Judaism life and practice Books

Book SynopsisIn A Stake in the Ground, Michael Schraer explores the economic functions of real estate amongst the Jews of the medieval crown of Aragon. He challenges the view of medieval Jews as primarily money-lenders and merchants, finding compelling evidence for extensive property trading and investment. Jews are found as landlords to Christian tenants, transferring land in dowries, wills and gifts. Property holdings were often extremely valuable. For some, property was a major part of their asset portfolios. Whilst many property transactions were linked to the credit boom, land also acted as a liquid and tradeable investment asset in its own right. This is a key contribution to the economic history of medieval Iberia and of medieval Jews. See inside the book.Trade Review"In this excellent work, Schraer enjoins us to challenge more vigorously the erroneous notion that Jews were simply financiers who sat the margins of medieval society. As property owners and investors who knew how to utilize property for a range of investment goals, Jews were, in fact, deeply integrated into the "core fabric of medieval society"." Jennifer Speed, in The Medieval Review, 20.10.10 Click here. "Apart from filling a void in the historiography on Iberian Jews and casting doubt on the major assumptions of prior scholarship regarding Jewish economic behavior, A Stake in the Ground has important implications for broader ongoing debates about the role of moneylending among European and Mediterranean Jews living within Christian domains. [...] Schraer’s compelling study should serve as a reminder to scholars at work on other geographical areas that they can no longer afford to ignore scholarship on Iberia on the grounds that it is an exceptional, peripheral case". Thomas W. Barton, in Speculum 96/1 (January 2021).Table of ContentsAcknowledgements List of Illustrations Abbreviations Orthography Currencies, Land Areas and Weights and Measures Glossary 1 Introduction Part 1: Jews as Property Investors: The Evidence 2 Property Rights 3 Jews in the Market for Land 4 Lords of the Land? Jews as Rentiers and Cultivators 5 Dowries, Wills and Gifts Property and the Transfer of Wealth 6 The Link between Credit and Land Part 2: Property and the Jewish Economy 7 The Economic Case for Property Asset Choices, Risk and Return 8 Credit and Property in the Wealth of the Jews 9 Postscript Appendix 1: Currencies and Equivalences Appendix 2: Land Areas, Weights and Measures in the Archival Sources Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisLa Bibliothèque municipale de Colmar conserve plus de 330 fragments hébreux collés sur les reliures d’incunables. Chacun d’eux peut a priori être considéré comme le témoin d’un livre disparu, probablement tombé entre les mains de relieurs à la suite de circonstances historiques tragiques. Après les avoir décrits et identifiés dans cet ouvrage, Judith Kogel a pu reconstituer la collection de livres étudiés et utilisés par les juifs de Colmar et des environs, au Moyen ge. Bien que l’on ne puisse savoir à qui ils appartenaient et où ils étaient conservés, ces livres recouvrent tous les textes indispensables à la vie juive quotidienne et reflètent une communauté structurée pour la transmission des savoirs. The Colmar Public Library preserves more than 330 Hebrew fragments glued to the bindings of incunabula. Each of them a priori can be considered as a witness to a book that disappeared, probably fallen into the hands of bookbinders as a result of tragic historical circumstances. After describing and identifying them, Judith Kogel was able to partially reconstruct and present in this book, the collection of texts studied and used by Jews in Colmar and the surrounding area in the Middle Ages. Although we cannot know to whom these books belonged and where they were kept, the collection covers all areas essential to Jewish daily life and reflects a structured community committed to the transmission of knowledge.Table of ContentsPréface 1 Introduction historique  1 La bibliothèque de Colmar  2 Brève histoire de la communauté juive de Colmar  3 Histoire des fragments 2 Les fragments  1 Rouleaux  2 Codices 3 La composition de la collection Conclusion  Annexe 1 Correspondance entre les incunables de la Médiathèque André Malraux (BMS) et les fragments du fonds Reuss  Annexe 2 La prière La Description des fragments Bibliographie

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Book SynopsisAs historical analyses of Diaspora Jewish visual culture blossom in quantity and sophistication, this book analyzes 19th-20th-century developments in Jewish Palestine and later the State of Israel. In the course of these approximately one hundred years, Zionist Israelis developed a visual corpus and artistic lexicon of Jewish-Israeli icons as an anchor for the emerging “civil religion.” Bridging internal tensions and even paradoxes, artists dynamically adopted, responded to, and adapted significant Diaspora influences for Jewish-Israeli purposes, as well as Jewish religious themes for secular goals, all in the name of creating a new state with its own paradoxes, simultaneously styled on the Enlightenment nation-state and Jewish peoplehood.Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Note on Terms and Transliteration Introduction Part 1: Before Statehood 1 The Clarion Call: E. M. Lilien and the Jewish Renaissance  1.1 Life, Heroism, and Beauty  1.2 Lilien’s Winged Figures  1.3 Restrained Decadence: Jewish Angels  1.4 Olympus and Golgotha in the Service of Zionism 2 Boris Schatz’s Pantheon of Zionist Cultural Heroes  2.1 A Day Dream  2.2 A New Florence  2.3 A Hebrew Pantheon: Individual Commemoration  2.4 Collective Commemoration  2.5 Schatz’s Legacy: Models for a Sovereign State Heroes 3 “The Garden of Love”: Early Zionist Eroticism  3.1 The Garden of Love: A Remedial Institution for Nervous Atrophy  3.2 In the Song of Songs Pavilion  3.3 The New Jew: Intellect and Sensuality Combined  3.4 Kisses and Embraces  3.5 Orientalism and Symbolism in the Zionist-Biblical World  3.6 The Secular Bride 4 Zionist Revival and Rebirth on the Façade of the Municipal School in Tel Aviv  4.1 Past and Present Come Together  4.2 Four Hebrew Cities Part 2: Objects and Conceptions of Sovereignty 5 Israel’s Scroll of Independence 6 Hues of Heaven: The Israeli Flag  6.1 The Zionist Flag  6.2 The Magen David (David’s Shield) or the Jewish Star  6.3 The Blue Stripes  6.4 First Proposals for an Israeli Flag  6.5 A Multitude of King David’s Shields 7 Menorah and Olive Branches on Israel’s National Emblem  7.1 In Search of a National Emblem  7.2 Archaeology and Socialism: Jewish Tradition versus Secularism  7.3 The Shamir Brothers Studio’s Proposal  7.4 Prophet Zecharia’s Vision: Harmony between State and Church  7.5 A Visual Precedent from 1300  7.6 Public Reactions to the Design of the National Emblem 8 From Exile to Homeland: the Mythical Journey of the Temple Menorah  8.1 An Icon of Destruction  8.2 The Arch of Titus: A Symbol of Destruction and Exile  8.3 “Oh Titus, Titus, If You Could Only See!”  8.4 The Menorah Returns Home  8.5 A Miraculous Translocation  8.6 A Gift from the Mother of Parliaments to the New Israeli Parliament  8.7 Benno Elkan: A Self-Anointed Modern Bezalel  8.8 The Menorah’s Penultimate Station on Its Way Home: Kssalon Settlement  8.9 Visual References to the Israeli Menorah Motif 9 Zionism Liberates the Captured Daughter of Zion  9.1 The Judaea capta Coin  9.2 Jewish References to the Roman Judaea capta Coin  9.3 From Judaea capta to Judaea liberata  9.4 The Judaea capta Image on Official Israeli Publications  9.5 A Late Israeli Daughter of Zion 10 The Twelve Tribes of Israel: From Biblical Symbolism to Emblems of a Mythical Promised Land  10.1 The Twelve Tribes of Israel: Symbolizing the Unity and Diversity of the Jewish People  10.2 Biblical and Midrashim Sources  10.3 Verbal Turned Visual: Heraldic Emblems of the Twelve Tribes  10.4 From Christian Bibles to Jewish Synagogue Decorations  10.5 E. M. Lilien’s Legacy  10.6 Beyond Lilien’s Legacy  10.7 Symbols of Sovereignty  10.8 Emblems of a Mythical Promised Land 11 Old and New in Land of Israel Flora  11.1 Israeli Plants as Local Icons  11.2 Familiar Biblical Plants: The Seven Kinds  11.3 The Four Species  11.4 Grapes, Figs, and Pomegranates as Symbols of Sovereignty  11.5 The Spies Motif  11.6 The New Jew as a Tiller of the Soil  11.7 Herzl’s Cypress Tree Myth  11.8 Unfamiliar Wild Plants  11.9 “A Very Lovely Cyclamen”  11.10 “We Shall Return as Red Flowers”  11.11 “Nobody Understands Cyclamens Anymore”  11.12 Local Plants Revisited  11.13 A Symbol Shared by Two Peoples: The Israeli Cactus 12 Ancient Magic and Modern Transformation: The Unique Hebrew Alphabet  12.1 Hebrew Calligraphy  12.2 Hebrew Typography  12.3 Hebrew Typography in Israeli Design  12.4 Uses of the Hebrew Alphabet in Non-textual Israeli Visual Media Part 3: Sculptural Commemoration within the Israeli Public Space 13 From Pilgrimage Site to Military Marching Grounds: Theodor Herzl’s Gravesite in Jerusalem  13.1 Herzl’s Coffin Brought to Tel Aviv  13.2 Herzl’s Burial Ceremony in Jerusalem  13.3 International Competition for Herzl’s Burial Site Design  13.4 Winner of the Competition: Yosef Klarwein’s Design  13.5 Runner-up Prize: Danziger and Shalgi’s Design  13.6 The Committee for Herzl’s Burial Site Doubts Its Own Decisions  13.7 Herzl’s Tomb Final Design and Unveiling 14 Natan Rapoport’s Soviet Style of the Yad Mordechai and Negba Memorials  14.1 Ghetto Heroism and Israeli Valor  14.2 The Yad Mordechai Memorial  14.3 The Negba Memorial 15 Holocaust and Resurrection in Yigal Tumarkin’s Memorial in Tel Aviv  15.1 Is It Possible to Render the Holocaust Visually?  15.2 The International Committee, Auschwitz  15.3 Israeli Holocaust Memorials at Yad Vashem  15.4 The Memorial to the Holocaust and the Resurrection of Israel 16 In Conclusion: Secularizing the Sacred, Israeli Art, and Jewish Orthodox Laws  16.1 The Hebrew Bible: A Spring Abundant with Narratives and Allegorical Figures  16.2 A Visual Discourse with Jewish Artists from the Past  16.3 Israeli “Graven Images”  16.4 Hybrids  16.5 Jewish Angels and Israeli Cherubs  16.6 Taharah and tum’ah (Purity and Impurity) General Index

