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Hatikvah, Shir HaMa’alot, & Censorship

Hatikvah, Shir HaMa’alot, & Censorship

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There is a rather interesting teshuva which appears in R. Avrohom Weinfeld’s Lev Avrohom. In it he discusses whether one can recite Shir HaMa’alot to the tune of Hatikvah. He first explains that this question involves the question of whether a tune from an impure source is appropriate to use. He begins by discussing the two well-known teshuvot (the Teshuvot haBakh and the Krach shel Romi) dealing with using non-Jewish tunes for Jewish songs. However, without getting into all of…

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Censored Texts – Website

Censored Texts – Website

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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.

Racy Title Pages Update II

Racy Title Pages Update II

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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…

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Racy Title Pages Updated

Racy Title Pages Updated

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As I had previously noted, many older seforim include what may be deemed objectionable by today’s standards. I had mentioned how one book had attempted to rectify this, the new edition of the Levush. In this edition the title pages from some early editions of the Levush are included in the introdoction, however the title pages has been “touched up.” Now that I have learned how to include images, I present both the original and the touched up version. Although,…

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Biography of Gedolim

Biography of Gedolim

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Long before Making of a Godol there was another book that contained terrific stories of Gedolim. These stories are especially refreshing in that they give a “human” look at gedolim. This book was originally published in Yiddish and subsequently portions were translated into Hebrew. The book written by Ya’akov Mark, (1857-1929) is titled Gedolim fun Unzer Tziet (or the great ones of our time). This book was first published in New York in 1927 and included a picture of the…

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Differences btwn the “Improved” Making of a Godol and the Original

Differences btwn the “Improved” Making of a Godol and the Original

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Differences between the “Improved” Making of a Godol and the Original by Dan Rabinowitz As previously mentioned at the Seforim blog, Rabbi Nathan Kamenetsky’s Making of a Godol has been reprinted in an “improved” edition. In the new edition there are a few significant changes, which appear to have been done to appease those that originally banned the original. It is fairly easy to find these changes with the help of the index in the “improved” edition. Here are some…

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