Menachem Mendel

Professor Meira Pollack of Tel-Aviv University will speak at JTS on Monday, March 8, 3:40 p.m. Her topic will be, “Karaites Against Rabbinites? The Developing Methods of Biblical Interpretation”

Posted on March 1st, 2010 under Bible Studies, Middle Ages, Public Events. Comments: None

H-German has a review of two new books on Medieval European Jewry. The first book is Susan L. Einbinder, No Place of Rest: Jewish Literature, Expulsion, and the Memory of Medieval France. The second book is David Joshua Malkiel, Reconstructing Ashkenaz: The Human Face of Franco-German Jewry, 1000-1250. I finally arrived at the AJS conference [...]

Posted on December 21st, 2009 under Ashkenaz, Book Reviews, Jewish History, Middle Ages, Tosafot. Comments: None

Mary Kate Hurley has a very interesting post at In the Middle, “Is There a Methodology in this Class.” From the title, it is not surprisingly in response to a talk by Stanley Fish. The post raises a number of very important questions which hopefully many who study Talmudic and Rabbinic literature critically are thinking [...]

Posted on October 24th, 2009 under Academia, Middle Ages, Rabbinic Literature, Talmud Study, Textual Studies. Comments: None

Forwarded to me by my friend JB.

Posted on February 26th, 2009 under Halakhic Literature, Jewish Law, Jewish Thought, Jewish-Gentile Relations, Middle Ages, Public Events. Comments: None

A recently published book by Gregg Stern, Philosophy and Rabbinic Culture: Jewish Interpretation and Controversy in Medieval Languedoc. From the publisher, Philosophy and Rabbinic Culture is a study of the great, and curiously underappreciated, engagement of a Medieval European Jewish community with the philosophic tradition. This lucid description of the Languedocian Jewish community’s multigenerational cultivation [...]

Posted on January 27th, 2009 under Middle Ages, New Books. Comments: None

In Haaretz there is a review of Haym Soloveitchik’s new book Ha-Yayin Bimei Ha-Beinayim, Soloveitchik’s book is a study of the subject of yayin nesekh (or “idolatrous wine,” that is, wine that has been touched by gentiles and is therefore forbidden to Jews) as it affected the day-to-day lives of medieval German Jewry. In the [...]

Posted on December 9th, 2008 under Ashkenaz, Jewish Law, Jewish-Gentile Relations, Kashrut, Middle Ages. Comments: None

In the Middle has some comments on Eric Lawee’s article, “The Reception of Rashi’s Commentary on the Torah In Spain: The Case of Adam’s Mating with the Animals,” Jewish Quarterly Review 97.1 (2007): 33-66. See here for Hirhurim’s summary of some of the article.

Posted on November 17th, 2008 under Bible Studies, Middle Ages, Midrash. Comments: None

The Yeshiva University Museum has an exhibit of treasures from Erfurt, Germany. (hat tip) The Yeshiva University Museum provides the only North American venue for an unusually significant exhibition of Medieval gold and silver jewelry, tableware, and rare coins discovered just a decade ago concealed within the foundation of a 12th-century house in Erfurt, Germany, [...]

Posted on November 3rd, 2008 under Middle Ages, Public Events. Comments: 2

Yehudah D. Galinsky has an article in the new JQR, 98/3, Summer 2008, “On Popular Halakhic Literature and the Jewish Reading Audience in Fourteenth-Century Spain.” From the abstract, The thirteenth and fourteenth centuries was not an auspicious period for the Jews of Europe. In contrast, the Jewish communities of Christian Spain seem to have been [...]

Posted on September 26th, 2008 under Middle Ages, New Articles, Rabbinic Literature. Comments: None