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Book SynopsisIn Living under the Evil Pope, Martina Mampieri presents the Hebrew Chronicle of Pope Paul IV, written in the second half of the sixteenth century by the Italian Jewish moneylender Benjamin Neḥemiah ben Elnathan (alias Guglielmo di Diodato) from Civitanova Marche. The text remained in manuscript for about four centuries until the Galician scholar Isaiah Sonne (1887-1960) published a Hebrew annotated edition of the chronicle in the 1930s. This remarkable source offers an account of the events of the Papal States during Paul IV’s pontificate (1555-59). Making use of broad archival materials, Martina Mampieri reflects on the nature of this work, its historical background, and contents, providing a revised edition of the Hebrew text as well as the first unabridged English translation and commentary. Martina Mampieri has been granted a special mention of excellence in the Alberigo Award 2021 by the European Academy of Religion and Fondazione per le Scienze Religiose. (https://www.europeanacademyofreligion.org/alberigo-award) "Martina Mampieri provides scholars with a source of great interest, which helps better understand the complex period following the election of Pope Paul IV Carafa from a Jewish perspective. This is undoubtedly an important book that contributes to the advancement of our knowledge regarding that historical moment." -Alessandra Veronese, AJS Review 45/1 (2021) "This valuable source is now available to the many – the many including, and this is no small thing, those who study the history of historical writing for itself as that writing began emerging from the shadows at just this time. We are deeply indebted." -Kenneth Stow, University of Haifa, Emeritus, Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 20/1 (2021) "By triangulating important themes in early modern history with a rich and lengthy narrative source, Mampieri has produced an outstanding contribution to the ever-growing literature on interreligious and intercultural relations in the Papal States." -Frank Lacopo, Sixteenth Century Journal LIII/2 (2022)Trade Review"The first half of Mampieri’s edition of this work provides a detailed background for everything discussed by Benjamin in his chronicle. (...) This thoroughness will enable novices in Jewish studies, early modern Catholicism, or Italian history to catch up easily on context they need. (...) The second half of the book provides an English translation and Hebrew transcription of the text itself, annotated and presented with superlative linguistic skill. Mampieri has also furnished the volume richly with maps, useful tables, a luxurious number of plates and figures, and a full facsimile of the only surviving copy of the original manuscript (a transcription made in the nineteenth century). These all enhance its use as a teaching tool and give the chronicle solid purchase and context." - Emily Michelson, University of St Andrews, in: Renaissance and Reformation, Vol. 44 No.1 (2021). "Thanks to Martina Mampieri’s exhaustive research and careful analysis, however, we now have a much fuller perspective on this work and its context. Mampieri’s Living under the Evil Pope, a revision and expansion of her PhD dissertation, offers a new critical edition of the chronicle, an English translation, critical and historical notes, a facsimile of the manuscript (now at the National Library of Israel), and some of the key archival documents. Mampieri also offers a full-scale monograph that uses the chronicle and archival sources to shed new light on the Jews of Civitanova Marche and the status of Jews in the Papal States during the papacy of Paul IV, 1555-1559. (...) Indeed, one of the most fascinating aspects of Mampieri’s work is her account of the modern traces of the work’s history—including a 1943 novelistic reworking of the Merchant of Venice based on Benjamin’s account. Mampieri also notes some of her research on the nachlass of Sonne here. We can look forward to her future publications that will tell us more about both twentieth-century scholarship and the Jews of sixteenth-century Italy. In the meantime, we have Mampieri’s careful study and excellent edition of an important primary source that offer us considerable advances in understanding the second half of the 1550s, a crucial moment in Italian Jewish history and Jewish-Christian relations." - Adam Shear, University of Pittsburg, in: Annali d’italianistica, Vol. 39 (2021). "Martina Mampieri provides scholars with a source of great interest, which helps better understand the complex period following the election of Pope Paul IV Carafa from a Jewish perspective. This is undoubtedly an important book that contributes to the advancement of our knowledge regarding that historical moment." - Alessandra Veronese, University of Pisa, in: AJS Review, Vol. 45 No. 1 (2021). "(...) even Hebrew speakers will benefit from the translation. This valuable source is now available to the many – the many including, and this is no small thing, those who study the history of historical writing for itself as that writing began emerging from the shadows at just this time. We are deeply indebted." - Kenneth Stow, University of Haifa, Emeritus, in: Journal of Modern Jewish Studies, Vol. 20 No. 1 (2021). "This thorough volume makes available for the first time the diplomatic edition and English translation of an extraordinary sixteenth-century Hebrew source on the pontificate of Paul IV Carafa (1555–59), written by Benjamin Nehemiah ben Elnathan from Civitanova Marche in the Papal States. (...) Benjamin’s chronicle was previously known—the Galician scholar Isaiah Sonne published a version of the text in 1930–31 with Hebrew annotations—but Mampieri corrects several mistakes from Sonne’s first, partial edition, and she accompanies the text with a meticulously researched introduction built on a veritable wealth of archival and literary sources. The volume also includes a facsimile of the only extant copy of Benjamin’s work, housed at the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem; a documentary appendix; maps; and plates. (...) Not only is the publication and translation of Benjamin’s chronicle a very welcome addition for Jewish historians, but her detailed introduction will be essential reading for any scholar interested in the pontificate of Paul IV." - Francesca Bregoli, Queens College and the Graduate Center, City University of New York, in: Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 74 No. 4 (2021). "Mampieri provides almost 200 pages of historical background placing the Hebrew chronicle in its context before offering a revised edition and an English translation, followed by a facsimile of the only surviving copy of the chronicle done in the 19th century. Recommended to all academic libraries." - Roger S. Kohn, Silver Spring, MD, in: AJL News and Reviews, Vol II, No 2 (2020-2021).Table of ContentsContents Acknowledgements List of Abbreviations and Bibliographical Notes Notes on Currency, Measures, and Time List of Maps and Plates Transliteration from Hebrew The Popes of the Roman Catholic Church (16th Cent.) Introduction Part 1: The Work and Its Context 1 The Jews in Civitanova Marche (15th–16th Cent.)  1.1 At the Origins of the Jewish Settlement  1.2 Networks of Credit: Moneylending, Trade, and Other Jewish Businesses  1.3 Jewish Life, Jewish Spaces  1.4 Family, Dowry, and Inheritance  1.5 Observant Preaching and the Rise of the Monte di Pietà (1556)  1.6 Crisis and Decline of the Jewish Presence in Civitanova Marche 2 Benjamin Neḥemiah ben Elnathan and His Chronicle of Pope Paul IV  2.1 The Author between Fiction and History  2.2 Narrative Structure  2.3 Sources, Language, and Style  2.4 The Legacy of Amalek and the Writing of History Part 2: A Reading of Paul IV’s Pontificate (1555–59) 3 Paul IV and Papal Policy towards the Jews  3.1 Marcellus II and the Alleged Blood Libel against the Jews of Rome  3.2 Paul IV’s Election to the Papal Throne (1555)  3.3 “Since It Is Absurd …”  3.4 The Burning at the Stake of the Portuguese Conversos in Ancona (1556) 4 Between the Centre and the Periphery of the Papal States  4.1 The Strengthening of the Roman Inquisition  4.2 The Pope’s War with Spain (1556–57)  4.3 The Exile of the Carafas and the Creation of the Sacro Consiglio  4.4 The Government of the Marca and Its Jews (1557–59) 5 Arrest and Imprisonment of the Jews of Civitanova Marche  5.1 “Dangerous Bonds”: Neophytes, Slanderers, and “Jewish Dogs”  5.2 From Civitanova Marche to Rome  5.3 The Inquisition Prisons at Ripetta 6 From Paul IV “the Evil” to Pius IV “the Merciful”  6.1 Sickness and Death of Paul IV  6.2 The Vacancy of the Holy See  6.3 Pius IV’s Election and the Fall of the House of Carafa Part 3: The Text Preface to the Edition and Annotated English Translation  The Manuscript and Isaiah Sonne’s Edition  Notes and Abbreviations  List of Hebrew Abbreviations (רשימת הקיצורים) Hebrew Text and English Translation Facsimile of NLI, Ms. Heb. 8°984 Documentary Appendix  Archival Documents  Chronology of the Events Reported in the Chronicle Bibliography  Archival and Manuscript Sources  Primary Sources  Studies and Reference Works Index of Names and Places

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Book SynopsisThe Ancient Sefer Torah of Bologna: Features and History contains studies on the most ancient, complete Pentateuch scroll known to date. It was considered in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance as the archetypal autograph written by Ezra the Scribe. The scroll was rediscovered by Mauro Perani in 2013 at the University Library of Bologna. In this volume, leading specialists study the history, textual and material features, and different halakhot or norms to copy a Sefer Torah, as adopted in the pre-Maimonidean scrolls. The Hebrew text is very close to the Aleppo codex, and the scroll was probably copied in Northern Iberia in ca. 1200 CE. The scroll contains letters with special shapes and tagin linking its production with a Jewish milieu which associated the scribal tradition with mystical and esoteric meanings. Besides its codicological and palaeographical interest, the "Ezra scroll" has been preserved for centuries among the treasures of the Dominican convent of San Domenico in Bologna and, in the early modern period, it was the object of reverence and curiosity among the Christians, before being almost entirely forgotten after its confiscation by the French revolutionary troops. This volume presents a detailed overview of the fascinating history and the peculiar makings of this remarkable artefact.Table of ContentsPreface Part 1: History and Vicissitudes of the Bologna Ancient Sefer Torah 1 The Many Lives of the ‘Bible of Esdras’: Proposals for a Long-term Investigation  Rita De Tata 2 The “Ezra Scroll” of Bologna: Vicissitudes of an Archetype between Memory and Oblivion  Saverio Campanini Part 2: Writing, Textual and Paratextual Features of the Bologna Scroll 3 Textual and Para-textual Devices of the Ancient Proto-Sephardic Bologna Torah Scroll  Mauro Perani 4 The Making of the Bologna Scroll: Palaeography and Scribal Traditions  Judith Olszowy-Schlanger 5 The 12th–13th Century Torah Scroll in Bologna: How It Differs from Contemporary Scrolls  Jordan S. Penkower Part 3: Comparison with Other Ancient Sifre Torah 6 The Sefer Torah of Biella: History of the Unearthing and Initial Investigations  Amedeo Spagnoletto 7 Criteria for Dating the Sefer Torah Meran 1 and Its Peculiar System of Otiyyot Meshunnot  Josef M. Oesch and Franz D. Hubmann 8 The Torah Scroll Fragment from the Parochial Archives in Romont (Switzerland)  Justine Isserles, Josef M. Oesch and Franz D. Hubmann

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Book SynopsisIn Law’s Dominion, Jay Berkovitz offers a novel approach to the history of early modern Jewry. Set in the city of Metz, on the Moselle river, this study of a vibrant prerevolutionary community draws on a wide spectrum of legal sources that tell a story about community, religion, and family that has not been told before. Focusing on the community’s leadership, public institutions, and judiciary, this study challenges the assumption that Jewish life was in a steady state of decline before the French Revolution. To the contrary, the evidence reveals a robust community that integrated religious values and civic consciousness, interacted with French society, and showed remarkable signs of collaboration between Jewish law and the French judicial system. In Law’s Dominion, Jay Berkovitz has gathered and meticulously mined a dazzling array of rich and complex rabbinic texts and records from Western Europe during the early modern period, including the pinkas of the rabbinic court of Metz that he previously rescued from oblivion. What emerges is a remarkably fresh depiction and incisive comparative treatment of central aspects of Jewish law, religion and family, which will have far-reaching ramifications for all future studies in these disciplines. -Ephraim Kanarfogel, E. Billi Ivry University Professor of Jewish History, Literature, and Law at Yeshiva UniversityTable of ContentsContents Preface Acknowledgments Abbreviations Maps Introduction Part 1: Foundations 1 Writing Jewish History through a Legal Lens  Rabbinic Responsa Literature  Communal Registers (Pinkasim)  Lay and Rabbinic Court Records  Law as a Cultural System  The Production of the Metz Pinkas Beit Din 2 The Foundations of the Metz Kehillah  Return of the Jews to France and the Establishment of the Metz Community  Ritual and Identity  Material Culture  Economic Integration Part 2: Community, Governance, Authority 3 Communal Autonomy and Governance  Electoral and Administrative Procedures  Consumption and Social Status  Poverty and Social Welfare  Juridical Autonomy and Recourse to Non-Jewish Courts  Policing Religious and Cultural Boundaries 4 Lay and Rabbinic Judicial Authority  Lay and Rabbinic Tribunals  Sources of Law  Judicial Procedure  Functions of the Beit Din 5 Navigating the Challenges of Multiple Jurisdictions  Language  Production of Bi-lingual Documents  Patterns of Litigation in the Beit Din  Judicial Behavior of the Metz Beit Din  The Acquaintance of the Beit Din with French Law and Judicial Procedure  Navigating the Two Systems  The Impact of French Law on Rabbinic Jurisprudence Part 3: Family Affairs 6 Guardianship and Inheritance  Guardianship  Inheritance  Testamentary Charity 7 Women, Marriage, and Property  Betrothal and Marriage  Marital Property  Women in Credit and Commerce 8 Conclusion and Epilogue Glossary Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisHakol Kol Yaakov: The Joel Roth Jubilee Volume contains articles dedicated to Rabbi Joel Roth, written by colleagues and students. Some are academic articles in the general area of Talmud and Rabbinics, while others are rabbinic responsa that treat an issue of contemporary Jewish law. These articles reflect the unique and integrated voice and vision that Joel Roth has brought to the American Jewish community.Table of ContentsPreface Acknowledgements Notes on Contributors List of Donors Appreciation  Arnold M. Eisen, Philip Scheim and Mitchell Cohen To Our Father  Ariel Roth, on behalf of the Roth Children Bibliography of the Writings of Rabbi Joel Roth  Noah Bickart and Akiva Roth 1 Halakhah, Theology and Psychology: The Case of Maimonides and Obadiah the Proselyte  Eliezer Diamond 2 Providing References for Schools or Jobs, HM 28:1.2014  Elliott Dorff and Marc Gary 3 Mikveh and the Sanctity of Being Created Human  Susan Grossman 4 On the Recitation of “Amen” between Ge’ulah and Tefillah of the Shaharit Service  Robert A. Harris 5 Nishmat Kol Hai: A Literary and Spiritual Commentary  Jeff Hoffman 6 Mar’it Ozen: From the Ancient Water-mill to Automated Electronic Devices  Joshua Kulp and Jason Rogoff 7 Who Gets a Voice at the Table?: Eating and Blessing with Rav Naḥman  Marjorie Lehman 8 Contemporary Criteria for the Declaration of Death  Daniel S. Nevins 9 Big Data Meets the Shulḥan Arukh  Michael Pitkowsky 10 The Joint Bet Din of the Conservative Movement  Mayer E. Rabinowitz 11 Balancing Rabbinic Authority and Personal Freedom in the Modern Age  Avram Israel Reisner and Murray Singerman 12 The Death of Rabbi Eliezer: Bavli Sanhedrin 68a  Jeffrey L. Rubenstein 13 Ve-Shuv Limlakhah u-Shvut: An Older Theoretical Framework  Marcus Mordecai Schwartz 14 From Confidence to Confusion: Structure and Meaning in Psalm 27  Benjamin D. Sommer 15 Elucidating Talmudic suryaqe—an Exercise in Talmudic Lexicography  Shamma Friedman 16 Open Ye the Gates: Procedure for Returning the Torah to the Ark  Joseph H. Prouser 17 היגיון ולשון: התפתחותה של סוגית ״אתי דיבור ומבטל דיבור״  נח בנימין ביקרט 18 תשובה בעניין ביקורת המקרא  דוד גולינקין 19 עיון בסוגיית ״הוא לפדות ובנו לפדות״ (בכורות מט ע״ב)  י״ש מילגראם 20 רבי משה יהודה עבאס—חכם שנשכח: על קורותיו וכתביו שטרם ראו אור  שמואל גליק Index

