“Jewish Studies" is published annually by the World Union of Jewish Studies (WUJS) and provides an outlet for the publication of articles, studies, documents and various other contents in Jewish studies. The journal publishes articles in Hebrew and in English, which undergo a review process. The journal focuses on studies of a methodological programmatic nature and reviews various areas of Jewish studies. The journal was first published in 1971 under the title "Newsletter of the World Union of Jewish Studies". Since 1996 it is published in its current form as "Jewish Studies - Journal of the World Union of Jewish Studies". In addition to articles, the journal publishes a section for recent WUJS news and publications, as well as reviews of new books published in the various fields of Jewish studies. The articles in the volume: Essays Resulting from the Session "Menahem Stern's Contributions to Research: Twenty Years after his Death" at the Fifteenth World Congress of Jewish Studies (2009) Daniel R. Schwartz - Menahem Stern as a Classical Philologist Albert l. Baumgarten – Menahem Stern as a Historian of the Jews in the Second Temple Period Isaiah Gafni – Menahem Stern as a Historian of the Mishnaic and Talmudic Periods Moshe David Herr – Menahem Stern as a Scholar of Jewish Studies and Litterae humaniores Yakir Englander and Orit Kamir – Body and Shame in the World of the Tannaaim and Amoraim Yechiel Tzeitkin – "The Straight Path which our Forefathers Followed": "Total" Interpretation of Biblical Narratives in Provencal Exegesis Ofer Elior – Rabbi Yom Tov Lipmann Muhlhausen Investigates the Sounds of the Spheres Shlomo Glicksberg and Shlomo Kassierer – The Halakhah and Meta-Halakhah Codification Debate: Rabbi Chaim ben Bezalel and the Maharal of Prague Margalit Shilo – "I Have Only Paradoxes to Offer" – The Case of Suffrage in the Jewish Community of Mandatory Palestine (1917-1926) New Books and Periodicals in Jewish Studies Manuscripts and Annotated Critical Editions Journals Anthologies, Jubilee and Memorial Books Monographs

“For my dear grandson, David, this book in which he will not always recognize – and not incorrectly - the God of his fathers”: Levinas’ dedication encapsulates the issues he addresses in the thirteenth essays collected in De Dieu qui vient à l’idée ( Of God who comes to mind ). In contrast with a whole tradition of Jewish and Christian philosophy (Juda Halevi, Blaise Pascal), Levinas’ God is nor “The God of the philosophers”, neither “the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob”. “God” is not an object of thought or of faith, He cannot be approached nor by rational knowledge, neither through dialogue, or religious and mystical experience. Basing himself on Husserl’s phenomenology as well as on Talmudic tradition and on the writings of Rabbi Haim Voloziner, Levinas focuses on the ethical meaning encapsulated in the word “God”. Despite his quasi absence, “God” - or the absolute transcendence signified by this word - is never indifferent to the “here below”, he is never detached from “terrestrial existence and from human society”, from the place where infinite responsibility for the other is incumbent on me. In addition to his insights on “God”, Levinas deals with issues such as politics, religion and language, the Marxist concept of ideology, death, hermeneutics, the concept of evil, the philosophy of dialogue. He addresses the thought of Husserl, Heidegger, Rosenzweig, Buber, Bergson, Kierkegaard, Marx, Ernst Bloch, and Derrida.

