Purim Shushan. R. Elijah Feinstein,…
“Why are the Books of Ruth and Esther so much alike?”
…Ruth for Shavuot, Lamentations for Tishah B’Av, Ecclesiastes for Sukkot, and finally Esther for Purim. Others resorted to a presumed chronological order. The Talmud (B. Baba Batra 14b) places Ruth…
The Book of Disputes between East and West
…Purim. People of the Land of Israel [fast] after Purim, based on Nikanor. (17:4, from Tosefta) 59. People of the East recite Kedusha each day. People of the Land of…
Open Orthodoxy and Its Main Critic, part 1
…p. 171: I went to be menachem avel [console the mourner] at his home on Hancock Road in Brookline on Shushan Purim. His aveilus on Shushan Purim itself was something…
Book Review: Pischei Tefilah u-Mo’ad by Y. S. Spiegel
…article related to Purim is a very comprehensive discussion on cross-dressing on Purim and other happy occasions throughout the year. He prints in this collection a Derasha of a talmid…
Judah Wistinetzky and Mishloach Manot to his American friends
…America 1735-1926: A History and Annotated Bibliography (see Seforim blog reviews here and here). In honor of Purim 5767 [2007], Ari has recently written about Judah Wistinetzky (1844-1908) and the…