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Book SynopsisThe history of the Palestine War does not only concern military history. It also involves social, humanitarian and religious history, as in the case of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Jerusalem. A Liminal Church offers a complex narrative of the Latin patriarchal diocese, commonly portrayed as monolithically aligned with anti-Zionist and anti-Muslim positions during the “long” year of 1948. Making use of largely unpublished archives in the Middle East, Europe and the United States, including the recently released Pius XII papers, Maria Chiara Rioli depicts a church engaged in multiple and sometimes contradictory pastoral initiatives, amid harsh battles, relief missions for Palestinian refugees, theological reflections on Jewish converts to Catholicism, political relations with the Israeli and Jordanian authorities, and liturgical responses to a fluid and uncertain scenario. The pieces of this history include the Jerusalem grand mufti’s appeal to Pius XII to support the Arab cause, the Catholic liturgies for peace and international mobilization during the Palestine War and Suez crisis, refugees petitioning the patriarch for aid, and Jewish converts establishing Christian kibbutzim. New archival collections and records reveal hidden aspects of the lives of women, children and other silenced actors, faith communities and religious institutions during and after 1948, connecting narratives that have been marginalized by a dominant historiography more focused on military campaigns or confessional conflicts. A Liminal Church weaves diocesan history with global history. In the momentous decade from 1946 to 1956, the study of the transnational Jerusalem Latin diocese, as split between Israel, Jordan, Egypt and Cyprus, with ties to diaspora and religious international networks and comprising clergy from all over the world, attests to the possibilities of contrapuntal narratives, reintroducing complexity to a deeply and painfully polarized debate, exposing false assumptions and situating changes and ruptures in a long-term perspective.Table of ContentsList of Figures and Map Abbreviations Note on Transliteration Introduction: From Jerusalem to the Archives Prologue: Nostalgia for an Invented Past and Concern for the Future: the Latin Diocese of Jerusalem from Its Reestablishment to the Second World War (1847–1945) 1 Palestine and Transjordan in Transition (1945–47) 2 Into the Breach 3 A “Wounded” Diocese: the Patriarchate of Refugees 4 After 1948: the Difficult Mediation 5 The Association of Saint James and the Foundation of a Hebrew-Christian Church in Israel 6 Between Rome and Jerusalem 7 Cults and Politics in the Shadow of Holy Places 8 1956: a Hinge Year Epilogue: Opening a New Phase: Toward the Second Vatican Council and the 1967 War Conclusion: From the Archives to Jerusalem Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisKabbalah in America includes chapters from leading experts in a variety of fields and is the first-ever comprehensive treatment of the title subject from colonial times until the present. Until recently, Kabbalah studies have not extensively covered America, despite America’s centrality in modern and contemporary formations. There exist scattered treatments, but no inclusive expositions. This volume most certainly fills the gap. It is comprised of 21 articles in eight sections, including Kabbalah in Colonial America; Nineteenth-Century Western Esotericism; The Nineteenth-Century Jewish Interface; Early Twentieth-Century Rational Scholars; The Post-War Counterculture; Liberal American Denominationalism; Ultra-Orthodoxy, American Hasidism and the ‘Other’; and Contemporary American Ritual and Thought. This volume will be sure to set the tone for all future scholarship on American Kabbalah.Table of ContentsAcknowledgments List of Contributors 1 Introduction: On the Formation of Research on Kabbalah in America  Brian Ogren Part 1: Kabbalah in Colonial America 2 “They Have with Faithfulnesse and Care Transmitted the Oracles of God unto us Gentiles”: Jewish Kabbalah and Text Study in the Puritan Imagination  Michael Hoberman 3 The Zohar in Early Protestant American Kabbalah: on Ezra Stiles and the Case for Jewish-Christianity  Brian Ogren Part 2: Nineteenth-Century Western Esoteric Trends 4 The Abyss, the Oversoul, and the Kabbalistic Overtones in Emerson’s Work: Tracing the Pre-Freudian Unconscious in America  Clémence Boulouque 5 The Qabbalah of the Hebrews and the Ancient Wisdom Religion of Asia: Isaac Myer and the Kabbalah in America  Boaz Huss 6 Kabbalah in the Ozarks: Thomas Moore Johnson, The Platonist, and the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor  Vadim Putzu Part 3: The Nineteenth-Century Jewish Interface 7 A Kabbalistic Lithograph as a Populariser of Judaism in America—Max Wolff, The Origin of the Rites and Worship of the Hebrews (New York, 1859)  Peter Lanchidi 8 Isidor Kalisch’s Pioneering Translation of Sepher Yetsirah (1877) and Its Rosicrucian Legacy  Jonathan D. Sarna Part 4: Early Twentieth-Century Rational Scholars 9 Pragmatic Kabbalah: J.L. Sossnitz, Mordecai Kaplan and the Reconstruction of Mysticism and Peoplehood in Early Twentieth-Century America  Eliyahu Stern 10 Solomon Schechter, Abraham J. Heschel, and Alexander Altmann: Scholars on Jewish Mysticism  Moshe Idel Part 5: The Post-War Counterculture 11 Jewish Mysticism as a Universal Teaching: Allen Ginsberg’s Relation to Kabbalah  Yaakov Ariel 12 Shlomo Carlebach on the West Coast  Pinchas Giller 13 Aryeh Kaplan’s Quest for the Lost Jewish Traditions of Science, Psychology and Prophecy  Alan Brill Part 6: Liberal American Denominationalism 14 American Reform Judaism’s Increasing Acceptance of Kabbalah: the Contribution of Rabbi Herbert Weiner’s Spiritual Search in 9½ Mystics  Dana Evan Kaplan 15 American Conservative Judaism and Kabbalah  Daniel Horwitz Part 7: Ultra-Orthodoxy, American Hasidism, and the ‘Other’ 16 The Calf Awakens: Language, Zionism and Heresy in Twentieth-Century American Hasidism  Ariel Evan Mayse 17 “The Lower Half of the Globe”: Kabbalah and Social Analysis in the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s Vision for Judaism’s American Era  Philip Wexler and Eli Rubin 18 To Distinguish Israel and the Nations: E Pluribus Unum and Isaac Hutner’s Appropriation of Kabbalistic Anthropology  Elliot R. Wolfson Part 8: Contemporary American Ritual and Thought 19 Kabbalah as a Tool of Orthodox Outreach  Jody Myers 20 Everything is Sex: Sacred Sexuality and Core Values in the Contemporary American Kabbalistic Cosmos  Marla Segol 21 Identity or Spirituality: the Resurgence of Habad, Neo Hasidism and Ashlagian Kabbalah in America  Ron Margolin

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Book SynopsisAntique Jewish art visualized the idea that the essence of God is beyond the world of forms. In the Bible, the Israelites were commanded to build sanctuaries without cult statues. Following the destruction of the Second Temple, Jews turned to literary and visual aids to fill the void. In this accessible survey, Shulamit Laderman traces the visualizations of the Tabernacle implements, including the seven-branch menorah, the Torah ark, the shofar, the four species, and other motifs associated with the Hebrew Bible and the Jewish calendar. These motifs evolved into iconographic symbols visualized in a range of media, including coins, funerary art, and synagogue decorations in both Israel and the Diaspora. Particular attention is given to important discoveries such as the frescoes of the third-century CE synagogue in Dura-Europos, mosaic floors in synagogues in Galilee, and architectural and carved motifs that decorated burial places.Table of ContentsContents Jewish Art in Late Antiquity State of the Research in Ancient Jewish Art Abstract Keywords  1 Introduction  2 The Cosmological Significance of the Tabernacle  3 Coins and Their Symbolic Language  4 Burial Architecture and Ornamentation  5 Ancient Synagogues in Palestine  6 Ancient Synagogues in the Diaspora  7 Synagogue Art – Decorating the Sacred Realm  8 Architectural Elements and Furnishings in the Ancient Synagogues  9 The Seven-Branch Menorah  10 Conclusions  Bibliography

