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In the past, prayers in the synagogue were adorned with many liturgical poems, piyyuṭim, in all the various Jewish communities, both on the major festivals and on many Sabbaths over the course of the year. Manuscripts preserve thousands of piyyuṭim, only some of which are familiar today, and some of which have never been published until our generation. This book collects more than two hundred piyyuṭim, which the Jews of Ashkenaz (German-speaking lands) and Northern France used to recite on wedding Sabbaths and Sabbaths on which circumcisions occurred. Dozens of poets wrote piyyuṭim for these festive occasions. Most of the piyyuṭim were written by German or French poets (between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries), but some of them were written by poets in the Land of Israel, Italy, or Spain. Some of the compositions were written in honor of lifecycle celebrations occurring in the families of the poets themselves. Aside from the major popular genres of Ashkenazic piyyuṭ (yoẓer, ofan, and zulat, in the blessings surrounding the morning Shema), the corpus in this volume also contains representatives of many unusual genres of piyyuṭ; this prominently demonstrates that on Sabbaths of family celebrations, the poets of Ashkenaz and Northern France wanted to include piyyuṭim in many different positions in the liturgy, more varied than usual. Especially prominent is the large unit of piyyuṭim that were recited surrounding the bridegroom’s ‘aliyya to the Torah: reshut (“invitation”) poems for the bridegroom and his groomsmen to go up for their ‘aliyyot, songs in honor of the bridegroom after his ‘aliyya, poems surrounding the reading of Ve’avraham Zaqen (a passage from the Torah that is read in honor of the bridegroom — today only in Sephardic synagogues, but in the past also in Ashkenazic), and Mi Shebberakh poets blessing the bridegroom after his ‘aliyya. Some of the poems are in Aramaic. The book includes also piyyuṭim that were recited (not specifically on the Sabbath) at the actual wedding and circumcision rituals, and piyyuṭim designated for the Grace After Meals of the festive meals in honor of the wedding and circumcision. The Ashkenazic poets were extremely learned, and they included large amounts of material from the lore (aggada) of the Talmud and Midrash. The late Prof. Jonah Fraenkel was the one that gathered the piyyuṭim for the Sabbaths of the year recited in the Ashkenazic and Northern French communities, as a continuation of his series of Ashkenazic maḥzorim for the Three Festivals and those for the High Holidays edited by Dr. Daniel Goldschmidt. This volume of piyyuṭim for wedding and circumcision Sabbaths is the first in a series whose purpose is to publish all piyyuṭim for all Sabbaths that were recited in the lands of Ashkenaz and Northern France. Dr. Gabriel Wasseman, a scholar of piyyuṭ, completed Fraenkel’s work on this volume, indicating textual variants from many dozens of manuscripts, and writing a detailed commentary on the piyyuṭim. He also wrote a long introduction to the volume, which, among other things, offers a birds’-eye view of all the piyyuṭim, organized into their specific genres, and traces the development of the customs of reciting these piyyuṭim in the various communities over the course of centuries. Avraham Fraenkel added chapters to the introduction, which present a description of the customs of weddings and of circumcisions in Ashkenaz and Northern France, on the basis of books of minhagim (“customs”) and prayerbooks from the Ashkenazic and Northern French communities.
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Rabbi El'azar Berabbi Qillir (commonly known as "HaQallir") was the most famous and productive of the Hebrew poets during the peak era of early Hebrew piyyut (liturgical poetry) between the sixth and eighth centuries AD. Of the thousands of poems he penned, some were preserved in the Asheknazi, French and Italian mahzorim (prayer books) for the High Holy Days, and a few of them are recited in synagogues to this day. The Cairo Geniza findings indicate that the European mahzorim preserve only a handful of Qillir's works. This edition attempts to restore the full compositions as per the textual witnesses from the Cairo Genizah, with the aid of the material from the European mahzorim. The poems are printed with full vocalization, apparatus criticus, and extensive running commentary. Perusal of the poems reveals quite a few surprises, from original linguistic feats to previously unknown Midrash traditions, and above all, uplifting segments of poetry. Several of these are presented in the introduction, but the edition is the crux of the book, and through it readers will be able to delve deep into Qillir's poems, to learn from the Torah contained within them, and to delight in their beauty.