A 100 years after the Zionist congress decided to establish the university in Jerusalem (Vienna, 1913), this volume, the 4th in the series, is being published. The first three volumes were dedicated to the roots of the idea to establish a cultural and spiritual infrastructure of a national entity in the state of Israel and the founding of the university and it's progress during the steps towards an Israeli state. The first chapter in the history of this establishment ended when it was brought down from Mt. Scopus in 1948. The first volume of this series revealed to the reader the complexity of establishing this university through detailed and in-depth studies that dealt with the scientific, organizational and political aspects of the process. Only a small part of these studies were dedicated to the people behind the process. This volume lays before us the biographies of the first founders and professors of this university to make their mark on the establishment and development of the university during the mandate years. There are three parts to the book. The first part tells about the founders and designers of this institution and includes the people of action who accompanied it's setting up and enabled it's functioning. The second part is dedicated to the theoretical sciences: Humanities, Jewish Studies and the first researchers in the law and society fields. The third part brings us the biographies of the teachers and researches in the Mathematics and Experimental sciences fields. This book is dedicated to the people who arrived in Jerusalem under different circumstances from around the world. Thanks to their cooperation on Mt. Scopus, they enabled the fulfillment of an idea, first conceived in the second half of the 19th century, and turned into a successful reality during the settlement period.

This book presents three hundred pieces added by Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman (Nachmanides) to his commentary on the Torah when he made aliyah to Israel at the end of his life. The added segments were identified according to update lists sent by Nachmanides himself and others to the Diaspora, as well as on the basis of extensive comparative examination of all the hand-written transcripts of Nachmanides’ interpretation of the Torah found today in the world (about fifty in number). There is a comprehensive introduction at the beginning of the book, that discusses the phenomenon of the additions and analyzes the findings of the hand-written transcripts and surveys the reasons and for these additional pieces. The bulk of the book is comprised of interpretive discussions detailed in every piece, whose purpose is to clarify Nachmanides’ motives when making additions to what he first wrote. In the book itself – and the website that accompanies it – detailed information is presented about the additions and the evidence of them in the list of additions and the hand-written transcripts. The awareness of the commentary’s formation by those who studied the commentary, both at large and specifically for each particular piece, adds a new dimension to the commentary, and is a significant contribution to understanding the way of Nachmanides, to solving problems in his sayings and clarifying his intent. To this end, the book is a very important tool for scholars of Nachmanides, Torah learners and lovers. The book won the Yad Ben-Zvi prize, 2017

This volume, the first in the Notebook Series of the Martin Buber Society of Fellows, addresses the notion of authority in a set of multi-disciplinary and inter-cultural perspectives. The essays share a meditative quality, perhaps more accessible than the usual academic format would allow: a great mathematician reflects on the kind of authority mathematical truths can (and cannot) claim; historians explore shifting forms of institutional authority in different historical contexts; a linguist probes the authority implicit in the use of the second person singular in modern Hebrew oral narratives by soldiers serving in the territories; a political scientist offers an unsettling account of the largely fictive authority implicit in democratic systems and the role of science in rationalizing that authority; and so on. Many of the essays embody or give voice to the ambivalence endemic to issues of authority, which habitually arouses inner protest and resistance that can become authoritative in their own right. Wide-ranging, irreverent, and often highly personal in tone, these essays reflect the rich conversations and the sheen of intellection at the Martin Buber Society of Fellows.

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This fascinating work represents the peak of philosophical , allegorical interpretation of the Middle Ages. The book by Rabbi Levi rests on Talmudic , midrashic , halakhic , rich philosophical and scientific sources , and evokes admiration in its readers, who are left impressed by the scope of the author's knowledge and fertile imagination . Towards the end of the thirteenth century,the Provençal Jewish philosopher R. Levi ben Avraham wrote aunique treatise – an in-depth Hebrew encyclopedia of the sciences and of Judaism entitled LivyatḤen. R. Levi was known already in his lifetime as a leading exponent of the philosophical-allegorical interpretation of the Torah and of rabbinic midrash. In the Jewish part of his encyclopedia he deals with a myriad of topics, including Jewish ethics, prophecy, the reasons for the commandments, the stories of Moses and the patriarchs, the principles of faith, the Work of Creation, the Work of the Chariot, and the interpretation of rabbinic midrash and aggadah. Prior to LivyatḤenR. Levi wrote an encyclopedic poem of over 1000 stanzas in rhymed meter entitled Batei ha-Nepheshve-ha-Laḥashim. This poem is devoted to the same topics in science and Judaism that are later discussed in great detail in his treatise.

