Menachem Mendel

Hebrewbooks continues to dazzle us all. Their latest upload includes the volumes of the important rabbinic journal Noam. Yishar Koach!

Posted on January 5th, 2012 under Jewish Law, Rabbinic Literature, Responsa. Comments: None

The Rambam Library, Sifriyat ha-Rambam, is an important Judaica library that is located at Beit Ariella in Tel Aviv. The director of the library has a very nice blog, Im ha-Sefer, (Hebrew) that has posts about some of the many gems that are found in the library’s collection. He recently posted about some books that [...]

Posted on January 3rd, 2012 under Book Collecting, Rabbinic Literature, Religious Zionism, Sephardic Jewry. Comments: 2

In 2008 the Israel Democracy Institute sponsored a conference on Zionist Halakhah. Below are some videos from the conference. (Hebrew)

Posted on December 28th, 2011 under Halakhic Literature, Israel, Rabbinic Authority, Rabbinic Literature, Religion in Israel, Religious Authority, Religious Zionism. Comments Off

At Text and Texture Rabbi Shlomo Brody has a very nice post about “Rabbi Joseph Karo’s Shulchan Aruch and Magid Mesharim.” (hat tip)

Posted on December 22nd, 2011 under Jewish Law, Jewish Mysticism, Kabbalah, Rabbinic Authority, Rabbinic Literature. Comments Off

Haaretz has a nice article about the Friedberg Geniza Project and its work on the digitization of Geniza documents. (hat tip) The article includes a lot of information about the current work being done by Prof. Yaacov Choueka, his son Roni, and other computer scientists and scholars of Rabbinic Literature. The first is how they [...]

Posted on October 23rd, 2011 under Computers, Online resources, Rabbinic Literature, Talmud Study. Comments: 3

A friend on Facebook linked to Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef’s website. It includes MP3′s (not many of good quality), videos, etc.

Posted on September 26th, 2011 under Jewish Law, Online resources, Rabbinic Authority, Rabbinic Literature. Comments Off

In Musaf Shabbat of Makor Rishon, Carmiel Cohen reviewed (Hebrew) a double-issue of Sidra that was devoted to Prof. Aryeh Steinfeld. Cohen wrote at length about two articles that appeared in this issue. The first is by Mordechai Akiva Friedman and is about the possibility that other shofar blowings for Rosh ha-Shannah existed in the [...]

Posted on September 26th, 2011 under High Holy Days, New Articles, Rabbinic Literature, Talmud, Talmud Study. Comments Off

Jonathan Sarna has written in the Forward about the recent merger between the Jewish Publication Society (JPS) and the University of Nebraska Press. In the meantime, even as we mourn JPS’s disappearance as an independent Jewish publisher, lovers of Jewish books should wish the new couple well. Sarna is also the author of JPS: The [...]

Posted on September 25th, 2011 under Halakhic Literature, Hebrew Printing, Rabbinic Literature, Talmud, Talmud Study. Comments Off

The Cairo Genizah has provided numerous examples of different rabbinic texts that were vocalized. Whether the vocalization was Palestinian, Tiberian, or Babylonian, is another question that raises other issues. See the first comments to this post at the Talmud Blog for some implications about the type of vocalization found in Mishnah texts from the Genizah. [...]

Posted on September 9th, 2011 under Hebrew, Hebrew Literature, Hebrew Printing, Rabbinic Literature. Comments: 7