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Jewish Studies 58 (2) (2023) Table of Contents Abstracts List of Articles: 1. Brachi Elitzur and Eden HaCohen - “They Rejected the Desirable Land”: The Sin of the Spies and its Reframing in Rabbinic Literature 2. Jonathan Grossman and Jonathan Jacobs - Ambiguity on the Level of the Plain Sense in Rashi's Commentaries on the Bible 3. Dov Schwartz - Between Spain and Provence: Critical and Cultural Exploration of Rabbi Prof. B. Z. Benedict’s Oeuvre 4. Michal Aziza Ohana - A Modern Rabbinical Autobiography by R. Yeshuah Shimon Hayyim Ovadiah of Sefrou
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Jewish Studies 58 (1) (2023) Table of Contents Abstracts List of Articles: 1. Haggai Mazuz - Midrashic Allusions in al-Bīrūnī’s Writings 2. Omer Michaelis - Psalms and ʿilm al-bāṭin in Baḥya ibn Paquda’s Duties of the Hearts 3. Biti Roi and Uziel Fuchs - The Use of the Introduction to the Talmud Attributed to R. Shmuel haNaggid in Tiqqunei ha- Zohar Literature 4. Amihai Radzyner - The Ring and the Lulav: The Religious Kibbutz and the Halakhic Requirements for Private Property
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Jewish Studies 57 (2) (2022) Table of Contents Abstracts List of Articles: Noam Mizrahi - The Interpretive Transmission of Isaiah as Witnessed by 4QIsag (4Q61) Yael Escojido and Emmanuel Friedheim - The Liberation of Jewish Slaves in the Letter of Aristeas as an Expression of Fear of Assimilation: A Study of the Assimilation Process Affecting Jewish Slaves in the Hellenistic Diaspora Hananel Mack - Because of Whom do the Rains Fall? Alternating Credits in Rain Stories of the Aggadah Literature Gilad Sasson - “In the Sanctuary, O Lord, which thy Hands have Established”: The Homily of Mekhilta of R. Ishmael and Its Parallels in Avot de-Rabbi Natan and in Bavli Ketubbot
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Scholarly and Facsimile Edition This book presents the sermons of Rabbi Kalonymus Kalmish Shapira, The Piaseczno Rebbe, which were delivered during the Holocaust years in the Warsaw Ghetto. The second volume is a facsimile edition, with the original manuscript on one side and the detailed line-by-line presentation of the text as the Rebbe corrected it. The second volume includes the words and passages that were deleted and is printed in 4 different colors which follow the proofs and changes that the Rebbe made in the text.
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Jewish Studies 57 (1) (2022) Table of Contents Abstracts List of Articles: Maya Shemuelli- An Existential View of Return and Alienation: Exegetic Examination of the Book of Ruth Ofer Elior- The Medieval Hebrew Translations of Euclid's Elements Judith Weiss- Dehiyya, Halifa, and HIbbur: Sefirotic Notions of Metempsychosis in Early Kabbalistic Literature and Some of their Reverberations Ayelet Walfish-Fraenkel- Angels, Demons, and Warlocks: The Myth of the Sons of God and the Daughters of Men in the Zohar as an Etiology of Evil Neta Dan- “22 Letters for Cursing”: Swearing and Insults in Uri Zvi Greenberg's Poetic Language
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Table of contents can be found in this link.
