From the JTA. Sen. Barack Obama asked the debates commission to urge networks to rebroadcast the first presidential debate for Jewish viewers who observe Shabbat. Obama (D-Il.) is set to meet Republican rival Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) for their first debate on Friday night, although McCain has called for a postponement of the debate because [...]
With God’s Help, Wednesday of the week which ends with the reading of the Torah portion “Vayigash elav Yehudah,” in the year 5696 [Jan. 1, 1936] To the honored Rabbinerin Frau Rivka of the family of Jonas. I heard the good news and have rejoiced over the good that the Eternal has done for you. [...]
The NY Sun has a review of Joel Kraemer’s Maimonides: The Life and World of One of Civilization’s Greatest Minds.
See “A Short Introduction to Aramaic” at Balshanut.
From H-Judaic: The National Library of Israel, David and Fela Shapell Family Digitization Project, is pleased to announce that a digitized version of the Library’s manuscript “Catalonia Mahzor” is now available for public access. The “Catalona Mahzor” is a Mahzor for Rosh Ha-Shana and Yom Kippur according to the Spanish Catalonian Rite. It is dated [...]
From here. Today was the Autumnal Equinox at 3:39 p.m.-3:44 p.m. UTC. There’s a disagreement as to the exact time, sounds familiar. See both here and here why this day is important for Jewish liturgical practice.
Today’s promo at Macupdate is the fantastic Devon Think Pro. It is a great program and I urge any Mac users who are in need of a quality program to organize information to check it out.
This past year Academic Studies Press has published a number of new books in the field of Jewish Studies. They consist both of translations into English of already published works, and new books. Among the translations that they have published is Isaac Heinemann’s The Reasons for the Commandments in Jewish Thought, a translation of the [...]
From the State Department’s most recent report on religious freedom around the world. “Governments, often seeking to protect the beliefs, traditions and ideology of the majority or dominant religion, took steps to restrict the rights of individuals to proselytize and to change their religion,” said the report, which covered the period June 30, 2007, to [...]
The Intercollegiate Studies Institute has published a study lamenting the knowledge among American college seniors about American history, civics, and politics (hat tip). The quiz can be found here. While the highest score, 69.56 % from Harvard, may seem pretty dismal, and there were some embarrassing scores, the quiz was no push over. Students definitely [...]
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