The very important work Toldot Tannaim ve-Amoraim is now at Hebrew Books: vol. 1, vol. 2, vol. 3. This book is a must for anyone who does any work with Talmudic literature and it has been out-of-print for some time.
As those on the East Coast of the US are soon to see this year’s Tisha B’av exit, I thought that I would bring a text that accentuates the gap between the historical memory of ḥurban ha-bayit and what we know from the historical record. The text below is from Lee I.A. Levine, “Judaism from [...]
I am sure that many people reacted with scorn to the “Islamic” haircuts that are now permitted in Iran. Well I have news for you, many rabbis would feel right at home with such a decree. In a text that was appended to the Sifra that listed actions that were prohibited in order that Jews [...]
A while back I posted about the success of Avigdor Shinan’s commentary on Pirkei Avot and its place on the non-fiction best seller list in Israel. I was reading an op-ed piece in Yisrael ha-Yom and it turns out that Pirkei Avot has been overtaken by the new translation of Josephus’s Wars of the Jews. [...]
Martin Goodman reviews Shlomo Sand’s The Invention of the Jewish People and it isn’t pretty. (hat tip) Why bother at all to review such a book? So far as I know, no scholar who works on Jewish history in the Roman period has deigned to pay it any attention. But such lordly disdain is dangerous. [...]
Dr. Thamar E. Gindin has posted Hebrew summaries of a series of lectures that she gave on the historicity of the Scroll of Esther. The summaries can be found here. Also see this post (Hebrew) on the burial places of Esther and Mordechai by Orli Rahimian.
Professor Steven Fassberg will be speaking at JTS on The Dead Sea Scrolls and Their Contribution to the Study of Hebrew and Aramaic Date: Monday, February 8 Time: 3:40 p.m. Place: Wingate Auditorium, JTS
Israel Radio is reporting that according to the Israeli newspaper Maariv, a decision has been made to not ship the Dead Sea Scrolls abroad for any exhibitions because of the recent legal steps taken by Jordan and the Palestinians to try and get possession of them. See here for some background.
The following is from Shlomo Avineri’s article in Haaretz on the new translation of Josephus. (hat tip) Like every self-respecting Israeli youth movement, my Hanoar Ha’oved branch in Herzliya also held a mock trial for Josephus Flavius, aka Yosef Ben-Matityahu, under the heading “traitor or hero?” The unique thing about our particular trial was that [...]
Martin Goodman’s article “Under the Influence: Hellenism in Ancient Jewish Life” from the latest issue of the BAR is online. How and why and to what extent Greek culture was absorbed into the ancient Jewish world is not always clear, but that it was is undeniable. To some extent, the answers depend on whether we [...]
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