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Minhat Shai, by the seventeenth-century scholar Yedidyah Shlomo Norzi, deals with the forms, vocalization, and Masoretic interpretation of biblical terms, in the order of their appearance in the Bible. The aim of this work is to analyze words with respect to their orthography, vocalization, and cantillation, and to assess their proper forms. The work was first printed in Mantua in the middle of the eighteenth century; it has since been reprinted in various places and always as part of editions of the Pentateuch or other sections of the Bible. The version in use today accords with the text as printed in Mikra’ot Gedolot (Vilna/Warsaw editions), where the relevant sections were appended following each biblical book. The Addenda to Minhat Shai complete the publication of Minhat Shai on the Torah.
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The Addenda to Minhat Shai complete the publication of Minhat Shaion the Torah by Yedidyah Shlomo Norzi.
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Meir of Rothenburg (c. 1215 – 2 May 1293) was a German Rabbi and poet, a major author of the tosafot on Rashi’s commentary on the Talmud. He is also known as Meir ben Baruch, the Maharam of Rothenburg. His responsa are of great importance to advanced students of the Talmud, as well as to students of Jewish life and customs of the 13th Century.
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Meir of Rothenburg (c. 1215 – 2 May 1293) was a German Rabbi and poet, a major author of the tosafot on Rashi’s commentary on the Talmud. He is also known as Meir ben Baruch, the Maharam of Rothenburg. His responsa are of great importance to advanced students of the Talmud, as well as to students of Jewish life and customs of the 13th Century.
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Jewish Studies 56 (2021) Full Table of Contents Abstracts List of Articles: HEBREW SECTION Yuval Fraenkel - Between Man and Place: The Holy Man and the Temple in Stories about Ḥoni Ha`meagel, and R. Ḥanina Ben Dosa Yosef Marcus - The Status of Persons with Physical Defects in Tannaitic Literature: A New Analysis Michael Avioz - “It is Known that the Stag eats Snakes”: Examining the Scientific Knowledge Drawn Upon by Medieval Jewish Interpretations of Psalms 42 Abraham David - Flavius Josephus’s Writings in Sixteenth Century Jewish Historiography: The Case of Shalshelet ha-Kabbalah of Gedalyah Ibn Yaḥya Chen Avizohar-Hagay and Yuval Harari - ‘For a Woman in a Hard Labor’: A Compilation of Magic Recipes to Deal with Labor Difficulties Ben Landau Spinoza and the “Ecole de Paris” 161 ENGLISH SECTION Israel Knohl - The Original Version of the Priestly Creation Account and the Religious Significance of the Number Eight in the Bible and in Early Jewish MysticismIn his influential study on Jewish mysticism, Gershom
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Rabbi El’azar Berabbi Qillir (commonly known as “HaQallir”) was the most famous and productive of the Hebrew poets during the peak era of early Hebrew piyyut (liturgical poetry) between the sixth and eighth centuries AD. Of the thousands of poems he penned, some were preserved in the Asheknazi, French and Italian mahzorim (prayer books) for the High Holy Days, and a few of them are recited in synagogues to this day.