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Book SynopsisThe Western Wall—Judaism’s holiest site—occupies a prominent position in contemporary Jewish and Israeli discourse, current events, and local politics. In The Western Wall: The Dispute over Israel's Holiest Jewish Site, 1967–2000, Kobi Cohen-Hattab and Doron Bar offer a detailed exploration of the Western Wall plaza’s evolution in the late twentieth century. The examination covers the role of archaeology in defining the space, the Western Wall’s transformation as an Israeli and Jewish symbol, and the movement to open it to a variety of Jewish denominations. The book studies the central processes and shifts that took place at the Western Wall during the three decades that followed the Six-Day War—a relatively short yet crucial chapter in Jerusalem's extensive history.Table of ContentsForeword List of Figures Introduction  1 Pilgrimage and Holy Places  2 National Sentiment and Holy Places  3 Research Methods and Approach  4 Western Wall Scholarship and the Present Volume 1 The History of the Western Wall before the Six-Day War  1 The Development of the Western Wall as a Holy Place  2 The Western Wall in the Modern Era (1799–1967) 2 Archaeology and Sanctity at the Western Wall and Its Surroundings  1 Razing the Mughrabi Quarter  2 The Battle over the Demolition of Homes in the Abu Saud Quarter  3 Archaeology near the Southwestern Corner of the Temple Mount  4 The Ministry of Religions and the Western Wall Tunnel 3 Politics in the Planning of the Western Wall Plaza  1 The Creation of the Temporary Plaza  2 The Design of the Western Wall Plaza  3 The Safdie Plan and the Related Disputes  4 The Shimron Committee Conclusions 4 The Western Wall as a National Israeli Symbol  1 Between State and Religion, or, Who Is Responsible for the Western Wall?  2 A Holy Place or a National-Historical Site?  3 The IDF and the Western Wall  4 Mass Prayer and Expressions of National Solidarity 5 Non-Orthodox Jewish Denominations and the “Women of the Wall”: a Struggle for the Right to Pray at the Western Wall  1 The Struggle over the Partition at the Western Wall Plaza  2 Reform Jewry at the Western Wall, July 1968  3 The Non-Orthodox, the Women of the Wall, and the Right to Pray in the Western Wall Plaza  4 Robinson’s Arch as an Alternative Prayer Site Summary and Conclusions: Past, Present, and Future at the Western Wall Plaza  1 Past and Present at the Western Wall Plaza  2 Planning and Development: How Should the Plaza Look?  3 Nation, State, and Religion at the Western Wall Plaza  4 Who Owns the Western Wall?  5 Past, Present, and Future Interwoven Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisIn Intention in Talmudic Law: Between Thought and Deed, Shana Strauch Schick offers the first comprehensive history of intention in classical Jewish law (1st-6th centuries CE). Through close readings of rabbinic texts and explorations of contemporaneous legal-religious traditions, Strauch Schick constructs an intellectual history that reveals remarkable consistency within the rulings of particular sages, locales, and schools of thought. The book carefully traces developments across generations and among groups of rabbis, uncovering competing lineages of evolving legal and religious thought, and demonstrating how intention gradually became a nuanced, differentially applied concept across a wide array of legal realms.Trade Review"Strauch Schick demonstrates profound expertise in textual criticism and manuscript traditions, and using these skills, offers a positivist reconstruction of the development of rabbinic concepts of intention. Strauch Schick’s work is characterized by her extremely careful readings of complicated legal texts. It is worth repeating this last point – these rabbinic texts are complicated; understanding them requires profound experience with rabbinic thinking as well as deep familiarity with modern legal categories. In this short but dense book, Strauch Schick expertly analyzes these rabbinic texts and brings legal theory to bear in understanding what the rabbis are doing." - Sara Ronis, in Hebrew Studies 63 (2022). "Schick’s work is an important contribution to the intellectual history of the talmudic period no less than to the study of the talmudic text itself. Her research is not only rich in demonstrating the value of redaction criticism for identifying the various strata of material in a text that has undergone a complicated editorial process, but it is successful in arranging those strata to tell a coherent story of legal and literary development within the edifice of rabbinic literature. By considering the broader intellectual contexts in which this development took place, she is able to make a case for influence which—while more speculative than demonstrative—is nonetheless compelling, shedding explanatory light on the rise of legal intention in the Babylonian Talmud." - Phillip I. Lieberman, in Journal for the Study of Judaism 54 (2023). "This very question is the subject of the technical but fascinating book, Intention in Talmudic Law by Shana Strauch Schick. (...) the Talmud rarely presents theories and general rules, preferring instead to teach through sample cases, debates, and never-ending argumentation. This results in a sprawling network of many opposing opinions and interpretations scattered over multiple works, time periods, and contexts. Yet, Schick successfully manages to organize this mass of material and chart the development of halakha on this topic from Tannaitic, to early Amoraic, to late Amoraic understandings, while also carefully distinguishing between the Sages in Israel from those in Babylonia." - Richard Hidary, in Tradition 55:1 (2023). "What the present work contributes is greater sensitivity to historical and cultural issues: we learn how various, mainly Babylonian, Amoraim extended the concept of intention, and we enquire whether and to what extent teachings of the Babylonian Amoraim relate to developments in Roman law, Sasanian law and other facets of contemporary culture. (...) this is a well-structured and clearly argued work which draws on the best of modern scholarship not only in its analysis of foundational rabbinic texts but also in assessing the development of rabbinic law within the context of the Greco-Roman and Iranian worlds." - Norman Solomon, in Journal of Jewish Studies vol. LXXIII, No. 2 (2022).Table of ContentsPreface Introduction 1 Summary of Findings 2 Previous Scholarship and Methodology 3 Methodological Concerns 4 Historical Context of the Bavli: Hellenistic, Christian, Zoroastrian 5 Outline of Chapters 6 A Note on Gender Pronouns 1 From Tannaitic to Early Amoraic Law: Contrasting Systems of Tort Law in the Yerushalmi and Bavli 1 Overview of Tort Law in Tannaitic Sources 2 M. Bava Qama 2:6: “A Person Is Always Forewarned”  2.1 Yerushalmi: R. Isaac on the Necessity of Fault  2.2 Bavli: Strict Liability 3 M. Bava Qama. 3:1: Exemption for Accidental Damages  3.1 Yerushalmi - Rav, Samuel and R. El’azar: Liability Determined by Fault  3.2 Bavli - Rav, Samuel and R. Yohanan: Strict Liability  3.3 Bavli and Yerushalmi: Identical Traditions, Divergent Rulings 4 Contextualizing Tort Liability in the Yerushalmi 5 Contextualizing Tort Liability in the Bavli 2 The Third Generation of Babylonian Amoraim: A Period of Transition 1 Overview: The Emergence of Competing Schools of Thought in Pumbedita and Mahoza 2 Pumbedita: Negligence and Deliberate Action in the Rulings of Rabbah  2.1 B. Bava Qama 26b-27a: Strict Liability and Negligence  2.2 B. Bava Qama 56a: Liability for Negligence  2.3 B. Bava Qama 28b-29b: Intent to Act 3 Mahoza: Negligence and Purposeful Action  3.1 R. Nahman: Purpose Defines the Prohibition  3.2 Mitasseq and Melakhah She- eina Tzerikha Le-gufa: Exemptions in the Laws of Shabbat  3.3 R. Hisda: Intention in the Fulfillment of Religious Precepts 4 Summary 3 The Fourth Generation of Babylonian Amoraim: A Period of Innovation 1 Overview 2 Pumbedita: Abaye  2.1 Challenge to Rabbah’s Strict Liability  2.2 Challenges Regarding the Laws of the Sabbath 3 Mahoza: Rava  3.1 Tort Law   3.1.1 B. Bava Qama 27b: Rights of Pedestrians   3.1.2 B. Bava Metzia 96b: Borrower’s Rights   3.1.3 B. Bava Metzia 83a: Borrower’s Oath   3.1.4 B. Bava Qama 62a: Guarding a Golden Dinar  3.2 Religious Law: Intention in the Laws of Sabbath 4 Rava in Contrast to Abaye in Religious Law  4.1 B. Sanhedrin 61b: Idol Worship Out of Love and Fear  4.2 B. Sanhedrin 74a-b: Martyrdom  4.3 B. Shabbat 72b-73a: Davar She-ein Mitkavvein  4.4 B. Menahot 64a: Action versus Intention 5 Rava’s Emphasis on Intention: Precedents and Parallels  5.1 Land of Israel Precedents  5.2 Parallels in Zoroastrian Literature 6 Rava’s Jurisprudence and Aristotelian Corrective Justice  6.1 Aristotle on Corrective Justice  6.2 Parallels with Rava  6.3 Reading Aristotle in Mahoza? 4 Mitzvot Ein Tzerikhot Kavvanah: Divorcing Ritual Performance from Intention 1 Overview: A Radical Change in Ritual Law 2 The Development of Mitzvot Ein Tzerikhot Kavvanah  2.1 The Mishnaic View: Shema, Shofar, Megillah  2.2 Early Amoraic Views: Accidental Immersion  2.3 Rava’s View 3 Rava’s Ruling in Context  3.1 The Bavli Context: Intent in Tort Law and Religious Violations  3.2 Cultural Context: Zoroastrian and Monastic Texts 4 Summary 5 Views in the Bavli after Rava 1 Overview: The Late Amoraim and the Bavli’s Redactors 2 Rava’s Students  2.1 Continuity  2.2 Innovation: Manslaughter 3 The Redactors  3.1 Intent to Derive Benefit/Pleasure: Davar She-ein Mitkavvein and Hana’at Atzmo 4 Summary Conclusion: Intentionality in Rabbinic Law in Historical and Cultural Perspective 1 Transitions from Subjective to Objective Standards in Legal Thought 2 The “Evolution” of Legal Systems 3 Intention and the Self 4 Intention, Argumentation, and Conceptualization Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThroughout history, Jews have often been regarded, and treated, as “strangers.” In The Stranger in Early Modern and Modern Jewish Tradition, authors from a wide variety of disciplines discuss how the notion of “the stranger” can offer an integrative perspective on Jewish identities, on the non-Jewish perceptions of Jews, and on the relations between Jews and non-Jews in an innovative way. Contributions from history, philosophy, religion, sociology, literature, and the arts offer a new perspective on the Jewish experience in early modern and modern times: in contact and conflict, in processes of attribution and allegation, but also self-reflection and negotiation, focused on the figure of the stranger.Table of ContentsList of Figures Notes on Contributors 1 Introduction   Catherine Bartlett 2 “The Penitents”: Attitudes of Jewish Society to Marranos in Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth-Century Safed   Eyal Davidson 3 The African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem: A Borderline Case   Michael T. Miller 4 Rights of the Stranger in Jewish Moral: Reactions to M. Lazarus’ Ethics of Judaism in Imperial Germany   Mathias Berek 5 The Origins of the Stranger: Georg Simmel’s “The Stranger,” Moritz Lazarus’ “Was Heisst National?” and the Jewish Question of the Fin-de-Siècle Period   Søren Blak Hjortshøj 6 The Jewish Stranger in Germany and America   Chad Alan Goldberg 7 (Friendly) Strangers in Their Own Land No More: Third-Generation Jews and Socio-Political Activism in the Present in Germany   Dani Kranz 8 “They Are Not My People”: Mysticism and Political Extremism in Henry Bean’s Script The Believer (2001)   Federico Dal Bo 9 Between Language and Ethnicity: Russian Jewish Writers in the Post-Soviet World, the Question of Self-Identification in Literature and Life   Olga Tabachnikova 10 Jews as Strangers, Strangers as Jews in the Twentieth-Century French Novel   Maxime Decout 11 Exorcizing the Stranger: The “Daughter of Germany” in the Contemporary Jewish Imagination   Efraim Sicher 12 Muslims as Brothers or Strangers? French Jewish Thinkers Confront the Moral Dilemmas of the French-Algerian War   Ethan B. Katz 13 The Christian Orphan as the Stranger in Nineteenth-Century European Jewish Fiction   Catherine Bartlett 14 The Strange Face and Form of the Stranger in Levinas   Benda Hofmeyr 15 Conclusion: Jews and Strangers. Perspective from History   Joachim Schlör Index

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Book SynopsisThis volume focuses on today’s kibbutz and the metamorphosis which it has undergone. Starting with theoretical considerations and clarifications, it discusses the far-reaching changes recently experienced by this setting. It investigates how those changes re-shaped it from a setting widely viewed as synonymous to utopia, but which has gone in recent years through a genuine transformation. This work questions the stability of that “renewing kibbutz”. It consists of a collective effort of a group of specialized researchers who met for a one-year seminar prolonged by research and writing work. These scholars benefitted from resource field-people who shared with them their knowledge in major aspects of the kibbutz’ transformation. This volume throws a new light on developmental communalism and the transformation of gemeinschaft-like communities to more gesellschaft-like associations. Contributors are: Havatselet Ariel, Eliezer Ben-Rafael, Miriam Ben-Rafael, Sigal Ben-Rafael Galanti, Yechezkel Dar, Orit Degani Dinisman, Yuval Dror, Sylvie Fogiel-Bijaoui, Alon Gal, Rinat Galily, Shlomo Gans, Sybil Heilbrunn, Michal Hisherik, Meirav Niv, Michal Palgi, Alon Pauker, Abigail Paz-Yeshayahu, Yona Prital, Moshe Schwartz, Orna Shemer, Michael Sofer, Menahem Topel, and Ury Weber.Trade Review“The book addresses a real gap in the understanding of most observers of the Israeli scene as to the role of the kibbutz in contemporary Israeli life and would be a valuable addition to any library”. Mindy C. Reiser, in AJL News and Reviews, December 2021 | January 2022.Table of Contents Preface  Contributors  List of Figures, Illustrations and Tables 1 Introduction: the Metamorphosis of a Utopia – What Next?  Eliezer Ben-Rafael 2 Outline of the Book  Orna Shemer Part 1: Economy, Organization, Employment 3 The New Kibbutz Economy  Eliezer Ben-Rafael with Menahem Topel 4 Changes in Organizational Behaviour – From Traditional to Renewed Kibbutzim  Yechezkel Dar and Shlomo Getz 5 From Work to Income: Employment and Entrepreneurship  Michal Palgi, Michael Sofer and Sibylle Heilbrunn Part 2: Community 6 Statuses in the Kibbutz  Merav Niv and Rinat Galily 7 Recognition, Redistribution, Representation: Women in the Kibbutz Today  Sylvie Fogiel-Bijaoui and Michal Palgi 8 Education in the Changing Kibbutz  Yuval Dror and Yona Prital 9 The Subjective Experience in the Transition from Crisis to Recovery  Havatzelet Ariel and Orna Shemer Part 3: Ideology and Politics> 10 Can a New Kibbutz Ideology Emerge in the Twenty-First Century?  Moshe Schwartz, Orit Degani Dinisman and Uri Weber 11 The Post-crisis Kibbutz and Its Relations with the Political Arena  Sigal Ben-Rafael Galanti, Alon Pauker and Michal Hisherik Part 4: Culture and Language 12 Between a Culture Community and Culture in the Community  Abigail Paz-Yeshayahu 13 Kibbutz: Local, Regional, and Israeli Judaism  Yuval Dror 14 Changing Languages of the Kibbutz Agenda along the Time-Continuum  Alon Gan 15 Linguistic Landscape in Kibbutzim: Speech Acts in Reverse  Eliezer Ben-Rafael and Miriam Ben-Rafael  Epilogue  Appendix: Selected Facts and Figures (2017)  Glossary  Index

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Book SynopsisThis Festschrift in honor of Professor Lawrence H. Schiffman, a leading authority on the Dead Sea Scrolls and Rabbinic Judaism, includes contributions by twenty of his disciples, each of whom is a scholar in their own right. The many subjects covered display a wide range of interdisciplinary approaches and will be of interest to students and scholars alike.

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Book SynopsisRepresenting Jewish Thought originated in the conference, convened in honour of Professor Ada Rapoport-Albert, on the theme of visual representations of Jewish thought from antiquity to the early modern period. The volume encompasses essays on various modes and media of transmitting and re/presenting thought, pertinent to Jewish past and present. It explores several approaches to the study of the transmission of ideas in historical sources, zooming in on textual and visual hermeneutics to material and textual culture to performative arts. The volume has brought together scholars from different subfields of Jewish Studies, covering thousands of years of Jewish history, who invite further scholarly reflection on the expression, transmission, and organisation of knowledge in Jewish contexts.Table of ContentsContents Acknowledgements Notes on Contributors Ada Rapoport-Albert: an Appreciation  Mark Geller 1 Introduction  Agata Paluch 2 “Letters of Thought” (otiyot ha-maḥshavah) and “Primordial Intellect”: from Ecstatic Kabbalah to Hasidism  Moshe Idel 3 Staging Hasidism: Representation of the “Yossele Schumacher Affair” in a Hasidic Yiddish Play Vi iz Yossele?  Wojciech Tworek 4 The Manuscript in Chabad: Joining Souls?  Naftali Loewenthal 5 Copying, Compiling, Commonplacing in Kabbalistic Manuscript Collectanea: Sefer Ḥesheḳ and the Kabbalah of Divine Names in Early Modern Ashkenaz  Agata Paluch 6 The “Munich Talmud”: an Exceptional Book of French Jews  Judith Olszowy-Schlanger 7 Moral Exegesis? Hermeneutics and Exegetical Strategies in Seder Eliyahu (Zuṭa)  Lennart Lehmhaus 8 Zodiacs of Heaven and Earth  Helen R. Jacobus 9 Playing Hide and Seek: Is There a Jewish Way to It?  Frank Alvarez-Pereyre Index

