At a recent conference which addressed society’s attitude towards those with disabilities, R. Benny Lau again showed why he is one of the most important voices in the Israeli religious world. So far only a Hebrew version is available on Ynet here, hopefully an English version will soon be posted. See these previous posts for [...]
A new online journal which may be of interest: . Glossator: Practice and Theory of the Commentary Glossator publishes original commentaries, editions and translations of commentaries, and essays and articles relating to the theory and history of commentary, glossing, and marginalia. The journal aims to encourage the practice of commentary as a creative form of [...]
From the new books catalogued at the JNUL, I see that Dr. Aaron Ahrend has published a critical edition of Rashi on Massechet Megillah. A number of people have written dissertations on Rashi’s Talmud commentary to a number of tractates and have found that there are no small number of variants between the manuscripts. Hopefully [...]
While many people following news from Israel are occupied with Ehud Olmert’s latest troubles, the really important news is the galvanization of the national-religious divorce from the ultra-orthodox. As I wrote previously, the tipping point, hopefully, has been reached. It may upset some people, but for the religious zionist it is in my opinion essential. [...]
For the English see below and read here about the signatories. ישראל הממשלה הזמנית עיתון רשמי: מס’ 1 תל-אביב ה’ באייר תש”ח 14.5.1948 עמ’ 1 הכרזה על הקמת מדינת ישראל בארץ-ישראל קם העם היהודי, בה עוצבה דמותו הרוחנית, הדתית והמדינית, בה חי חיי קוממיות ממלכתית, בה יצר נכסי תרבות לאומיים וכלל-אנושיים והוריש לעולם כולו את [...]
This week may have been a tipping point in the nexus of religion and politics in Israel. It seems that many rabbis in the national-religious community have finally understood that the current political paradigm just doesn’t work. See this post by Dr. Jeffrey Woolf and this article from the Jerusalem Post. One must also read [...]
I recently received the new issue of Nextbook, a semiannual with discussions of Jewish literature and culture. The web site features a number of interesting articles and a large amount of podcasts on numerous topics. As I write this, I am listening to a podcast about the rebirth of Hebrew featuring interviews with people from [...]
If you were wondering how controversial the International Bible Quiz (Hidon ha-Tanakh) could be, this year proved you wrong. An Israeli girl who is apparently a Messianic Jew is in the finals, and there are some who want to prohibit her participation. (See these two posts by ADDeRabbi and don’t miss this video whose link [...]
I don’t think that I have noticed this before, but among the articles which Prof. Shamma Friedman has posted on his website is his seminal article, “A Critical Study of Yevamot X with a Methodological Introduction” (Hebrew) which was published in Texts and Studies, Analecta Judaica I, ed. H. Z. Dimitrovsky, New York, 1977, pp. [...]
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