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Rabbi El'azar Berabbi Qillir (commonly known as "HaQallir") was the most famous and productive of the Hebrew poets during the peak era of early Hebrew piyyut (liturgical poetry) between the sixth and eighth centuries AD. Of the thousands of poems he penned, some were preserved in the Asheknazi, French and Italian mahzorim (prayer books) for the High Holy Days, and a few of them are recited in synagogues to this day. Notable examples of such from among his Yom Kippur poems are the poems "Praise God: Almighty, King of His universe" ("אמרו לאלהים: אל מלך בעולמו") and "The work of our God! He is mighty amidst His [Divine] assembly" ("מעשה אלהינו אדיר בוויעודו"); these two poems are still recited even in those Ashkenazi communities which skip most of the other poetic segments recorded in the mahzorim for the High Holy Days. The Cairo Geniza findings indicate that the European mahzorim preserve only a handful of Qillir's works for Yom Kippur. In fact, he adorned each of the day's prayers with several poetic compositions, most especially with qedushta'ot, arrays of poems intended to be recited as part of the amidah ("the standing prayer"), anticipating the recitation of the qedusha. Time and again, Qillir penned new compositions intended to replace the previous ones. Alongside his qedushta'ot for musaf and for ne'ila which are found in the Ashkenazi mahzorim, the Genizah fragments reveal additional Qillirian qedushta'ot for these same prayers, as well as poems for ma'ariv, shaharit and minha. In addition, it turns out that the qedushta'ot in the Asheknazi mahzorim were corrupted; some of the original Qillirian segments were omitted, and later non-Qillirian segments were interpolated at various places. The present edition comprises a collection of all of the surviving poems authored by Rabbi El'azar BeRabbi Qillir for all of the Yom Kippur prayers. This edition attempts to restore the full compositions as per the textual witnesses from the Cairo Genizah, with the aid of the material from the European mahzorim. The poems are printed with full vocalization, apparatus criticus, and extensive running commentary. The restoration of the qedushta'ot incurred many questions, discussed in detail in the introduction. The introduction includes a comprehensive exploration of the multiple segments contained in each of Qillir’s compositions, including a discussion of the exact purpose of each segment and a justification of its attribution to Qillir. The introduction also describes the prosodic structures of Qillir’s poems for Yom Kippur, their poetic characteristics, their unique language and stylistics, and their thematic content. An additional section focuses upon rare midrashic traditions reflected within the poems, as well as rare Jewish legal traditions and customs. Many of the poetic segments contained herein have never before appeared in a proper scientific edition, including spectacular works such as silluq (the segment immediately prior to the qedusha) for musaf; a series of rahitim (poems prior to the silluq) expounding upon the verses describing the High Priest's work on Yom Kippur, and another series of over twenty rahitim praising God, which are without a doubt among Rabbi El'azar BeRabbi Qillir's finest works; and sidre pesukim (poetic compositions which expound upon the Biblical verses which were recited during that era within the amidah itself). In his compositions for the minha prayer, Qillir often dedicates the rahitim to the story of Elijah the Prophet on Mount Carmel; several of these describe the miracle of the fire coming down from the sky, and primarily Elijah's prayer – which in effect becomes the poet's prayer for his audience. Perusal of the poems reveals quite a few surprises, from original linguistic feats to previously unknown Midrash traditions, and above all, uplifting segments of poetry. Several of these are presented in the introduction, but the edition is the crux of the book, and through it readers will be able to delve deep into Qillir's Yom Kippur poems, to learn from the Torah contained within them, and to delight in their beauty.
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Iggud - Selected Essays in Jewish Studies, Vol. 3 Languages, Literatures, Arts Editors: Tamar Alexander-Frizer, Yosef Tobi, Dan Laor, Ora Schwartwald, and Ziva Amishai-Maisels Full Table of Contents Iggud: Selected Essays in Jewish Studies: Articles published in the Iggud Volumes will be based on the best lectures which were given in the World Congress for Jewish Studies held in Jerusalem once every 4 years, and these volumes will therefore replace the Proceedings of the World Congress of Jewish Studies which have been published thus far. In the first volumes of Iggud (1-3) were gathered articles based on lectures given on the 14th Congress held in August 2005.
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Iggud - Selected Essays in Jewish Studies, Vol. 2 History of the Jewish People and Contemporary Jewish Society Editors: Gershon C. Bacon, Albert Baumgarten, Jacob Barnai, Haim Waxman, and Israel Yuval Full Table of Contents Iggud: Selected Essays in Jewish Studies: Articles published in the Iggud Volumes will be based on the best lectures which were given in the World Congress for Jewish Studies held in Jerusalem once every 4 years, and these volumes will therefore replace the Proceedings of the World Congress of Jewish Studies which have been published thus far. In the first volumes of Iggud (1-3) were gathered articles based on lectures given on the 14th Congress held in August 2005.
