On the Main Line has posted some very interesting sources about the way in which some Jewish travelers ate kosher food on their journeys. I would add the following from this exhibit (see under “Jews and the Liquor Trade”),
By the end of the eighteenth century about 80 percent of rural Jews in Poland-Lithuania were [...]
Rav Ovadiah Yosef has paskened that if a man dies and doesn’t leave behind any sons, a daughter may say kaddish if there is a minyan that gathers in her home to study Torah or after psalms are read somewhere else. He explicitly forbids a woman to say kaddish in the synagogue. A little opening [...]
I have been teaching a course in which we are examining two different questions relating to the lighting of shabbat candles, whether a blessing is required and if the lighting of shabbat candles is considered kabbalat shabbat, i.e. if lighting shabbat candles initiates the accepting upon oneself of shabbat prohibitions. I won’t be going [...]
Whether Ashkenazim should continue to observe the prohibition of eating kitniyot on Passover has been discussed ad nauseam for quite some time. IMHO, do whatever you want and get over it. Personally, I eat any kitniyot which were not known in Ashkenaz during the 12-13th centuries, e.g. corn, when this custom took root and [...]
My Djerban-born friend Yael G. introduced my family to a custom observed on Rosh Hodesh Nissan by Jews from Libya and Tunisia. The custom is called פשישה/בסיסה. See here and here. There are three reasons given for this custom:
1. According to Megillat Ta’anit, from Rosh Hodesh Nisan until the eighth of [...]
R. Shelomo Toledono (his dissertation on R. Betzalel Ashkenazi is available to download from here) has authored a number of books and articles which discuss the difference in customs among Sepharadim and their relationship to R. Yosef Karo. Much of his work is devoted to defending the customs from North Africa against R. Ovadiah [...]
Recently, a book was written by Maria Balinska with the title, The Bagel: A Cultural History. There is a review of it by Joan Nathan at Slate. (hat tip) She writes,
Polish-born and half-Jewish, Balinska, who works at the BBC in London, tells us that the boiled and baked bagel as we know it [...]
There have been a number of recent posts which discuss questions of Torah reading cantillation, טעמי המקרא, and Hebrew grammar, specifically the question of whether a word is accented on the ultimate syllable (מלרע), or on the penultimate (second before last) syllable (מלעיל). See this post by Lion of Zion, and this one by [...]
See this article from Ynet about the refusal of a hevra kadisha (burial society) in Israel to allow a family to bury someone in a coffin. (hat tip) For a discussion of the issue, see this responsum (in Hebrew). See here for some scholarly discussion regarding burial practices in antiquity in the Land [...]
R. Alan Yuter has a few critical words here about Artscroll’s, or at least the book which they published, take on tashlich.
The political significance of Feuer’s Judaism is to infantilize Jewry into an obedient and uncritical mass whose world is hopelessly enchanted and frightful. The right reverend rabbis who possess both Daas Torah and Book [...]
You are currently browsing the archives for the Customs category.