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Book SynopsisConverso and Morisco are the terms applied to those Jews and Muslims who converted to Christianity in large numbers and usually under duress in late Medieval Spain. The Converso and Morisco Studies series examines the implications of these mass conversions for the converts themselves, for their heirs (also referred to as Conversos and Moriscos) and for Medieval and Modern Spanish culture. As the essays in this collection attest, the study of the Converso and Morisco phenomena is not only important for those scholars focusing on Spanish society and culture, but for all academics interested in questions of identity, Otherness, nationalism, religious intolerance and the challenges of modernity. Contributors: Luis F. Bernabé Pons, Michel Boeglin, Stephanie M. Cavanaugh, William P. Childers, Carlos Gilly, Kevin Ingram, Nicola Jennings, Patrick J. O’Banion, Francisco Javier Perea Siller, Mohamed Saadan, and Enrique Soria Mesa.Trade Review“An important touchstone for scholars working on conversion and religious identity in the Iberian world.” Karoline P. Cook, Royal Holloway, University of London. In: Church History, Vol. 91, No. 4 (December 2022), pp. 921–923.Table of ContentsIntroduction  Kevin Ingram 1 The Council of Basel’s “De Neophytis” Decree as Immediate Cause of and Permanent Antidote to the Racial Purity Statutes  Carlos Gilly 2 Reforming the Church and Re-Framing Identity: Converso Prelates and Artistic Patronage in Fifteenth Century Castile  Nicola Jennings 3 Genealogy, Jewish Conversos, and Urban Conflict in Golden Age Spain. The Linajudos  Enrique Soria Mesa 4 Doctor Constantino’s Doctrina Cristiana: Divine Compassion and True Faith in the Work of a Sixteenth Century Converso Author  Michel Boeglin 5 Juan de Malara’s New-Christian Humanism  Kevin Ingram 6 The Converso Issue and Early Modern Spanish Historiography  Kevin Ingram 7 The Hebrew Bible, Jewish Tradition and the Redefinition of Catholicism in the Sixteenth Century  Francisco Javier Perea Siller 8 The Morisco in Mateo Alemán’s Ozmín and Daraja  Mohamed Saadan 9 Román’s Garden: Places, Spaces, and Religious Practice among the Moriscos of Deza  Patrick J. O’Banion 10 Morisco Double Resistance  William P. Childers 11 The Moriscos and the Christian Spirituality of Their Era  Luis F. Bernabé Pons 12 Serán Siempre Moros? Assessing Conversion During the Expulsion of the Moriscos  Stephanie M. Cavanaugh Index

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Book SynopsisIn Polish Jews in Israel: Polish-Language Press, Culture, and Politics Elżbieta Kossewska presents a study of the political history of Polish Jews in Israel and their cultural and intellectual achievements, with particular emphasis on the Polish-language press. The book describes Polish immigrants’ adaptation in Israeli society after World War II, and shows the shifting of emigrants’ attitudes and viewpoints against the backdrop of the Israeli political system. The book contains numerous testimonies, memoirs, and personal documents from Polish journalists and writers that have never been published before. These anecdotes, biographical curiosities, and fascinating details create an evocative and colorful picture of the lives of key figures of post-war Polish life in Israel.Trade Review"This book, originally published in 2015 by Warsaw University Press, is a highly scholarly volume, the product of meticulous and painstaking research, for the most part conducted in archives in Israel. The subject is an interesting and important one — addressing the larger questions of the path of emigrants toward integration and assimila¬tion in a new host culture through the medium of foreign language media in their native language. (…) With its extensive bibliography and detailed footnotes, Polish Jews in Israel is an invaluable reference source." - Mindy C. Reiser, Jewish Study Center, Washington, D.C., in AJL News and Reviews, February | March 2022, Volume II, No.6Table of ContentsList of Tables Introduction 1 Foreign Languages in Israel  1.1 The Status of Yiddish, Polish, and Hebrew  1.2 Language and Press Policy  1.3 The Polish Language in Israel 2 Newspapers Published by the Progressive Party and the General Zionists  2.1 The Alliance of Jews from Poland in the Progressive Party  2.2 The Propaganda Policy of the Editors of Opinia  2.3 Nowiny [The News]  2.4 The Gomułka Aliyah 3 Mapai’s Press  3.1 Mapai’s Policy Towards Polish Journalists and Immigration  3.2 The Editorial Office  3.3 Clientelism  3.4 Language, Politics, and Propaganda  3.5 Nowiny versus Kurier  3.6 Nowiny-Kurier  3.7 The Lavon Affair and the Coalition Crisis 4 “Foreigners among Foreigners …” – The March Aliyah  4.1 Ambivalent Identity  4.2 Nowiny-Kurier vis-à-vis the March Aliyah  4.3 The Attitudes of Zionists and Postcommunists Towards the March Aliyah 5 Mapam’s Od Nowa  5.1 Mapam and the New Olim from Poland  5.2 Ignacy Iserles and “Homeless Themis”  5.3 Od Nowa – The Newspaper for Outsiders  5.4 Success with Readers in the Israeli Press  5.5 Between Commercialization and Weekly Opinion  5.6 Difficulties of Adaptation  5.7 Ethnic Politics and National Issues  5.8 Crisis 6 Walka – The Newspaper of the Israeli Communists  6.1 The Gomułka Aliyah and Maki  6.2 Walka  6.3 Controlled Adaptation of Communists  6.4 Israeli Communists and the International Communist Movement  6.5 March Epilogue: Biuletyn Związku Długoletnich Działaczy Ruchu Robotniczego  6.6 The Israeli Epilogue of Po Prostu and the Bund  Conclusion Glossary of Selected Terms Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisFragments of the Sixteenth-Century Nahuatl Census from the Jagiellonian Library: A Lost Manuscript provides a missing chunk of the sixteenth century Marquesado census—one of the earliest known texts in Nahuatl. In the critical edition of this manuscript, Julia Madajczak, Katarzyna Granicka, Szymon Gruda, Monika Jaglarz, and José Luis de Rojas reveal how it traveled across the Atlantic only to be lost during World War II and then rediscovered at the Jagiellonian Library, Poland. When connected to other surviving fragments of the Marquesado census, now held in Mexico and France, the Jagiellonian Library manuscript sheds new light on pre-contact and early colonial Nahua society. The authors use it to discuss the concept of calpolli, family life, and the production of administrative documentation in the early colonial Tepoztlan of today’s Morelos.Table of ContentsAcknowledgments List of Figures and Tables Abbreviations Introduction  Julia Madajczak Part 1: The Manuscript 1 The Berlinka Collection  Monika Jaglarz 2 Manuscripta Americana and the Provenance of Mss. Amer. 3, 8, and 10  Monika Jaglarz and Julia Madajczak 3 Mss. Amer. 3, 8, and 10 in Relation to the Marquesado Census Corpus  Julia Madajczak 4 Mss. Amer. 3, 8, and 10: The Scribes  Szymon Gruda 5 The Creation and History of the Tepoztlan Census  Julia Madajczak, Szymon Gruda and Monika Jaglarz Part 2: The People 6 The Jagiellonian Library Census Fragments in Numbers  José Luis de Rojas 7 Family Relations in Tepoztlan  Katarzyna Granicka 8 Administrative Structure and Social Groups in Tepoztlan  Julia Madajczak 9 Land and Tribute in the Jagiellonian Library Census Fragments  José Luis de Rojas Part 3: Transcription and Translation of the Jagiellonian Library Census Fragments 10 Glossary of Nahuatl Terms  Julia Madajczak and José Luis de Rojas 11 Conventions for the Transcription of the Jagiellonian Library Census Fragments  Julia Madajczak and José Luis de Rojas 12 Transcription and Translation  Julia Madajczak and José Luis de Rojas Index

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Book SynopsisBaghdadi Jewish Networks in the Age of Nationalism traces the participation of Baghdadi Jews in Jewish transnational networks from the mid-nineteenth century until the mass exodus of Jews from Iraq between 1948 and 1951. Each chapter explores different components of how Jews in Iraq participated in global Jewish civil society through the modernization of communal leadership, Baghdadi satellite communities, transnational Jewish philanthropy and secular Jewish education. The final chapter presents three case studies that demonstrate the interconnectivity between different iterations of transnational Jewish networks. This work significantly expands our understanding of modern Iraqi Jewish society by going beyond its engagement with Arab/Iraqi nationalism or Zionism/anti-Zionism to explore Baghdadi participation within Jewish transnational networks.Table of ContentsAcknowledgements List of Figures and Tables Abbreviations Transliteration Notes Introduction  1 Scholarship on the Jews of Iraq  2 Methods and Sources  3 Jewish Transnational Networks: Modernization, Globalization, and Secularization  4 The Jewish Communal Organization in Iraq  5 Outline 1 Nineteenth-Century Network and Connections  1 Secular Jewish Identity and Transnational Jewish Solidarity  2 Economic and Political Reforms  3 Nineteenth-Century European Influence: Iterations of Enlightenment  4 The Lay Council: Structural and Intellectual Forces of Modernity  5 Conclusions: Nineteenth-Century Networks and Innovations 2 Transnational Networks and the Baghdadi Diaspora  1 The Satellite Communities as a Baghdadi Diaspora  2 Historical Background  3 The Baghdadi Diaspora and Its Connection with Baghdad  4 Language Use and the Baghdadi Jewish Press  5 Financial Support and Philanthropy  6 Social Status and Mitigating Poverty  7 Changes in the Baghdadi World, 1941 to 1951  8 Conclusions: Lasting Influences in Baghdad 3 Transnational Jewish Philanthropy  1 Foreign Partners  2 Communal Budgets: A Mosaic of Actors  3 Conclusions: Philanthropic Diversity and Continuity 4 Jewish Education in Iraq  1 The Development of the Jewish School Network  2 Modern Jewish Schools  3 Curriculum: Multilingualism and Modernity  4 Linguistic Creativity and Cultural Diversity  5 Conclusions 5 Twentieth-Century Networks  1 Theosophy: Challenging Rabbinic Hegemony  2 E. Levy: Zionism, Foreign Press, and Censorship  3 Ibrahim Nahum: The Kadoorie Agent in Baghdad  4 Conclusions: Multiple Networks and Connections Conclusion 215  1 English and French as Transnational Jewish Languages  2 A Transnational Identity: The Baghdadi Community  3 The Emergence of New Jewish Identities Appendix A: List of Jewish Communal Organizations and Associations Appendix B: Baghdadi Population Estimates Appendix C: Ibrahim Nahum’s Letter to the Kadoorie Family, December 25, 1934 Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisRemembering the Holocaust in Germany, Austria, Italy and Israel: “Vergangenheitsbewältigung” as a Historical Quest offers an account on post-war coming-to-terms with the Holocaust tragedy in some European countries, such as Germany, Austria, and Italy. The subject has attracted more attention in recent years, since the long transition to liberal democracy seems to have put an end to the main theme of the memory of the Second World War. The main point of the volume is the making of a new generational memory after the “end of history”. What is to be done after the making of a globalised world? What about the memorialisation of the last century?Table of ContentsIntroduction: The Meaning of History: Coming to Terms with the Past  Vincenzo Pinto part 1: Articles 1 “Coming to Terms with the Past” or “Policy for the Past”? The 1950s West German Compensations for Holocaust Survivors and German Expellees  Iris Nachum 2 Austria’s Repressed Guilt in Theory and Practice  Claudia Leeb 3 Coming to Terms with the Holocaust with Reference to Memorial Monuments in Europe: A Comparative Analysis  Antonella Tiburzi 4 Theodor W. Adorno, Günther Anders, and the Representation of the End Time: Beckett at Auschwitz  Micaela Latini 5 “Against a Present that Places the Incomprehensible in the Cold Storage of History”: The Representation and Experience of Limit in Jean Améry and Primo Levi  Matteo Cavalleri 6 Between a Quest for a Heimat and Alienation: Jean Améry’s Journey after Auschwitz  Francesco Ferrari 7 “Denn fühlen die Mächtigen sich bedroht, so schlagen sie die Gerechten”: Looking at History in König David Bericht by Stefan Heym  Massimo De Villa 8 “Those Who Have Suffered Too Much Do Not Always Reason Well”: Primo Levi, Furio Jesi, and the 1968 Debate on Spiritual and Political Zionism  Carlo Trombino part 2: Testimonies Testimony 1: Does a Past Pass?  Gianerico Rusconi Testimony 2: The Meaning of Italian “Resistenza”  Alberto Cavaglion part 3: Appendices Appendix 1: The Meaning of Working through the Past  Theodor W. Adorno Appendix 2: Commemorative Event in the Plenary Hall of the German Bundestag on the 40th Anniversary of the End of the Second World War in Europe (Bonn, May 8, 1985)  Richard von Weiszäcker Appendix 3: A Letter to Monica (25th April 1983)  Primo Levi Coming to Terms with the Past in Postwar Germany: A Bibliography  Stefano Aliberti Index of Names and Places

