Magnes Press Sale
For a limited time, Magnes Press is having a sale, buy one book get the second at 70% off. They have some great new titles including Censorship, Editing and the text Catholic Censorship and Hebrew...
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Racy Title Pages Update II
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...
View ArticleAttack on Rabbinic Judaism and Historical Orthopraxy
What is perhaps one of the more intreging sefarim ever published. Behinat HaKabbalah is two books in one. The first, Kol Shakal (the voice of a fool), is a scathing attack on Rabbinic Judaism....
View ArticleChanukah Customs and sources
While the only mandated mitzvot for Chanukah consist of lighting candles and saying the full hallel, there are numerous other customs that have come to be associated with Chanukah.The custom to play...
View ArticleManasseh of Ilya and Y. Barzilay
I recently finished reading Yitzhak Barzilay's book on R. Manasseh of Ilya. R. Manasseh was a fascinating character. He was a student of the Vilna Goan, but wrote a pamphlet arguing for reconciliation...
View ArticleCensored Texts - Website
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...
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I See Dead People
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...
View ArticleOnkelos Translation
There is a new sefer which offers a translation of Onkelos published by Gefen books. Onkelos, which is considered the authoritative translation of the Torah has, unfortunatly, suffered from the...
View ArticleIs Tu-beshevat a Sabbatian Holiday?
There are those who claim the custom to celebrate Tu-beshevat as a holiday is based upon the book Hemdat Yamim. This book, according to many, was either written by Nathan of Gaza (Shabbati Zvi's...
View ArticleNew Book on Rabbinic Authority
A new sefer came out titled Ohron shel Chachomim. This work purports to collect the various laws and philosophy one should have for the Rabbis. The first section is just the basic law applicable to a...
View ArticleBibliography on Synagogues
Professor Yosef Tabori's bibliography on synagogues is available online here. As well as other bibliographical lists here.
View ArticleTen Commandment Displays
Menachem Mendel has a nice post collecting a lot of the material on the Ten commandments. However, there is one point that I think is worth discussing.While 10 Commandment displays are ubiquitous in...
View ArticleHaredi Story "borrowed" from Shai Agnon Story
Gil has a nice post on the latest mythmaking regarding the Hazon Ish. Along those same lines, there is a farily well known story that goes something like this:An Orthodox person is sitting in the...
View ArticleNew CD of Talmud MSS
The newest version of the Talmud mss CD (the "Lieberman CD" or the "Sol and Evelyn Henkind Talmud Text Databank"), is now available. The newest version, using the Bar Ilan Responsa interface, includes...
View ArticleMore on story fabrication - The Golem
As some have mention in the comments to my previous post, the story of the Mahral and the Golem although many take it as true, it is not. Popularized by Rabbi Yudel Rosenberg, the work is a work of...
View ArticlePurim, Mixed Dancing and Kill Joys
Although the Megilah only lists mishloch monot, matnot l'evyonim, and reading the Megilah as the customs on Purim, many others have become accepted. Most are of the ilk of boofunery or merrymaking....
View ArticleDei'ah veDibur Fabrication - Dr. Leiman
As I noted previously, the Haredi mouthpiece Dei'ah veDibur had a rather insightful piece on the falicy of the Golem of Prauge. However, although the article ended with the hope that after bringing...
View ArticleHaredi Robbers
Although we have alluded to the fact that Haredim "borrow" from others without attribution, I have come across a particularly egregious example. Here, is an article discussing the Romm Press and what...
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Widow Rom and Shafan haSofer
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.
View ArticleComparison Between De'ah veDibur and Shafan haSofer
While I don't have the time to go through the entire Dei'ah veDibur article and demonstrate the extant of the copying, I will provide some of the more egreious examples.Here is a quote from the Dei'ah...
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