A helpful reader has scanned the Yated with the latest ban against Making of a Godol (“MOAG”). It is notable that R. Eliashiv has signed again as have others who were part of the original ban. Also, as you can see this appeared on the top of the front page as well as a separate article. Those who signed claim that this edition of MOAG although ostensibly “fixed” the “problems” it was unsuccessful and they state “the second edition is…
An astute reader emailed me that it appears the new and improved edition of Making of a Godol has been banned. Although this edition attempted to “fix” some of the “problems” of the first, it appears that it has not satisfied it detractors. See here. I hope to get a copy of the letter referenced in the article, when I do I will post it.
As per Menachem’s suggestion I have posted the pictures of the Widow Rom (Devorah) and Shafan HaSofer. These appear in Yahadut Lita, 1960, p. 296.
Mary Roach in her excellent book “Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers” discusses some of the facinating facts relating to dead bodies. However, she does not discuss some of the more interesting Jewish incidents of dead bodies. The first is the fairly well known story of R. Yehuda Aszod (1794-1866). R. Aszod’s grandson wrote a biography of his grandfather. Portions of this biography are included in R. Aszod’s commentary on the Torah, Divre Mahri. “My grandfather never allowed for…
There is an interesting post, in Hebrew, on Hydepark, which has a list of censored texts. Although the list is not complete, (for more examples see my article in the latest issue of Hakirah), it still is rather good. There are also numerous other gems on the site for those that take the time.
While I do not intend to focus solely on racy title pages, I do have a futher update to my previous posts I, II. It appears that the title page used in the Levush (Prauge, 1590) was actually a recycled page. It was first used in the Prague 1526 Haggada. Now aside from this page, which we have seen is objectionable to some today, there were other objectionable illustrations in this edition. Yerushalmi in his Haggadah and History, notes that…