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Book SynopsisThis innovative study shows how the imaginary constructions of self and Other are shaping identification with Jewishness in the twenty-first century. The texts and artworks discussed in this book test a diverse range of ways of identifying as Jews and with the Jewish people, while engaging with postmodern and postcolonial discourses of hybridity and multiculturalism. This book selects six key areas in which the boundaries of Jewish identities have been interrogated and renegotiated: nation, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, religion, and the Holocaust. In each of these areas Sicher explores how major and emerging contemporary writers and artists re-envision the meaning of their identities. Such re-envisioning may be literally visual or metaphorical in the search for expression of artistic self between the conventional paradigms of the past and new ways of thinking.Table of ContentsAcknowledgments List of Figures Introduction 1 Children of Partition: Inception of the Nation and Birth of the Hero  1.1 Birth of the Nation: India/Israel  1.2 Homing in and Out of Home  1.3 The Rupture of History: Blood Rituals  1.4 Parturition as Partition 2 Sephardism: Alternate Histories of the Americas  2.1 Romancing Sepharad  2.2 Sepharad in India  2.3 Postcolonial Sepharad  2.4 Crypto-Sephardism: Revealing in Order to Conceal  2.5 Sephardism in Blue: Finding Home in Multicultural Transnationalism 3 Bad Jews and New Men: Re-envisioning Masculinity  3.1 Bad Jews on the Rampage  3.2 Bad Jews on the Stage  3.3 Quiet! Loud Jews: Two Thousand Years  3.4 The J-Word  3.5 The Wicked Son  3.6 New Masculinities 4 Written on the Body: Re-envisioning Judaism in Contemporary Jewish Feminist Art  4.1 From Rubies to Rebels  4.2 Gendering the Jewish Female Body  4.3 Performing the Body  4.4 Jewish Vaginal Art  4.5 Re-envisioning the Text  4.6 Total Immersion: Mikveh Art  4.7 Signs on the Body  4.8 Writing (on) the Body  4.9 Erotic and/or Religious?  4.10 The Advent of the New Jewess 5 Jewish “Bad Girls”: Rebellious Daughters in Contemporary British Jewish Women’s Fiction and Film  5.1 Rebellious Bodies  5.2 Bad (Jewish) Girls  5.3 Naomi Alderman’s Disobedience  5.4 Charlotte Mendelson, When We Were Bad and Daughters of Jerusalem  5.5 Almost English, or How to Love in Hungarian  5.6 Jane Eyre Walks out of Shul: The Governess  5.7 Coming Out Jewish and Female 6 The “Daughter of Germany”: Desire and Power Relations in the Jewish Imaginary after Auschwitz  6.1 Inge: Daughter of Germany  6.2 Teutonia: “Negative Symbiosis”  6.3 Cristiane: Exorcising Auschwitz  6.4 Ilsa: Fetishizing Nazism  6.5 Suzanna: The Double  6.6 Tessa: The “Bad German”  6.7 Epilogue in Berlin: Entangled Histories Afterword: Instead of a Conclusion Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThis book is the only comprehensive treatment in any language of a rather “exotic” Balkan Jewish community. It places the Jewish community of Bosnia and Herzegovina into the context of the Jewish world, but also of the world within which it existed for around five hundred years under various empires and regimes. The Bosnian Jews might have remained a mostly unknown community to the rest of the world had it not played a unique role within the Bosnian Wars of the early 1990s, providing humanitarian aid to its neighbor Serbs, Croats, and Muslims. Watch Francine Friedman's presentation on The Jews of Bosnia and HerzegovinaTable of ContentsAcknowledgements List of Figures, Maps and Tables Terms, Definitions, Abbreviations and Acronyms Introduction: Like Salt for Bread  1 Bosnia and Herzegovina  2 Identity, Ethnicity, and Religion in the Lands of the Former Yugoslavia  3 The Jews of Bosnia and Herzegovina 1 The Sephardic Strand  1 Introduction  2 Early Jewish Settlement in Iberia  3 The Jews in Medieval Spain  3.1 The Visigothic Era  3.2 The Moorish Period  3.3 The Reconquista Period  3.3.1 Decline of the Jewish Position in Christian Spain  3.3.2 Conversos, the Crown, and the Inquisition  3.3.2.1 The Conversos  3.3.2.2 The Inquisition  4 Expulsion of the Jews from Iberia and the Journey to the Balkans  5 The Jewish Experience in Iberia 2 The Jews in the Ottoman Empire  1 Introduction  2 Iberian Jews Enter the Ottoman Empire  3 Sephardic Settlement in Bosnia and Herzegovina  3.1 Sarajevo  3.1.1 Jewish Settlement Patterns in Sarajevo  3.2 Smaller Bosnian Jewish Communities  3.2.1 Mostar  3.2.2 Banja Luka  3.2.3 Bihać  3.2.4 Travnik  3.2.5 Derventa  3.2.6 Bijeljina  3.2.7 Brčko  3.2.8 Žepče  3.2.9 Zvornik  4 The Ottoman Administration and the Jews  5 The Jews and the Ottoman Communal Organization  5.1 Dhimmıhood  5.2 Taxation of the Dhimmı  6 The Sarajevo Megillah  7 Ottoman Reforms and the Jews  8 The Jews in the Ottoman Economy  9 Bosnian Jewish Marital Customs  10 Bosnian Jewish Communal Organization  10.1 Religious, Social, and Cultural Administration  11 The Effect of Messianism on the Ottoman Jews: Shabtai Zvi  12 The Decline of the Ottoman Empire  12.1 The Effect of the Ottoman Decline on the Bosnian Jews  12.2 The Rise of Nationalism  13 Sephardic Culture in the Ottoman Empire  13.1 Judeo-espanjol  14 Spain and the Sephardim  15 The Jewish Experience in the Ottoman Empire 3 The Ashkenazic Strand  1 Introduction  2 Origins and Development of the Ashkenazim  3 Jewish Relations with Austro-Hungarian Society  4 Jewish Communal Administration  5 Austro-Hungarian Occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina  6 Bosnian Jewish Political Activity  7 Bosnian Jewish Demographic Profile  8 Bosnian Jewish Socioeconomic Life  9 Bosnian Jewish Communal Life  10 Bosnian Jewish Religious Life  11 Bosnian Jewish Cultural Life: Print, Media, the Arts  12 The Bosnian Jews under Austria-Hungary 4 The Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes/the First Yugoslavia  1 Introduction  2 The Balkan Wars  3 South Slavic Jews in World War i  4 The Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes  5 Bosnian Jewish Interwar Demographic Profile  5.1 Bosnian Jews in the Provinces  6 Relations between Bosnian Sephardim and Ashkenazim  7 Yugoslav and Bosnian Jewish Interwar Occupational Profile  8 Economic Situation of the Bosnian Jews  9 Bosnian Jewish Political Activity  10 Bosnian Jewish Communal Organization  10.1 Zionism  10.2 Integrationalism  10.3 Diaspora Nationalism  10.4 The Local Community  10.5 Communal Leadership  10.6 Communal Religious Organizations  10.7 Communal Religious Leadership  10.8 Schools and Language  11 Bosnian Jewish Cultural Activity  11.1 Jewish Newspapers  11.2 Jewish Artists  11.3 Jewish Authors, Essayists, Poets  12 Bosnian Jewish Social and Charitable/Humanitarian Organizations  12.1 La Benevolencija  12.2 Other Bosnian Jewish Communal/Humanitarian Organizations  12.3 Youth and Workers’ Societies  13 Bosnian Jews in the Spanish Civil War  14 Antisemitism in Interwar Yugoslavia  14.1 Bosnian Jewish Response to the Rise of Yugoslav Fascism  15 Bosnian Jews in Interwar Yugoslavia 5 World War ii  1 Introduction: The Collapse of Yugoslavia and the Rise of the Independent State of Croatia  2 Bosnian Jewish Demographic Profile in the Independent State of Croatia  3 “The Hunt for the Jews”  3.1 Bosnian Response to the Establishment of the Independent State of Croatia  3.2 Anti-Jewish Legislation  3.3 Honorary Aryans  4 The Rationale for Impoverishment of the Jewish Population  4.1 Theft of Jewish Personal Property  4.2 Appointment of Povjerenici for the Plunder of Jewish Businesses  4.3 Ustaše Control over Jewish Communal Organizations  4.3.1 Plunder of Bosnian Jewish Communal Property  5 The Sarajevo Haggadah During World War ii  6 Early Violence against the Jews  7 Bosnian Jews in the First Months of Occupation  8 The Catholic Church in the Independent State of Croatia  9 The Islamic Religious Community in the Independent State of Croatia  10 The Shoah in Bosnia and Herzegovina  10.1 Ustaše Establishment of Concentration Camps  10.1.1 Deportations of Bosnian Jews  10.1.2 Bosnian Jews in Concentration Camps  10.1.3 Number of World War ii Bosnian Jewish Victims  11 The Italian Zone  11.1 Jews in Italy’s Zone ii  11.1.1 Rab Concentration Camp  12 Jewish Participation in the Resistance  12.1 Bosnian Jews in the Partisans  12.2 Bosnian Jewish Prisoners of War  12.3 The Četniks and the Jews  13 The Handžar Division  14 Holocaust Survivors  15 Bosnian Righteous among the Nations  16 The Bosnian Jews in World War ii 6 The Communist Era  1 Introduction  2 Popular Identification and Its Impact on Bosnia and Herzegovina  2.1 Narod  2.2 Narodnost  2.3 Etničke Manjine  2.4 Evolution of the Concept of Narod  3 Bosnian Jewish Relations with the Socialist State and Society  3.1 Postwar Reconstruction of the Yugoslav Jewish Community  3.2 Jewish Industrial Property  3.3 Demographic Profile of the Bosnian Jewish Community  3.3.1 The Effect of Aliyah on Bosnian Jewish Demography  3.3.2 Occupational Profile of Yugoslav Jews  4 Post-World War ii Bosnian Jewish Communal Life  4.1 Jewish Communal Organization  4.2 Bosnian Jewish Communal Property under Socialism  4.2.1 Synagogues  4.2.2 Cemeteries  5 Bosnian Jewish Cultural Life  6 Yugoslav-Israeli Relations and Their Effect on Yugoslavia’s Jews  7 Antisemitism in Communist Yugoslavia  8 Visible Shoah Commemorations  9 Yugoslavia’s Interethnic Relations  9.1 The Collapse of “Brotherhood and Unity”  9.2 The Empowerment of Nationalist Leaders  10 The Yugoslav Crisis and Its Effects on Bosnia and Herzegovina  10.1 The Bosnian Leadership Crisis  10.2 Ethnic Politics in Bosnia and Herzegovina  11 The Bosnian Jewish Community at the End of Communist Yugoslavia 7 War in the 1990s  1 Introduction: European Nationalism at the End of the Twentieth Century  2 Ancient Ethnic Hatreds?  3 The Wars of Yugoslav Succession  3.1 Opening Shots of the Bosnian War  3.2 The Bosnian War  3.2.1 Sarajevo Besieged  3.2.2 The International Response to the Bosnian War  4 The Role of the Bosnian Jewish Community in the Bosnian War  4.1 The Rediscovery of Jewish Identity  4.2 The Reestablishment of La Benevolencija  4.3 The Bosnian Jewish Community in the Bosnian War  4.4 The Organization of the Jewish Community in Besieged Sarajevo  4.4.1 The Split Logistical Center  4.4.2 La Benevolencija-sponsored Programs  4.4.2.1 Magacin (Warehouse)  4.4.2.2 Women’s Section: Bohoreta  4.4.2.3 Health Service  4.4.2.4 Pharmacy  4.4.2.5 Clinic  4.4.2.6 House Visit Program  4.4.2.7 People’s Kitchen  4.4.2.8 Radio Station and Postal Service  4.4.2.9 Department for Cultural and Religious Questions  4.4.2.10 Computer Center  4.4.2.11 Evacuations  5 The Sarajevo Haggadah During the Bosnian War  6 Bosnian Jews in the Bosnian War 8 The Postwar Bosnian Jewish Community  1 Introduction  2 The Dayton Peace Accords and Their Implications  3 Characterization of the Bosnian War  4 Bosnia and Herzegovina and the European Union  5 Profile of the Postwar Bosnian Jewish Community  5.1 Synagogues and Cemeteries  5.2 Sociocultural Condition of the Bosnian Jewish Community  6 Bosnian Jewish Involvement in Postwar BiH  7 The Sarajevo Haggadah  8 The Bosnian View of the Shoah  9 Antisemitism in Bosnia and Herzegovina  10 Expropriation, Nationalization, Restitution in Postwar Bosnia and Herzegovina  10.1 Status of Bosnian Jewish Personal and Communal Property  11 The Claims Conference  12 Sejdić-Finci  13 Bosnian Relations with Israel  14 Future Prospects Bibliography Index 872

