Prefab sukkot make it to the NY Times.
With the onset of Sukkot, an increasingly popular Jewish harvest holiday that has lately emerged from the high, holy shadows of its immediate precursors, Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, those new to celebrating it will no doubt have questions.
You may be wondering, for example, if it’s permissible to [...]
American Jewish University (formerly the University of Judaism) has posted a number of videos for the Yamim Noraim and a source-packet.
From H-Judaic:
The National Library of Israel, David and Fela Shapell Family Digitization
Project, is pleased to announce that a digitized version of the Library’s
manuscript “Catalonia Mahzor” is now available for public access.
The “Catalona Mahzor” is a Mahzor for Rosh Ha-Shana and Yom Kippur according
to the Spanish Catalonian Rite. It is dated approximately 1280.
The text includes liturgical [...]
I saw the following ad in our local paper. The scan didn’t come out too good, but I wanted to emphasize that it is smoke that is coming out of the shofar. I deleted the name of the shul because I didn’t think that it was relevant, and there is a bit of [...]
A recent archeological discovery which is very timely for the Jewish liturgical calendar.
Israeli archaeologists have unearthed a seal impression belonging to a minister of the biblical King Zedekiah, which dates back 2,600 years, during an archeological dig in Jerusalem’s ancient City of David. The finding helps corroborate the story pertaining to the biblical minister’s demand [...]
Rabbi Jeffrey Hoffman was kind enough to send me a copy of an article of his which will be published in a forthcoming issue of the JQR. The article is on Akdamut, the Aramaic poem which is recited before the Torah reading on Shavuot. Below are some of his comments, and I also [...]
See another example of Eliezer Brodt’s comprehensive treatment of a topic, this one on “Purim and Parodies”, at Seforim.
Some may remember my post about a person complaining that there was no menorah at McDonald’s. Not surprisingly, most of the letters-to-the-editor, which can be found here, thought that it was quite a ridiculous complaint. While not McDonald’s, one thing that my wife and I found interesting in Costa Rica was that there is [...]
While many people are familiar with tomorrow’s fast on the tenth of Tevet (see also this by Jeffrey Woolf), there happen to be two lesser-known fasts from Tevet. The more well-known Megillat Taanit lists days on which it is forbidden to fast, while the less well-known Scroll of Fast-B (מגילת תענית בתרא) list days on [...]
My brother called my attention to an article written by Prof. Moshe Benovitz, someone with whom we both have studied, on the development of Hanukkah. It was originally written as part of the “Faculty Forum” at the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies. It is long, but is an important contribution to the study [...]
You are currently browsing the archives for the Holidays category.