Avigdor Hurviz introduces a personal commentary of Proverbs that reflects his tendancy to recognize literary and structural characteristics and use them to analyze and interpret the text.

Israelis on the Move tells the story of young adults from the Former Soviet Union as they beat a path to Israeliness Based on analyses of their immigration stories, the book offers a new perspective in immigration studies that sees belonging as achieved not through the adoption of foundational national ethos of the new place, but rather through participation in local debates about this ethos . More particularly, the book examines the way in which the young immigrants shape their belonging to Israel through a reading of the homecoming ethos that awards them automatic citizenship. Based on an interpretation of instantiations of the homecoming ethos in everyday life, they form an affinity to their new home, construct their identity, and locate themselves within Israeli society. In doing so they are concerned with decoding, interpreting and critiquing the building blocks of the ethos: the memory of the Holocaust and anti-Semitism, military service, the new Jew, and allegiance to their new place. The book shows how the immigrants hold onto an ethos that promises them recognition and inclusion within the ethno-religious nation. At the same time, they resist the total demands Imposed by the ethos, and criticize Zionist premises that are considered as taken for granted . We term this double, interrelated movement critical belonging, a concept that suggests that the immigrants’ belonging to the new place does not entail the unconditional acceptance of local ethos, while at the same time implying that their critique does not entail their rejection of the new place or a retreat into socio-cultural enclaves.

The book of the community of Casale, the main community in Monferrato in northern Italy, is published here for the first time. The books that survived are among the earliest that came to us from Europe, and some of them have already been published in excellent scientific editions. This booklet, which sheds light on the life of a vibrant Jewish community, opens a window to the history of the Jews and their relationship with the Christian world in Italy in the late Middle Ages and the beginning of the modern era.

Kobez al Yad , an annual of the Mekize Nirdamim Society, is a forum for the publication from manuscript sources of ancient texts in Jewish studies that are shorter than book-length Contents From the Responsa of Rabbenu Migash from the Cairo Genizah published by Amir Ashur A Series of Paronomasia Poems by R. Berechiah ha-Nakdan published by Aviyah Una Baruchi "Ha-She'eilah ve-ha-Teshuvah" by R. Judah ibn Rokesh published by Doron Forte Philosophical Writings of R. Shemariah Ikriti: Sefer Amazyahu, Sefer ha-Mora, and Ra'ayah al Hisharut ha-Nefesh (A Proof for the Immortality of the Soul) published by Dov Schwartz Peri ha-Gan by R. Shalom ben R. Joseph Anabi published by Ofer Elior R. Isaac Aboab's Commentary to the Hermeneutic Principle of Kal va-Homer published by Aviram Ravitsky Quntres Pereq be-Shir by Joshua Benveniste: Hebrew Poetics in the Transition from the Renaissance to the Baroque published by Joseph Yahalom and Naoya Katsumata

Based on four years of ethnographic research the book offers an intimate, textured and rich depiction of contemporary life in one marginalized development town in the Negev . Placing the stories of five women at the center, the author (herself a Mizrahi woman born in a development town) depicts the creative strategies used by each woman in dealing with the multiple exclusions - gendered, ethnic, class-based, geographic marginalization - that these women have to deal with. The five paths include daily struggles to make ends meet and escape social isolation by one single mother who raises two children without the help of her drug addict partner; the investment in an increasingly more religious-observant lifestyle by another woman. The life stories of two other women are dramatized using texts these women wrote about their own lives. Experimenting with a range of writing styles we get a closer understanding of patterns of feminist rebellion at the margins and of a way of life that resists, adopts and refashions centrist narratives of what it means to be Israeli woman today. Readable, engaging and at the same time theoretically informed the book is a sustained reflection about the ways in which gender, class, ethnicity, and religiosity are mutually produced in contemporary Israel and about how the center can be understood from its margins.