In this volume: Avi Shveka | The Prohibition to Capture a Mother Bird along with Her Young: A Reassessment Itamar Kislev | The Story of Nadav and Avihu: A Renewed Examination Yisca Zimran | Motion and Change in Micah 1:2–9 Noam Mizrahi | On the Importance of Text-critical Secondary Versions for Reconstructing the Literary Formation of Isaiah 61:1–7 Uri Gabbay | The Mesopotamian ‘Mouth Washing’ Ritual: A Hebrew Translation And more...

Simon Bernfeld (1860–1940) was one of the most popular Jewish European writers of the early twentieth century. A prolific bestselling author in a broad range of fields of history and Jewish studies, and a pivotal figure in the renaissance of Jewish national culture. His oeuvre encompassed dozens of books, hundreds of essays, and thousands of daily columns published in Hebrew and German. Yet despite his vast influence, Bernfeld remained outside the mainstream. His prominent presence until the late 1920s stands in stark contrast to his subsequent obscurity. This gap prompts for an examination of whether his “forgetting” was deliberate and connected to the historical narrative he sought to promote. His political views, expressed in his sermons as a modern rabbi in Belgrade, in his polemic essays criticizing both the rabbinate and the Zionist Congress, were similarly marginalized. On The Margins: A Biography of Simon Bernfeld unfolds a biography woven into the history of the Jewish intelligentsia circles in Galicia, his birthplace, and Berlin, where he lived for many years until his death. His correspondence with a wide array of figures reviles the emergence of Hebrew mass media and a national canon. Through spatial and cultural analysis, exploring themes of Jewish imperial relations and intra-European migration, the book maps the Jewish intellectual networks of Galicia and the Pale of Settlement, examining their impact on the formation of Jewish cultural and intellectual power centers at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Few texts have left a mark on history as profound as The Communist Manifesto . First ‎published in 1848, this brief yet explosive work by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels became ‎one of the most influential texts in the formation of modern society and the modern self. It ‎ignited revolutions, inspired political movements, and provoked fear, resistance, and ‎enduring controversy, while offering a powerful framework for understanding the economic ‎and social forces that continue to shape our world.‎ But The Communist Manifesto is more than a political program. It is a striking work of ‎philosophical and moral reflection, grappling with the human condition in a world defined ‎by perpetual change—a world of capitalism, restless desire, and the drive toward ceaseless ‎innovation. Read anew, the Manifesto emerges as a mirror of our present moment, ‎challenging us to rethink freedom, justice, and the transformative power of ideas.‎ This book offers a fresh introduction to The Communist Manifesto and its place in the ‎history of ideas. Through close reading and conceptual analysis, it seeks to restore the ‎text’s vitality—not as a document of the past, but as a living invitation to reflect on the ‎present and imagine our collective future.‎

In this issue: David Fialkoff | From Disqualifying Deeds to Disqualifying Thoughts: The Early Form of Mishnah Zevahim Elyashiv Cherlow | A Unique Cairo Genizah Manuscript of Babylonian Talmud Tractates Shevu’ot Idan Pinto | "Shulhan shel Arba" of R. Bahya ben Asher: Explorations into Its History and Several of Its Kabbalistic Sources Daniel Abrams | The Awareness of Scribes and Kabbalists to Multiple Versions of Texts in Kabbalistic Manuscripts

Muslim beliefs have inspired charitable giving for over fourteen centuries, yet Islamic history has rarely been examined from this perspective. In Charity in Islamic Societies , Amy Singer explains the basic concepts and institutions of Muslim charity: the obligatory annual payment of zakat together with voluntary donations of all sizes, undertaken at every level of society, and across the span of individual lifetimes. Charitable endowments – established by rulers, wealthy individuals, and even those of more modest means – shaped Muslim societies, cultures, and landscapes in ever era. This book demonstrates how historical circumstances, social status, gender, age, and other factors interacted with religious ideals to produce a vast array of charitable practices, from the early days of Islam to the present. Relying on evidence from written texts, buildings, images, and objects to anchor the discussions in each chapter, the author explores the motivations for charity, its impact on the rich and the poor, and the politicization of giving, arguing that the study of philanthropy affords a unique prism through which to examine the past.

In the philosophical and psychological tradition, the concept of imagination is associated, first and foremost, with the human mind’s ability to intend and depict to itself objects that are not directly present before it. In contrast to sensory perception, imagination is often linked to a spectrum of mental states—such as fantasy, hallucination, and dream—that are freed from the burden of factuality and the logic of what is possible within its bounds. Such states are typically of interest because of the creative—sometimes anomalous—potential they hold, even though they are generally understood as secondary additions to the project of human knowledge. Imagination—in all its material expressions—not only presents us with spaces of unrealized possibilities but even with ones that cannot be realized at all in reality, and in this sense, they are beyond reality, "outside," or "above" the real. Thus, in its literal sense, imagination is surrealism. Once we recognize the imagination’s potential to challenge the existing order, it is no longer possible to think of reality and imagination as two entirely separate domains, and the question of the interaction between them becomes more pressing and clear.

