Menachem Mendel

Musings of a Jewish Bookseller has acquired what may be a Gemara volume that was used by Hayyim Nachman Bialik. Read about it here.

Posted on April 23rd, 2013 under Bibliography, Book Collecting, History of Books, Talmud. Comments: 1

The Jewish Museum will be having an exhibition this Fall and Winter (September 14, 2012 – February 03, 2013), Crossing Borders: Medieval Manuscripts from the Bodleian Libraries. Crossing Borders features a superb selection of some sixty Hebrew, Latin, and Arabic manuscripts from Oxford University’s Bodleian Libraries, one of the world’s richest collections of manuscripts and [...]

Posted on July 23rd, 2012 under Hebrew, History of Books, Manuscripts, Public Events. Comments Off

Another nice Erev Pesaḥ program that was broadcast today on Israel Radio was כל אחד וההגדה שלו. The program featured a number of participants, among them Prof. Avigdor Shinan. It can be listened to here. If you can understand the Hebrew, it’s a nice program to listen to while preparing for the seder.

Posted on April 6th, 2012 under History of Books, Israel, Jewish Literature, Passover. Comments: 1

Andrew Pettegree, the author of The Book in the Renaissance, is interviewed here. (hat tip) See here for a review of the book. I wonder how the following comments of his relate to Hebrew printing. Q: What did you find most interesting of the trends that you uncovered in your study of the early book [...]

Posted on August 22nd, 2010 under Book Collecting, Buying Books, History of Books, New Books. Comments Off

Ynet has an article (Hebrew) about digitized collections of Hebrew books, e.g. Otzar ha-Ḥochma, Hebrew Books, Bar-Ilan, etc. The article addresses how this might affect the culture of the book in traditional Jewish learning and issues which may arise regarding reading digital books on Shabbat. My teacher SW thought about this issue over a decade [...]

Posted on June 30th, 2010 under Book Collecting, History of Books, Online resources. Comments Off

Part of the Braginsky Collection of Hebrew books and manuscripts is now online. It is worth a visit. (hat tip)

Posted on January 14th, 2010 under Bibliography, Book Collecting, Hebrew Printing, History of Books, Manuscripts. Comments Off

There is a disagreement among scholars as to the author(s) of the Geonic work Halakhot Gedolot. See this post for a discussion of the question. I just saw this in a flyer from Mechon Yerushalayim, so I guess that we know to some extent how they answer the question.

Posted on November 23rd, 2009 under Bibliography, Halakhic Literature, History of Books, Rabbinic Literature, Uncategorized. Comments Off

Manuscriptboy and Izgad have been doing a wonderful job of live-blogging the WCJS (World Congress of Jewish Studies) which is taking place this week in Jerusalem. Anyone who has ever been to a WCJS knows how overwhelming it can be at times. Ynet has an article (for now only in Hebrew) on one of the [...]

Posted on August 5th, 2009 under Bibliography, History of Books, Jewish Thought. Comments Off

Haaretz is reporting that Bar-Ilan University will be the home of a new online library of Hebrew texts, a project initiated by President Shimon Peres. The works slated for inclusion in the project will be selected by academics from Bar-Ilan and other universities over the next few months. In addition, a section of the data [...]

Posted on June 4th, 2008 under History of Books, Internet, Israel, Libraries. Comments Off