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For more information on the project, see here. This book, produced for the exhibition In and Out, Between and Beyond, presents the scholarly work of a group of historians who study the Jews of medieval Ashkenaz at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in dialogue with the work of contemporary Israeli artists. This is one of the culminating projects of the European Research Council-funded research group Beyond the Elite: Jewish Daily Life in Medieval Europe. Since the inception of the project (fall 2016), the team has worked to construct a history which includes those who were not part of the learned elite as well as those who were learned, about whom we know more. The research team trained its sights on everyday moments, investigating daily routines and the ways medieval Jews understood their lives amidst their host cultures. At the heart of this work is the complexity of the circumstances in which medieval Jews lived: the integration of Ashkenazic Jews within their Christian surroundings, alongside their maintenance of a distinct religious identity. To complement the medieval study underlying this endeavor, the exhibit’s curator, Dr. Ido Noy, orchestrated a fruitful exchange between the research team and seven Israeli artists, who then produced contemporary expressions of the historic ideas under discussion. This book, mirroring the structure of the exhibit, is comprised of sixteen articles. Each one is built around a primary source from a particular literary genre. The colorful catalogue at the end of the volume documents the objects created especially for the exhibition that was displayed physically at the gallery on the Mount Scopus campus of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and can still be viewed virtually.
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Iggud - Selected Essays in Jewish Studies, Vol. 1 The Bible and Its World, Rabbinic Literature and Jewish Thought Editors: Baruch J. Schwartz, Aharon Shemesh, and Abraham Melamed Full Table of Contents Iggud: Selected Essays in Jewish Studies: Articles published in the Iggud Volumes will be based on the best lectures which were given in the World Congress for Jewish Studies held in Jerusalem once every 4 years, and these volumes will therefore replace the Proceedings of the World Congress of Jewish Studies which have been published thus far. In the first volumes of Iggud (1-3) were gathered articles based on lectures given on the 14th Congress held in August 2005. " In the Bible and Its World Section eleven articles are published in Hebrew and five in English. This large number reflects truthfully the strenuous development in researching Bible commentators and their methods, a subject which is again central in Biblical Science of this era. Beside articles in this field, appears a selection of articles about Bible Study itself with its various spheres, such as Biblical criticism and prophetic books, archeology and realism, and the various ways that Biblical Literature takes. The Rabbinic Literature and Jewish Law section includes nine Articles in Hebrew and two in English. These studies span several branches of Talmud and Halakha, and show especially the expanding interest, these days, in the questions touching on the process of editing and forming of Rabbinic Literature. Further to these studies dealing with these aspects of the profession, appear discussions in issues of Halakha, Law and Talmudic tale history. Eight articles in Hebrew and two in English are published in the Third section, which is dedicated to Jewish Thought. The studies are naturally divided into studies of contemplation and teachings of the philosophers themselves, through their writings together with the era they lived in and the elements influencing them on the one hand, and in these several studies comparing between the first and the last and studying the connection between them, and studying their methods of research on the other hand." (from the preface).
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Jewish Studies 55 (2020) Full Table of Contents Abstracts List of Articles: Michael Schneider z"l - The Liturgical Roots of the Kabbalistic Concept of ‟Unification” Eliyahu Rosenfeld - “One Must Speak with Silence”: The Function of Silence in Virginity Claim Stories from the Babylonian Talmud Richard Hidary - The Talmud as Rhetorical Exercise: Progymnasmata and Controversiae in Rabbinic Literature Eli Gurfinkel - The Order and Structure of the List of the Maimonidean Principles: Between Form and Meaning Hagay Shtamler - “The Course of Ideas in Israel” as a Response to Wissenschaft des Judentums” Book Reviews: Uziel Fuchs - Review of Yaacov Sussmann, Oral Law Taken Literally: The Power of the Tip of a Yod, Jerusalem: Magnes, 2019 Tamar Kadari - Review of Marc Hirshman, Midrash Kohelet Rabbah 1-6: A Critical Edition, Jerusalem: Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies, 2016
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Jewish Studies 54 (2019) Full Table of Contents Abstracts
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Jewish Studies 53 (2018) Full Table of Contents Abstracts