This book highlights a specific feature characterizing some of the short stories of IL Peretz: His transparent and extensive reliance on popular and Hasidic sources. This is the rational for a comparative study of source and its adaptation , adding a critical dimension to the understanding of these stories. This book concentrates on three short stories of IL Peretz belonging to the genre of Hasidic tales: 'If Not Higher', 'Between Two Mountains', and 'The Birds and the Parchments'

CONTENTS Nili Wazana: Preface List of Abbreviations Jeffrey H. Tigay: Professor Moshe Greenberg ז"ל Mordechai Cogan: Professor Moshe Greenberg ז"ל Jonathan Ben-Dov: Professor Shemaryahu Talmon ז"ל Michael Sigal: Professor Shemaryahu Talmon ז"ל Baruch J. Schwartz: Professor Jacob Milgrom ז"ל Biblical Studies Rimon Kasher: Walking in the Way of God in the Hebrew Bible Micha Roi: The Story of Elijah’s Flight (1 Kings 19): A Comparative Study on the Pattern of ̒Departure Stories’ in the Bible The Bible in Relation to the Ancient Near East Nili Samet: Sumerian City Laments and the Book of Lamentations: Toward a Comparative Theological Study Yigal Bloch: Sěgullâ – A Re-examination of the Meaning of the Term Based on Two Assyrian Documents from the Thirteenth Century B.C.E. Yoel Elitzur: Qīr of the Aramaean: A New Approach Amitai Baruchi-Unna: Genres Meet: Esarhaddon’s Prayer in the Inscription AsBbA and Akkadian Prayers from the ̒Washing the Mouth’ Ritual History of Exegesis Yaakov Raphael Garzon: Sharp Anti-Christian Polemics in Rashi’s Commentaries to Genesis 1:1 Aharon Mondschein: Studies in the Rhymed Opening Verses of R. Abraham ibn Ezra in his Long Commentary on the Book of Exodus Carmiel Cohen: ‘This will put the mind more at ease’: Gersonides’ Alternative for Talmudic Hermeneutics in his Commentary on the Torah Aharon Ofir Shemesh: Henry Baker Tristram, Scholar of Nature in the Bible: His Methods for Identifying Plants and Animals and his Commentary Book Reviews Naphtali Meshel: (The Biblical Encyclopaedia Library), Jerusalem 2009 (in Hebrew)> Yoram Cohen: Inscriptions. History, Historiography and Ideology. A conference in Honour of Hayim Tadmor on the Occasion of His Eightieth Birthday, 20 November 2003, Jerusalem: The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 2009 (in Hebrew)> Rimon Kasher: , The Early History of the Babylonian Exile (8th–6th Centuries B.C.E.), Haifa: Pardes Publishing House, 2010 (in Hebrew)> Dvora Dimant: at Qumran in their Ancient Context (STDJ 78), Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2008> Books Received (compiled by Yaakov Dolgopolsky) List of Contributors English Abstracts

This periodical has been permanently discontinued. This is the last volume. This issue is focused on the productive collaboration of East European and German Jews who have been known to have a very long standing and documented hostile relationship.

Davka 's 7th issue is dedicated to the "Red Flag"

The history of the myth of the Jewish sources of philosophy and science from their inception in Hellenistic culture, until present day, is laid out inthis book, the first comprehensive history of this fascinating subject. The Author follows the emergence and development of the myth, in Hellenistic-Pagan culture and in ancient Jewish culture, through the writings of the Church fathers, in Medieval Christian, Muslim and Jewish thought, throughout the Renaissance, the Early Modern period, the Enlightenment Era in both the general and Jewish cultures and up to present day. The book lays out the stories and traditions regarding the myth of the Jewish origins of philosophy and science, and explores their chain of transmission and acceptance throughout the generations in four different cultures: The Hellenistic-Pagan, Jewish, Christian and Muslim. The motives for the creation of these stories and traditions of this myth, as well as the reasons behind it, are all thoroughly discussed. Amongst them is the justification to study foreign wisdoms by Jewish scholars. Once it had been "proven" that the source of all philosophical and scientific knowledge lies in the Torah, their study became an inherent part of the study of the Torah, a re-appropriation of the knowledge that has been lost in the tribulations of time and exile. The myth also served Islam and Christianity as similar apologetic theological reasoning. Although various aspects of the myth have been criticized since the Renaissance, a phenomenon which reached its apex during the Jewish Enlightenment, it has never lost its power and is still expressed in a variety of ways in Jewish and Israeli Culture today.

