The word kasher/kosher is not “universal”. Among the Neo-Aramaic speaking Jews of northern Iraq, the Arabic word, Halal with an Aramaic suffix, Halala, was used for “kasher”;and Harama for “unkasher”. Very “Kasher” meat was Halala ‘ikh pisir ghazala “As kosher as the meat of Gazelle”. The word kasher was used more for proper marital relations, as in ‘ishsha kashera “lawful wife”.

Prof. Daniel Sivan and Dr. Chaim Dihi have written a new Aramaic-Hebrew dictionary. The dictionary is for the reader who wants to familiarize themselves with Aramaic words which are used in modern Hebrew.

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

The phrase “everything else is commentary,” or, as it is more frequently encountered, “the rest is commentary,” has in recent years become such a part of the English language that many people are unaware of its Jewish roots. Yet these origins are indisputable and are clearly traceable to the talmudic story about the two first-century-BCE rabbinic sages, Hillel and Shammai, contemporaries paired together by Jewish tradition as archetypical opposites: Hillel the tolerant and liberal “loose constructionist” of the Law, Shammai the exacting and inflexible “strict constructionist.” In one story about them, a gentile comes to both and asks, with the obvious intention of provoking them, to be taught the whole Torah while standing on one leg. Shammai is indeed provoked and gives the man an angry whack with a measuring rod. Hillel replies, “That which is hateful to you, do not unto another: This is the whole Torah. The rest is commentary — [and now] go study.”