Chanukah Customs and sources
…link this to Chanukah. The Beni Yisscar, R. Tzvi Elimelch says that the reason the dreidel is spun from the top and the gragger on Purim is turned from the…
A year in Berlin: The Beginning of Hebrew Printing in Berlin in c. 1699
…massacre of the Jews; followed by a dirge (40b-41a); Zemer le-Purim (42a-46b), verse for that festival in both Hebrew and Yiddish, translated word for word into the latter language because…
Rambam The Poet?
…survived.[2] One poem ascribed to Maimonides was composed in Arabic depicting the story of Purim. Recently, a dear friend, Jacob Djmal of The Jewish Bookery, showed me a book containing…
Ba-Yamim ha-Hem Ba-Zeman ha-Zeh: Were Jews Involved in Iran’s First Political Upheaval?
…of the date recorded in II Melakhim 25:3 as that of the breaching of the walls of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. 14 Adar is of course Purim, and 10 Tishrei is…
Elliott Horowitz – Modern Amalekites From Adolf to Avigdor
…the right and aimed it at MK Avigdor Lieberman, announcing that “a vote for Lieberman was a vote for Amalek.” [1] See Elliott Horowitz, Reckless Rites: Purim and the…
Elliott Horowitz — “Between Hebron and Jerusalem”
In a previous post at the Seforim blog, Dan Rabinowitz offered his review of Elliott Horowitz (of Bar-Ilan University and co-editor of Jewish Quarterly Review), Reckless Rites: Purim and the…
Summary of Jordan Penkower on reading Zekher or Zeikher Amalek
…double reading necessary to fulfill the command of reading these verses of Parshat Zakhor, the special reading on the Sabbath before Purim? These questions are discussed in several articles by…
No, Achashverosh Never Served a Stable-Boy
No, Achashverosh Never Served a Stable-Boy Yaakov Jaffe Writings about Purim from virtually every stripe make reference to a well-known myth that Achashverosh, King of Persia, rose to power from…
פורים בגבעת שאול – דיוקה של שמועה
פורים בגבעת שאול – דיוקה של שמועה מאת הרב שלמה הופמן עורך השנתון ‘ירושתנו’ silhof@neto.bezeqint.net ירושלים היא כיום העיר היחידה הידועה בבירור כמוקפת חומה מימות יהושע בן נון שקריאת המגילה…
פיוטי פורים באשכנז ובצרפת
פיוטי פורים באשכנז ובצרפת מאת גבריאל וסרמן באשכנז ובצרפת נהגו מימים ימימה לומר את קרובת הי”ח של הקלירי, “ויאהב אומן”, עם ההרחבות הקליריות “אזרח בט חוץ – תמימים כרשו ארץ…
Yaakov Mark and Two Episodes from Vilna’s Great Synagogue Related to Yom Kippur
…partially translated into Hebrew in 1957, Bi-meḥitsatam shel gedole ha-dor : biografiyot, sipurim, imrot ve-sihot holin shel gedole Yisraʼel ba-dor ha-kodem, devotes a chapter to R. Yosef. According to Mark,…
Conservative Conversions, Some Grammatical Points, and a Newly Published Section of a Letter from R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik
…an ezrat nashim, women never attend on Shabbat, only on Rosh ha-Shanah, Yom Kippur, and Purim. The popular Modern Orthodox notion that it is important for women, especially unmarried ones,…
The Pew Report and the Orthodox Community (and Other Assorted Comments), part 1
…than believing.” See Mel Scult, The Radical American Judaism of Mordecai M. Kaplan (Bloomington, 2014), p. xiii. From Brill’s article I learnt that Aish Hatorah put on a recent Purim…
The Vilna Gaon, part 2 (Review of Eliyahu Stern, The Genius)
…imagine how the Gaon would have reacted if he had seen the following text, from R. Solomon of Karlin, Shema Shelomo (Jerusalem, 1956), p. 96 (sippurim no. 59), in which we see how…
The Alleged Blindness of R. Jacob Joshua Falk During the Emden-Eibeschuetz Controversy
…four months later Falk obviously recovered, for he remarried on Shushan Purim in 1752,[7] and clearly regained his eyesight (as we will prove below), even if he had lost it…