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Book SynopsisEliezer-Zusman of Brody: The Early Modern Synagogue Painter and His World discusses Jewish cultural and artistic migration from Eastern Europe to German lands in the first half of the eighteenth century. Focusing on Eliezer-Zusman of Brody, who painted synagogues in the Franconia area, hitherto neglected biographical aspects and work methods of religious artisans in Eastern and Central Europe during the early modern period are revealed. What begins as a study of synagogue paintings in Franconia presents an unexpectedly intensive glimpse into the lives and sacred products of painters at the periphery of Jewish Ashkenazi existence.Table of ContentsForeword Acknowledgements List of Illustrations List of Plates 1 The Painter Eliezer-Zusman of Brody  1 Signature Formulas  2 Origin and Vocational Training  3 Status and Personal Life  4 Itinerary 2 Eliezer-Zusman at Work  1 Underpainting, Binding Materials, and Pigments  2 Preparation of the Substrate and Color Laying Order  3 Copying Models  4 Inscriptions  5 Planning and Layout of Compositions  6 Textual Sources of Painting Themes 3 Eliezer-Zusman’s Workshop—the Unterlimpurg and Steinbach Synagogues  1 Underpainting, Binding Materials, and Pigments  2 Preparation of the Substrate and Color Laying Order  3 Copying Visual Models: Bechhofen and Horb Synagogues  4 Shared Visual Models: Kirchheim Synagogue  5 Copying Visual Models: Miscellanea  6 Inscriptions  7 Planning and Layout of the Composition  8 Textual Sources of Painting Themes  9 Re-examination: The Attribution of the Unterlimpurg and Steinbach synagogue Paintings to Eliezer-Zusman 4 Eliezer-Zusman’s Workshop—the Colmberg Synagogue  1 Underpainting  2 Copying Models  3 Consistent Placement of Motifs within the Decoration  4 Re-examination: The Attribution of the Colmberg Synagogue Paintings to Eliezer-Zusman 5 Continuing the Tradition of Synagogue Interior Paintings in Southern Germany and Alsace in the Eighteenth Century  1 The Georgensgmünd Synagogue  2 The Odenbach Synagogue  3 The Traenheim Synagogue  4 The Horkheim Synagogue  5 Summary Epilogue Bibliography Plates Index of Names Index of Places

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Book SynopsisThis volume is devoted to the texts, traditions, and practices of the Land of Israel from the end of the Second Temple period through late antiquity. Based upon a conference organized by the Yeshiva University Center for Israel Studies, this collection uses a range of critical methodologies and sources, including the Palestinian and Babylonian Talmudim, archaeology, and Samaritan and Jewish liturgical poetry. It presents a vibrant, complex, and multi-layered series of snapshots of rabbinic culture, written by leading contemporary scholars.Table of ContentsPreface List of Illustrations Contributors Part 1 Torat Erets Yisrael 1 Rabbinic Paleontology: Jewish Encounters with Fossil Giants in Roman Antiquity  Elisha Fine and Steven Fine 2 Tosefta Eduyot 1:1 On the Fear of Losing Torah and the Redaction of Tannaitic Materials  Michal Bar-Asher Siegal 3 Minhag and Popular Practice in Roman Palestine  Stuart Miller 4 The Roman Freedman and the Ḥalal: The Legal Models That Shaped Rabbinic Law on the Status of Converts in Marriage  Yael Wilfand 5 Shimon b. Shatah, the Donkey, and the Diamond: The Treasure and the Blessing, Law and Artistry  Nachman Levine 6 Whence Leprosy? An Inquiry into the Theodicies of the Tannaim  Shlomo Zuckier 7 Feasting, Fasting, and the Bounty of the Land: Rituals of Sukkot in Samaritan and Rabbinic Antiquity  Laura Lieber 8 Two Parallel Consolatory Poems for Tisha be’Av in Aramaic and Hebrew  Moshe Bernstein Part 2 Torat Erets Yisrael in Babylonia 9 The Motif of the Forgetting and Restoration of Law: An Inter-Talmudic Difference about the Divine Role in Rabbinic Law  Alyssa Gray 10 The Use of Literary Considerations as a Key for Assessing the Reliability of Memrot in the Babylonian Talmud: The Case of the Lo Shanu Ela Traditions  Barak Cohen 11 Cultural Attitudes towards Scent in the Interpretation of Isaiah 11:3  Meira Wolkenfeld 12 “And God Blessed Them”: Procreation in Palestinian Halakhah and Babylonian Aggadah  Shana Strauch Schick Part 3 Tributes to Yaakov Elman 13 Remembering Yaakov Elman ז״ל  Lawrence Schiffman 14 Perpetual Motion  Shai Secunda 15 Professor Yaakov Elman: A Talmud Scholar of Singular Depth and Scope  Shana Strauch Schick 16 A Tribute to Professor Yaakov Elman  Meira Wolkenfeld List of Yaakov Elman’s Publications Index

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Book SynopsisThis volume focuses on today’s kibbutz and the metamorphosis which it has undergone. Starting with theoretical considerations and clarifications, it discusses the far-reaching changes recently experienced by this setting. It investigates how those changes re-shaped it from a setting widely viewed as synonymous to utopia, but which has gone in recent years through a genuine transformation. This work questions the stability of that “renewing kibbutz”. It consists of a collective effort of a group of specialized researchers who met for a one-year seminar prolonged by research and writing work. These scholars benefitted from resource field-people who shared with them their knowledge in major aspects of the kibbutz’ transformation. This volume throws a new light on developmental communalism and the transformation of gemeinschaft-like communities to more gesellschaft-like associations. Contributors are: Havatselet Ariel, Eliezer Ben-Rafael, Miriam Ben-Rafael, Sigal Ben-Rafael Galanti, Yechezkel Dar, Orit Degani Dinisman, Yuval Dror, Sylvie Fogiel-Bijaoui, Alon Gal, Rinat Galily, Shlomo Gans, Sybil Heilbrunn, Michal Hisherik, Meirav Niv, Michal Palgi, Alon Pauker, Abigail Paz-Yeshayahu, Yona Prital, Moshe Schwartz, Orna Shemer, Michael Sofer, Menahem Topel, and Ury Weber.Table of Contents Preface  Contributors  List of Figures, Illustrations and Tables 1 Introduction: the Metamorphosis of a Utopia – What Next?  Eliezer Ben-Rafael 2 Outline of the Book  Orna Shemer Part 1: Economy, Organization, Employment 3 The New Kibbutz Economy  Eliezer Ben-Rafael with Menahem Topel 4 Changes in Organizational Behaviour – From Traditional to Renewed Kibbutzim  Yechezkel Dar and Shlomo Getz 5 From Work to Income: Employment and Entrepreneurship  Michal Palgi, Michael Sofer and Sibylle Heilbrunn Part 2: Community 6 Statuses in the Kibbutz  Merav Niv and Rinat Galily 7 Recognition, Redistribution, Representation: Women in the Kibbutz Today  Sylvie Fogiel-Bijaoui and Michal Palgi 8 Education in the Changing Kibbutz  Yuval Dror and Yona Prital 9 The Subjective Experience in the Transition from Crisis to Recovery  Havatzelet Ariel and Orna Shemer Part 3: Ideology and Politics> 10 Can a New Kibbutz Ideology Emerge in the Twenty-First Century?  Moshe Schwartz, Orit Degani Dinisman and Uri Weber 11 The Post-crisis Kibbutz and Its Relations with the Political Arena  Sigal Ben-Rafael Galanti, Alon Pauker and Michal Hisherik Part 4: Culture and Language 12 Between a Culture Community and Culture in the Community  Abigail Paz-Yeshayahu 13 Kibbutz: Local, Regional, and Israeli Judaism  Yuval Dror 14 Changing Languages of the Kibbutz Agenda along the Time-Continuum  Alon Gan 15 Linguistic Landscape in Kibbutzim: Speech Acts in Reverse  Eliezer Ben-Rafael and Miriam Ben-Rafael  Epilogue  Appendix: Selected Facts and Figures (2017)  Glossary  Index

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Book SynopsisAccording to Raúl González Salinero, the plurality of religious expressions within Judaism prior to the predominance of the rabbinical current disproves the assumption according to which some Jewish customs and precepts (especially the Sabbath) prevented Jews from joining the Roman army without renouncing their ancestral culture. The military exemption occasionally granted to the Jews by the Roman authorities was compatible with their voluntary enlistment (as it was in the Hellenistic armies) in order to obtain Roman citizenship. As the sources attest, Judaism did not pose any insurmountable obstacle to integration of the Jews into the Roman world. They achieved a noteworthy presence in the Roman army by the fourth century CE, at which time the Church’s influence over imperial power led to their exclusion from the militia armata.Trade Review"González-Salinero has written the sine qua non for any study of Jews in the Roman army. Anyone interested in ancient Jewish history, the Roman army, or indeed the question of the intersection of ethnicity and military service will benefit from reading this book." - Jonathan Roth, San Jose State University, in Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2022.11.25.Table of ContentsPreface List of Figures Introduction 1 Jewish Military Service in Hellenistic Armies  1 Precedents  2 Under the Ptolemies  3 Under the Seleucids  4 Apologetics and Historical Reality 2 Jewish Exemptions from Military Service in the Late Republic and the Augustan Principate  1 Jews and the Recruitment of Auxilia  2 Military Exemption as a Jewish Privilege  3 A Legal Precedent? 3 Jewish Soldiers in the Roman Army during the High Empire  1 Exceptional Recruitment  2 Jewish Troops in Roman Service  3 Material Evidence  4 Dura-Europos  5 The Presence of Jews in the Imperial Army: Conditions and Historical Evolution 4 During the Later Roman Empire  1 Material Evidence  2 Under the Christian Empire Conclusion Appendix 1: Violence and the Use of Arms on Sabbath Appendix 2: The Inscription of Rufinus the Soldier, from the Via Appia Pignatelli Catacomb (Rome) Appendix 3: A Critical Rereading of the Inscription of Flavia Optata Found in Concordia Prosopographic Map Sources Bibliography Analytical Index

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Book SynopsisThe Ma‘asé-Ester, “Esther’s affairs”, is a 14th-century Judeo-Provençal poem on the story of Esther, intended for a recital during the banquet for Purim. The short poem – recently discovered in the single manuscript that preserves it – is a new precious document that enriches a small corpus of medieval Judeo-Provençal texts. This book offers the first critical edition of the complete text accompanied by a detailed study of the sources and the language. It guides us in understanding why the story of Esther became such a popular theme in 14th-century Provence, and in what way the Avignon Papacy and the studies on Moses Maimonides influenced this literary novelty.Table of ContentsPreface Acknowledgements Editor’s Note Introduction  1 Judeo-Provençal Texts on Queen Esther: Dates and Context  2 Narrating Purim in Medieval Provence: Wine Songs and Prayers  3 Esther, an Inspirational Example of Provençal Jews  4 Roman d’ Esther: Text, Author, Audience  5 Biblical Inspiration and Jewish Themes  6 Romanz and Romance Themes  7 The Omniscient Author, the Modernization and the Irony  8 Maʿasé-Ester or “Esther’s Affairs”  9 Text, Content and Style  10 Metrical Structure  11 Between Oral Tradition and Authorial Rearrangement  12 A Text in Search of an Author The Maʿasé-Esther: Text and Commentary 1 The Text 2 Alterations in the Manuscript 3 Maʿasé-Esther  1 Text  2 Notes to the Text 4 Linguistic Study  1 Phonetics: Vocalism  2 Phonetics: Consonantism  3 Morphology  4 Syntax  5 Vocabulary 5 Glossary of Provençal Terms 6 Glossary of Hebrew Terms 7 Transcription of the Manuscript Text 8 Transcription in Latin Letters 9 The Codex unicus  1 The ms. Rome, Casanatense 3140  2 Physical Description of the Manuscript and the Scripts  3 Structure  4 State of Preservation  5 Decorations, Notes and Annotations to the Text  6 A Composite Manuscript  7 Story of a Book and of the Person Who Wrote it  8 Watermarks  9 Ms. Rome, Casanatense 3140: Photo-Reproductions of Fols. 190v–192r Bibliography Index of Special Terms

