Menachem Mendel

A few days ago a program was broadcast on Israeli TV that featured the final moments of prayer and supplication in the synagogue of the Neve Dekalim settlement in the Gaza Strip before the Israeli withdrawal.

September 2nd, 2010 | Category: Israel, Liturgy | Leave a comment

Rabbi Chaim Weiner has started a blog, A Question of Jewish Law. In each post Rabbi Weiner presents a short discussion of a halakhic question.

September 2nd, 2010 | Category: Jewish Law | Leave a comment

On Avodah Zarah 18b is found one of the Talmudic sources that discusses Beruriah, who in some places is described as the wife of Rabbi Meir. There have been a number of important articles written about the Beruriah traditions in Rabbinic Literature. Two places to look are this article by Tal Ilan and this one by Tzvee Zahavy. Tzvee’s article includes translations of the sources.

September 1st, 2010 | Category: Daf Yomi, Talmud, Talmud Study | Comments (1)

From the BBC:

The remains of a huge 12,000 year old feast have been found in a cave in Northern Israel. Archaeologists working in Hilazon Tachtit found what they thought was a late Palaeolithic campsite, when they discovered tools and animal bones. However they soon realised they were looking at a large burial site, with huge numbers of animal bones. They found the remains of at least three aurochs – giant extinct cattle – and over 70 tortoise skeletons.

…

The team drew the conclusion that the tortoises had been cooked and the meat had then been removed. This was the best evidence that the animals had been killed and cooked for eating, not killed as a sacrifice.

I am not sure if this is an old story, because here is a detailed blog post about a scientific paper describing the finds from two years ago.

September 1st, 2010 | Category: Israel, archeology | Leave a comment

From YU:

The Yeshiva University Center for Israel Studies presents an international conference for Sunday and Monday, March 27-8, 2011, which will take place at Yeshiva University Museum and on our historic Washington Heights campus. The conference is titled: Talmuda de-Eretz Israel: Archaeology and the Rabbis in Late Antique Palestine. In the century since Samuel Krauss’ Talmudische Archaeologie, massive strides have been made toward the integration of archaeology into the study of Rabbinic literature and of Rabbinic literature into the study of classical archaeology. This paradigm shift has altered the ways that we view the Rabbis, their literature, Jewish history and the broader Roman world, resulting in numerous publications, conferences and exhibitions. This conference will focus explicitly upon intersections between Palestinian Rabbis and archaeology from the vantage point of Rabbinic literature. Each participant will be asked explore ways that archaeological discoveries impact our understanding of specific rabbinic texts. The conference and the resulting volume will provide a range of viewpoints on well known, and less-well known rabbinic sources, and the ways that archaeology helps us to better understand them and the world in which they were composed.

On a related note, The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Daily Life in Roman Palestine will be available this Fall. From the table of contents it looks like it will be a very good book, and I will be glad to accept a review or gift copy.

September 1st, 2010 | Category: Conferences, New Books, Rabbinic Literature, Talmud, Talmud Study, archeology | Leave a comment

Balshanut links to this exchange about the origins of the alphabet. Two scholars disagree whether it was invented by “illiterate Canaanite miners in the turquoise mines of Serabit el-Khadem in the Sinai peninsula” or “highly sophisticated Northwest Semites.” Also see this very good post on the origins of the alphabet by Christopher A. Rollston, who concludes that

Basically, I have thought for a number of years now that the cumulative weight of the evidence suggests that: (1) the Muttersprache of the inventors of the alphabet was a Northwest Semitic language, (2) and that the inventors of the alphabet functioned in a reasonably high status role within a component (or components) of the Egyptian administrative apparatus, that is, officialdom. (3) I believe that it is reasonable and tenable to argue that they learned Egyptian writing from Egyptian scribes. (4) I contend that it would be improbable that illiterate miners were capable of, or responsible for, the invention of the alphabet. (5) Ultimately, writing in antiquity was an elite venture and those that invented the alphabet were Northwest Semitic speakers, arguably they were officials in the Egyptian apparatus, quite capable with the complex Egyptian writing system. This, I believe, best accounts for the maximum amount of data.

