Last week I received two new books relating to R. Ovadia Yosef. The first is Benny Lau’s book ממרן עד מרן (“From ‘Our Teacher’ to ‘Our Teacher’”-The first “Our Teacher” being Yosef Karo, and the second R. Ovadia) which was mentionned here by Manuscriptboy. While I haven’t read much of the book, adapted from Lau’s Ph.D. [...]
Via Hirhurim the announcement that R. Asher Siev z”l has died. Siev was the editor of the authoritative edition of the responsa of R. Moses Isserles.
A close friend and former colleague of my wife, Hannah Engle z”l, was killed by a drunk driver early Sunday morning. I had met Hannah only once. This summer she had Shabbat dinner with our family while we were in Israel and she was studying there for the summer. My wife said that her death [...]
The great Assyriologist Erica Reiner has passed away. You can read about her here. Although I am not familiar with her work she seems to have been a true giant in the field, editing and authoring a number of important works in the fields of Assyriology and ancient semitic languages.
At Hirhurim I saw that Louis Jacobs was voted as the greatest British Jew ever by a Jewish Chronicle poll. You can also see some comments here at Bloghead. Louis Jacobs has single-handedly brought Conservative/Masorti Judaism to England. He is the author of many important works such as A Tree of Life: Diversity, Flexibility, and [...]
Have you ever wondered where the phrase Shabbat Shalom comes from? Philologos has the answer here.
Since in this week’s parashah we read about the first female mohelet (female ritual circumciser), “Then Zipporah took a flint, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his feet; and she said: ‘Surely a bridegroom of blood art thou to me” (Exodus 4:25), I thought that a quick review of [...]
Information and schedule for this year’s SOY Seforim Sale at Yeshiva University is on-line. The sale is running from February 9-26.
Manuscriptboy is getting married today and has some moving thoughts for his wedding today here. Mazal Tov!
There is a well-known mishnah in Ketubbot 1:5 in which we read “האוכל אצל חמיו ביהודה שלא בעדים–אינו יכול לטעון טענת בתולים, מפני שהוא מתייחד עימה”, “He who eats with his father-in-law in Judea without the presence of witnesses cannot raise a claim of non-virginity against his wife because he has been alone with her” [...]
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