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Book SynopsisWriting in the late 19th century, Mózes Salamon, rabbi of a small Hungarian community, hoped to convince his fellow rabbis to recognize women as equally privileged members of the People Israel. The result was his The Path of Moses: A Scholarly Essay on the Case of Women in Religious Faith, a ground-breaking enquiry into the causes of women’s exclusion from most of Judaism’s religious practices. Predating contemporary feminism, it gave early expression to ideas found in today’s religious feminist critique of women’s role in Judaism, thus undermining attempts to dismiss those ideas as shallowly mimicking fashionable secular opinion. The Path of Moses is here published for the first time in English, accompanied by the Hebrew original, an introduction, and commentary.Table of ContentsAcknowledgments Preface Introduction  1 The Significance of Netiv Moshe: Maamar Mehkari ʿal Mishpat haNashim baEmunah  2 Historical Background  3 Rabbi Mózes Salamon (1838–1912)  4 Netiv Moshe: Maamar Mehkari ʿal Mishpat haNashim baEmunah  5 The Roots of Gender Inequality in Judaism  6 The Main Arguments  7 Examples of Gender Inequality  8 Outstanding Women  9 Closing Remarks  10 Notes on the Translation English Translation and Hebrew Original Translator’s Notes to the Text Glossary Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThe main contribution of this book is that it tries to determine how the Jews answered the challenges of Roman society. Thus, the book presents a refreshing approach to the nature of the Roman attitude toward Judaism and the Jews. In addition, it provides the first detailed examination of the demography and geography of the Jewish communities in Roman Italy. The book also offers a new look at the legal standing of the Jewish communitarian organization. Last but not least, this study also addresses the various facets of the culture of the Jews living in Roman Italy.Table of ContentsPreface List of Figures About the Author Introduction: The Jews of Roman Italy—A New Study  0.1 What Is Unique  0.2 Methodology  0.3 Primary Sources  0.4 Judeophobia versus Xenophobia 1 The Urban Geography and the Demographic Development of the Jewish Settlement in Imperial Rome: A Diachronic Overview  1.1 The Jewish Settlement during the Republic  1.2 The Jewish Settlement during the Early Empire  1.3 The Jewish Settlement in Late Antiquity 2 The Legal Status of the Jews in Roman Italy  2.1 The Legal Framework of the Jewish Community  2.2 The Legal Framework of the Jewish Community in the Early Empire  2.3 The Legal Framework of the Jewish Community in the Late Empire  2.4 Crossing the Border: Conversion to Judaism 3 Jewish Social Life in Roman Italy  3.1 The Onomasticon of the Jews of Roman Italy  3.2 The Social Spectrum and Occupational Framework of the Jews in Imperial Rome and Ostia 4 Reframing Judaism in Roman Italy  4.1 Jewish Apologetics in Roman Italy  4.2 The Religious Liturgy of the Jews in Roman Italy  4.3 Burying the Dead  4.4 Rediscovering a Nonfigurative Language: Jewish Art in Roman Italy 5 The Jewish Revolt: Jews and Judaism in Roman Imperial Ideology  5.1 Josephus and the Triumph of the Flavians  5.2 The Jewish War, Flavian Ideology, and Rome’s Urban Renewal 6 Conclusion: The History of Jews in Italy Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisIn this volume, Alessandro Grazi offers the first intellectual biography of the Italian Jewish writer and politician David Levi (1816-1898). In this intriguing journey through the mysterious rites of Freemasonry and the bizarre worldviews of Saint-Simonianism, you can discover Levi’s innovative interpretation of Judaism and its role in modernity. As a champion of dialogue with Catholic intellectuals, Levi’s importance transcends the Jewish world. The second part of the book presents an unpublished document, Levi’s comedy “Il Mistero delle Tre Melarancie”, a phantasmagorical adventure in search of his Jewish identity, with an English translation of its most relevant excerpt.Table of ContentsPreface Acknowledgements List of Illustrations Introduction  1 The Book’s Structure  2 Methodological Premise 1 A Life of Action: David Levi’s Biographical Traits Against Their Historical Background 2 David Levi’s oeuvre 3 Enlightenment and Secularity Mark the Way  1 Freemasonry and Secret Societies as Catalysts of Italian Jews During the Risorgimento  2 David Levi’s Affiliation with Freemasonry and Giovine Italia  3 “Socialismo risorgimentale”: Saint-Simonism as the Core of Levi’s View  4 David Levi and the Role of Women in Modern Society 4 A Particular Relationship to the Wissenschaft des Judentums 5 David Levi’s Literary Legacy Conclusion Contextualization of David Levi’s Il Mistero delle Tre Melarancie Appendix: Il Mistero delle tre Melarancie o La Commedia Eterna Fiaba e Realtà di Turandot  The Mystery of the Three Oranges Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisThis is the first book in English to discuss the changing attitudes of the Chilean Right toward Jewish immigrants and the State of Israel from the 1930s onwards. Jewish Chileans have ascended rapidly from the status of undesirable immigrants to middle and upper-middle class, facing less obstacles than their Argentine coreligionists. Particular emphasis is given to the failed struggle to extradite war criminal Walther Rauff and to the years of the military dictatorship headed by General Augusto Pinochet. By the 1970s, Israel seemed a strong pro-Western barrier to the expansion of communism and Islamic fundamentalism.Table of ContentsAcknowledgments List of Illustrations Abbreviations Introduction  1 Antisemitism in Chile and Latin America  2 The Chilean Right  3 The Jews of Chile  4 Questions and Hypothesis  5 Methodology and Timespan  6 Book Structure  7 Archives and Sources Part 1: Acceptable Undesirables (1932–40) 1 The Actors  1 Right-Wingers  2 Immigrants  3 Jews 2 The Attitudes  1 Indifference and Hostility: The Right-Wing Establishment’s Negative Attitudes toward Jews  2 Humanitarianism and Pragmatism: The Right-Wing Establishment’s Positive Attitudes toward Jews  3 Other Actors, Similar Attitudes? Views of Less Established Right-Wingers on the “Jewish Question”  4 Silence, Suspicion, and Acceptance: Attitudes of Right-Wing Priests, Military Officers, and Intellectuals toward Jews  5 Conclusion of Part 1: How Unique Were Chilean Right-Wing Attitudes toward Jews? Part 2: Respected Businessmen (1958–78) 3 Right-Wingers and Jews in Jorge Alessandri’s Chile (1958–64)  1 The Old Is Dying, and the New Cannot Be Born  2 Professionals, Zionists, and New Immigrants  3 The Rauff Affair 4 Years of Reform (1964–73)  1 The New Is Born  2 Leftists, Right-Wingers, and Zionists  3 Another Test of Right-Wing Attitudes toward Jews 5 A Community Working for Progress (1973–78)  1 Military and Civilian Right-Wingers  2 Jews under Military Rule  3 Military and Civilians on Jews and Israel  4 Conclusion of Part 2: Right-Wing Attitudes toward Jews on Both Sides of the Andes—a Comparison with Argentina Epilogue: The Plebiscite, the Nazi, and the Jewish Aides (1988)  1 Changes  2 Continuities  3 Allosemitism in the Andes Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisAll can agree that the achievement of Moses Maimonides (d. 1204) set the standard for subsequent works of “Jewish philosophy”. But just what were the contours of philosophical-scientific inquiry that Maimonides replaced? A fairly large array of diverse texts have been studied, but no comprehensive picture has yet emerged. The newly discovered Hebrew dialogue published here has points of contact of various depth with most of the major works of pre-Maimonidean thought. It shares as well influences from without, especially from the Islamic kalam. The dialogue thus presents, in an engaging literary form, a clear and detailed snapshot of pre-Maimonidean philosophy and science.Table of ContentsAcknowledgements 1 Introduction: Situating Pre-Maimonidean Jewish Philosophy  1 The Manuscript  2 The Dialogue between Intellect and Soul 2 Conspectus 3 The Historical-Philosophical Context: Pre-Maimonidean Jewish Thought in the Iberian Peninsula  1 Contemporaneous Jewish Sources  2 Pairs of Opposites as a Fundamental Feature of the Created Universe  3 The Mystical Death Wish  4 Greek Sources  5 Islamic Sources: The Kalam  6 Polemical Targets  7 Conclusions 4 Transcription, Translation, Innovation  1 Transcriptions  2 New Translations Announced by the Dialogue  3 Din and ḥoq  4 Innovative or Unusual Usages of Hebrew Word Forms  5 yesh: Issues of Syntax and Meaning Text and Translation Bibliography Indices

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Book SynopsisIn the first book-length study of Takkanot Kandiyah, Martin Borýsek analyses this fascinating corpus of Hebrew texts written between 1228 –1583 by the leaders of the Jewish community in Candia, the capital of Venetian Crete. Collected in the 16th century by the Cretan Jewish historian Elijah Capsali, the communal byelaws offer a unique perspective on the history of a vibrant, culturally diverse Jewish community during three centuries of Venetian rule. As well as confronting practical problems such as deciding whether Christian wine can be made kosher by adding honey, or stopping irresponsible Jewish youths disturbing religious services by setting off fireworks in the synagogue, Takkanot Kandiyah presents valuable material for the study of communal autonomy and institutional memory in pre-modern Jewish society.

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Book SynopsisThis is the first book to explore the role of quotation in modern Jewish thought. Weaving back and forth from Benjamin to Rosenzweig, the book searches for the recovery of concealed and lost meaning in the community of letters, sacred scripture, the collecting of books, storytelling, and the life of liturgy. It also explores how the legacy of Goethe can be used to develop new strata of religious and Jewish thought. We learn how quotation is the binding tissue that links language and thought, modernity and tradition, religion and secularism as a way of being in the world.Table of ContentsAcknowledgements Introduction 1 The Life of Quotation  1 The Life of Quotation  2 Phenomenology?  3 Psychology or Archive Fetish?  4 Just More Derrida? 2 Myth, Language, and the Origins of Tradition  1 Innerlichkeit and New-Old Beginnings  2 Martin Buber and Innerlichkeit  3 Innerlichkeit and the Hebrew Bible  4 Buber’s Hebrew Humanism  5 Walter Benjamin’s Challenge to Buber  6 Benjamin and Nietzsche  7 Benjamin and Goethe  8 The Challenge of Lebensphilosophie  9 Franz Rosenzweig’s New Thinking  10 Between Bildung and Anti-Bildung  11 Rosenzweig and Nietzsche  12 Conclusion 3 Quotation as Heterodoxy: Walter Benjamin’s Karl Kraus  1 Benjamin’s Essay “Karl Kraus”  2 The Ur-Kraus: Benjamin’s Early Move to Language and Origin  3 Jewish Negation as Jewish Quotation: a Prolegomenon to Jewish Secular Identity  4 The Life of Quotation in Benjamin’s Kraus 4 Quotation as Pedagogy: Franz Rosenzweig’s Goethe  1 The Jewish Goethekenner  2 Using Goethe’s Poetics Hermeneutically: Quotation in the Introduction of the Star  3 From a Post-Goethekenner to a Premodern  4 Das Geflügelte Wort (the Winged Word): Rosenzweig’s Life of Quotation 5 Quotation, Experience, and the Secularizing of Life  1 Experience, Language, and Life  2 Quotation, Experience, and Hermeneutics  3 The Arcades Project: Quotation, Montage, and the Medium of Reflection  4 Jewish Thought, Quotation, and the Secularizing of Life 6 Quotation and the Liturgical Life  1 Jewish Books, Jewish Worlds, Jewish Words  2 Biblical Words, Living Words, Winged Words  3 Biblical Words, Dialogue, Commentary  4 From the Star to Liturgy to Life: a Forgotten Interlocutor  5 Rosenzweig’s Experience with Ismar Elbogen  6 The Influence of Elbogen’s Der jüdische Gottesdienst on Rosenzweig’s Star  7 From Scholarship on Liturgy to Philosophy and the Future of Judaism  8 Liturgy as Polemic and Propaedeutic: Petition and Temptation  9 Rosenzweig’s Application of a Jewish Liturgical Hermeneutic  10 Into Life Conclusion: The Life of Quotation and the (Re)Invention of Tradition Primary Sources Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisCredit is the oxygen of every society. In many cases we wonder why the rabbis prohibit certain business credit transactions considering them usury. The writer uses literary and epigraphic sources to decipher the rabbinic approach. This book shows how rabbinic legislation innovatively expand the Torah prohibition of usury in loans to all fields of credit. It is a pioneering inquiry regarding rabbinic literature compiled under Roman and Sasanid rule, helping to fill the void in research concerning credit. It also distinguishes various kinds of credit differentiating credit of money for money, or products, exposing the ramifications of the rabbinic legislation.Table of ContentsContents Preface Abbreviations 1 Introduction  1.1 Aims and Structure  1.2 Credit: A Definition  1.3 Sources and Methods  1.4 Previous Research, Manuscripts, and Editions  1.5 The Structure of the Book 2 Credit in Rome and Persia  2.1 Credit in the Roman World  2.2 Credit in the Parthian and Sasanian Empires 3 Credit and Usury in Jewish Society in Palestine and Babylon  3.1 Socio-Historical Background  3.2 Lenders and Borrowers in Jewish Roman Palestine  3.3 The Economy of the Jewish Community of Babylon  3.4 Types of Credit in Palestine and Babylon  3.5 The Rabbis’ Considerations: Social Justice  3.6 Credit in Jewish Society: The Problem of Interest  3.7 Expanding the Scope of Usury  3.8 Jews and Non-Jews 4 “Money for Money”  4.1 Introduction  4.2 Lending “Money for Money”  4.3 Usury in Loans of “Money for Money”  4.4 Business Partnership (Iska) 5 “Money for Fruit”  5.1 Introduction  5.2 “Money for Fruit”: Future Sales (Pesika)  5.3 Linking a Loan to the Price of a Commodity  5.4 Down Payments  5.5 Future Sales That Are Not Pesika  5.6 Loans against Deduction of Future Tithes from the Field  5.7 Summary 6 “Fruit for Money”  6.1 Introduction  6.2 Sale on Credit  6.3 Delayed Payment  6.4 A Cash Loan Presented as a Two-Sided Sale Transaction  6.5 Tarsha: A Talmudic Version of Delayed Payment  6.6 “Fruit for Money” in a Partnership  6.7 “Iron Flocks”: An Agreement to Ensure the Investor’s Capital  6.8 Transport of Merchandise Guaranteeing the “High Price”  6.9 Conclusion 7 “Fruit for Fruit”  7.1 Introduction: In the Roman World  7.2 “Fruit for Fruit” in Rabbinic Literature  7.3 “Fruit for Fruit” for the Purchase of Seeds  7.4 Additional Cases of Usury in Sharecropping  7.5 Paying Back a Prohibited Loan of “Fruit for Fruit”  7.6 Exchange of Services  7.7 Loan of “Denars for Denars”  7.8 Conclusion 8 The Sages’ Attitude toward Those Involved in Usury  8.1 Introduction  8.2 Expanding the Prohibition  8.3 Combating Usury  8.4 Repentance from Usury  8.5 Permission to Lend for Interest in Special Cases 9 Conclusion  9.1 Contributions to Scholarship  9.2 Epilogue Bibliography Index

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