August 29th, 2010 | Category: Ancient History | Leave a comment

Last night I got back from a wonderful trip to California that I took with our son. We were able to spend a nice amount of time in the San Francisco area and Los Angeles. While in San Francisco we went to the Mission Minyan on Friday night and Chabad of Noe Valley on Shabbat morning. For anyone who is in SF on Friday night and wants a spirited prayer experience, I highly recommend the Mission Minyan. You can read a bit about it in this recent interview with Steven M. Cohen, Highly Engaged Young American Jews: Contrasts in Generational Ethos. From both my experience and Cohen’s interview, I think that minyanim like the Mission Minyan offer an eclectic mix of ideology and practice that would be difficult for any synagogue that belongs to one of the major movements to offer, let alone tolerate. Many people see themselves as post or non-denominational, or they don’t even think about it, and hence the growing popularity of such minyanim.

In LA we stayed in the Pico-Robertson area and took full advantage of the great kosher dining options, among them Jeff’s Gourmet Kosher Sausage Factory. One culinary oddity had to do with peanuts. In Israel one can always find “American Peanuts” (בוטנים אמריקאיים), a.k.a. kabukim, in a nut store. They consist of peanuts coated with a crunchy shell made of sugar, flour, etc. Well, in one of the LA’s kosher markets I saw these and they were called “Asian Peanuts.” I guess that calling them “American Peanuts” in America wouldn’t have made much sense, not that calling them “American Peanuts” in Israel makes much sense either.

In San Francisco I also tried to stop into a few used-book stores, and in both LA and SF we went to the incredible Amoeba Music Store. The SF store had quite a selection of Israeli and Jewish music. While we’re talking about music, today there are thousands of Springsteen fans blessing she-heḥiyyanu. Bruce and Co. announced the upcoming release of a hefty CD/DVD box set to mark the 30th (plus two) anniversary of the release of his album Darkness on the Edge of Town, The Promise: The Darkness On The Edge Of Town Story (3 CD/3 DVD). It seems as if Bruce opened the vaults for this one.

Hopefully next week will see a more steady return to blogging. Shabbat Shalom.

August 27th, 2010 | Category: Public Events | Comments (4)

What the City of Brotherly Love is up to:

For the past three years, Marilyn Bess has operated MS Philly Organic, a small, low-traffic blog that features occasional posts about green living, out of her Manayunk home. Between her blog and infrequent contributions to ehow.com, over the last few years she says she’s made about $50. To Bess, her website is a hobby. To the city of Philadelphia, it’s a potential moneymaker, and the city wants its cut. In May, the city sent Bess a letter demanding that she pay $300, the price of a business privilege license.

This is close to, although not nearly as bad, as the little kids getting ticketed for selling lemonade without a license.

(hat tip)

August 23rd, 2010 | Category: Blogging, Internet | Leave a comment

Andrew Pettegree, the author of The Book in the Renaissance, is interviewed here. (hat tip) See here for a review of the book.

I wonder how the following comments of his relate to Hebrew printing.

Q: What did you find most interesting of the trends that you uncovered in your study of the early book industry?

A: Two things. The first is the extent to which the new book market was underpinned by books that hadn’t played any role in the conventional narrative of what’s called the “print revolution.” The earliest commentators welcomed print, celebrating it as an essential part of the civilizing process on the way to modernity.

But inevitably this view concentrates on the most eye-catching of the newly-printed books: the great Bibles of Gutenberg and Plantin, Copernicus and scientific books, atlases, maps. The fact is that these big books almost always lost money. The engine room of the new industry turned out to be small books and pamphlets, at most two days’ work in the print shop, which could turn a quick profit. I think our project is the first thing that has really spelled this out in quantitative terms.

The second thing is our discovery of what you might call a two-speed Europe. The conventional geography of print always emphasizes how quickly it spread throughout Europe. Within 50 years of print’s invention, over 200 places had a printing press. But most of those early presses only survived a few years—they quickly went out of business and print contracted. What we discovered is around 85 percent of print output was produced close to the geographical center of European trade—in France, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands. This was the heart of production. Outside this central zone, Spain, England, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe had essentially dependent markets.

August 22nd, 2010 | Category: Book Collecting, Buying Books, History of Books, New Books | Leave a comment