Based upon a linguistic analysis of Columbus’s writings, a researcher claims that he may have been of Converso stock. Read about it here. Maybe next year UJA-Federation should co-sponsor the Columbus Day parade with the Columbus Citizens Foundation.
Aharon Shemesh has a new book coming out soon, Halakhah in the Making: The Development of Jewish Law from Qumran to the Rabbis. Halakhah in the Making offers the first comprehensive study of the legal material found in the Dead Sea Scrolls and its significance in the greater history of Jewish religious law (halakhah). Aharon [...]
For anybody who is in the market for a 15th c. MS of the Semak (Sefer Mitzvot Katan), there happens to be one for sale. One of the most important codes of Hebrew ritual law of the entire Middle Ages written in the thirteenth century by a famous French codifier with glosses by his best-known [...]
BibliOdyssey has posted images from a 15th c. illustrated travel diary of a German knight who journeyed to Jerusalem. The JNUL has posted online many maps of the Land of Israel/Holy Land and Jerusalem.
It seems that Shlomo Sand’s book The Invention of the Jewish People has arrived in America. See this article on it in Tablet (hat tip) for a presentation of Sand’s views on how Jews are really descendants of the Khazars and so on. For two critical reviews see this one by Anita Shapira and this [...]
Marty Lockshin has already published an annoted English translation of the Rashbam’s commentary on the Torah, and now he has published a new Hebrew edition of his commentary along with copious explanations and comments. According to these comments on the book, the MS on which David Rozen’s previous edition was based was lost in the [...]
Shuli Rand is one of those unique Israeli artists. He grew up in a national religious home and later left religion and went on to become a successful stage and film actor. A number of years ago he became more religious in the Breslover mode. He is probably most well-known for his role in the [...]
From here. The italics are mine. The life of Moses is to be the subject of a 300-style action film, Variety reports. It will the inaugural project for Chernin Entertainment, the company founded by former Rupert Murdoch lieutenant Peter Chernin after stepping down as president and chief operating officer of News Corporation in June. Twentieth [...]
Just in time for beginning the reading of the Torah from Genesis once again this coming Shabbat, the meaning of the first few chapters of Genesis, specifically, the meaning of ברא, is in the news. A recently published dissertation claims that the writers of the great book never intended to suggest that God created the [...]
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