We are pleased to present readers with volume 23 of the journal Massorot: Studies in Language Traditions and Jewish Languages . The present volume contains nine articles focusing on diverse facets of Jewish Languages, and on the traditions and features of Hebrew reflected in the varied genres cultivated in that language. Five of the articles deal with translations. Two of them concern Bible translations into Judeo-Arabic. Moshe Bar-Asher, who has analyzed and published widely on the Western šarḥ – that is, the Jewish Maghrebi translation of the Bible – examines euphemism and language refinement "in the face of danger" with respect to the šarḥ of the Pentateuchal books of Numbers and Deuteronomy. Tamar Zewi examines alternative translations in the Judeo-Arabic Tafsīr of R. Saadia Gaon on Exodus, on the basis of the excellent manuscript of the commentary, Yevr. II C1, housed in the National Library of Russia in Saint Petersburg. Nahem Ilan discusses the Judeo-Arabic translation of the second part of the Hebrew work Pele Yo‘eṣ by Rabbi Eliezer Papo (Bulgaria, 1786–1827), composed in the middle of the 20th century by Rabbi Makhlouf Idan of Djerba. Yaffa Yisraeli analyzes the translation into the Jewish Neo-Aramaic dialect of Saqqiz (Iranian Kurdistan) of the noted piyyuṭ (liturgical poem) “Yashen al teradam,” by Rabbi Yehudah Halevy. Ora (Rodrigue) Schwarzwald offers readers a comparative analysis of six Ladino translations of the description of the lover in Song of Songs, Chapter 5, representing both the Eastern and Western Ladino traditions, from the 16th–20th centuries. Assaf Ben-Moshe draws our attention to the linguistic diversity of the Jews of Iraq by comparing the divergences between the Judeo-Arabic variety used by the Jews of ˁĀna and that used by the Baghdad Jewish community. Dalit Assouline examines the Hebrew used by Mizrahi rabbis who joined the Breslav Hasidic sect, originally of Ashkenazic origin. Efraim Hazan and Rachel Hitin-Mashiah zooms in on another genre, the epistles exchanged by rabbinic scholars concerning books. Kedem Golden deals with Hebrew poetic riddles.

This volume is a jubilee book, celebrating with appreciation the work of Prof. Jonathan Cohen – a teacher, thinker, researcher, friend and loyal colleague – who is one of the central figures in the philosophy of Jewish education in our generation. The book is divided into five chapters. The first is dedicated to Cohen's character and his thought, and the other four chapters encompass topics at the core of his world: philosophical-literary discourse, the concept of translation between inside and outside, the transition from theory to educational practice, and dealing with the educational thought of others in light of his path. Some of the best contemporary Jewish education scholars have gathered here to offer a fascinating intellectual journey, which dwells, among other things, on the dialogue between tradition and innovation, textual study and pedagogy, universality and particularity. This collection of articles is unique in its combination of philosophical study and educational research rooted in the educational field. The original discussions it contains on key issues demonstrate from various angles the contribution of Prof. Cohen and his intellectual world to the philosophy of Jewish education. This collection is another important testament to the possibility of a practical philosophy that responds to the calls of the time, with all its challenges, and out of a deep sense of loyalty to education that looks at the human face and to Jewish tradition.

In this issue: Menahem Kahana | Sabbath Expositions in Mekhilta de-Rabbi Simeon Bar Yohai : On the Use of Sources from the School of R. Ishmael by hte Redactor of Mekhilta de-Rabbi Simeon bar Yohai Simcha Emanuel | TheResponsa of Rashba: Bringing Order to a Maze of Manuscripts Michal Aziza Ohana | R. Rephael Berdogo's Roke'ah Mirkahat - On Aggadic Materials, Authority and Interpretation Barak Hoffman | Meir Mina - the Great Iraqi Kabbalist who Became a Heretic

Martin Buber aroused passionate, often contradictory opinions, both regarding his personality and his thought. Gershom Schocken, editor of Haaretz , said that one day he was walking with S. Y. Agnon: "We were walking around Talpiot and I asked him what his attitude was towards Buber. Agnon stopped in his walk and said: 'I want to tell you something. There are people about whom you have to decide once: do you love them or do you hate them. I decided to love Buber.'" Buber's philosophical and theological writings, including the famous I and Thou , have contributed greatly to religious and Jewish thought, as well as to biblical studies, political theory, and Zionist thought. In this new biography, Paul Mendes-Flor situates Buber's legacy at the crossroads between the intellectual and cultural life of German Jewry and European life in the first half of the twentieth century. This is the first full biography of the groundbreaking modern Jewish philosopher. The book is organized around several key events in his life, such as his mother suddenly abandoning him when he was three years old—a formative trauma that left Buber with a lasting sense of sensitivity to the fragility of human relationships and the need to nurture them with what he would later call "dialogical attention."

The Sages of Yavneh traces the rebirth of Jewish law and thought in the aftermath of the Great Revolt and the destruction of the Temple. In Yavneh the early Sages laid the foundations for post-Temple Jewish life and created the conceptual framework that continues to shape halachic discourse to this day. Through close analysis of early Tannaitic traditions, the book uncovers the sages’ intellectual world, their diverse approaches, and the deep ideas underlying their disputes. At a decisive historical crossroad, the sages of Yavneh bridged second Temple traditions with the emerging Tannaitic corpus, offering a farsighted response to the crisis of their age and charting a path for the future of Jewish law, Halacha.

This book contains one hundred and ninety-two written and oral responses by Rabbi Yaakov ben Meir, better known as "Rabbenu Tam," which were not included in the responses section of Sefer Ha-Yashar , compiled by his students. The first introductory chapters will be devoted to a concise presentation of his character, family, the stages of his life, and his teachers, while the other chapters will discuss his responses, their recipients, the sources in which the responses were found, the edition, and its contribution. At the top of each reply is a short introduction that discusses the main contents of the reply and points out historical and other aspects that arise from it.