This volume consists of a critical edition, English translation, and extensive introductory discussion of the Judaeo-Arabic commentaries on Ruth and Esther from the exegetical digest ( Kitāb al-bayān) of Tan ḥ um ben Joseph ha-Yerushalmi (d. 1291 CE), the last known exegete of the “rationalistic” school who wrote in Judaeo-Arabic. Although past scholarship has tended to regard Tan ḥ um’s exegetical contribution as little more than that of a compiler-abridger, our own assessment, as explored in the introduction, is that his role was in fact much more significant. Not only does he display the critical acumen and intellectual independence of a true exegete in his own right, but he also appears to have assimilated - and hence (like Abraham ibn Ezra) mediated into the continuum of Rabbanite exegesis - certain elements of Karaite exegesis, most notably, as developed by the tenth-century Karaite littérateur Yefet ben ‘ Eli, the role of the mudawwin in the composition and transmission of the biblical text.

Epigraphy deals with ancient inscriptions and manuscripts revealed by archaeology; it is an auxiliary study to that of history. It studies the texts, languages and scripts from diachronic and synchronic points of view, and thus yields additional data on the cultural background of the people who produced the written sources. This book contains a selection of articles by the author on West-Semitic scripts and inscriptions published during almost forty years. Joseph Naveh is professor emeritus of Ancient West Semitic Epigraphy and Palaeography at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem.

History of Jewish War Against the Romans is a description of Jewish history from the capture of Jerusalem by the Seleucid ruler Antiochus IV Epiphanes in 164 BC to the fall and destruction of Jerusalem in the First Jewish-Roman War in AD 70. The book was written in about 75, originally in Josephus's "paternal tongue", probably Aramaic, though this version has not survived. It was later translated into Greek, probably under the supervision of Josephus himself. Josephus' account of a war marked by treachery and atrocity is a superbly detailed and evocative record of the Jewish rebellion against Rome between AD 66 and 70. Originally a rebel leader, Josephus changed sides after he was captured to become a Rome-appointed negotiator, and so was uniquely placed to observe these turbulent events, from the siege of Jerusalem to the final heroic resistance and mass suicides at Masada . His account provides much of what we know about the history of the Jews under Roman rule, with vivid portraits of such key figures as the Emperor Vespasian and Herod the Great. Often self-justifying and divided in its loyalties, " History of Jewish War Against the Romans " nevertheless remains one of the most immediate accounts of war, its heroism and its horrors, ever written. This publication is a new translation, and includes an extensive introduction about Josephus and his historical writings, notes, appendices, maps, and illustrations, Family trees and sketches.

Davka 's 6th issue is dedicated to the "Yiddishe Mame" the Jewish Mother

CONTENTS Sara Japhet-Preface Nili Wazana-Professor Moshe Weinfeld Moshe Bar-Asher-Professor Moshe Weinfeld Biblical Studies Tova Ganzel-The Status of Functionaries in the Future Temple of Ezekiel Jacob Milgrom-The Unique Features of Ezekiel’s Temple (Ezekiel 40–48) Noam Mizrahi-Linguistic Analysis and Textual Criticism:The Syntax of Obadiah 19–20 in the Masoretic Text and the Ancient Versions Amos Frisch-The Concept of Kingship in Psalms Yael Shemesh-I find woman more bitter than death’ (Ecclesiastes 7:26): Is there Misogyny in the Bible? The Bible in Relation to the Ancient Near East Shawn-Zelig Aster-What Sennacherib Said, and What the Prophet Heard: On the Use of Assyrian Sources in the Prophetic Narrative of the Campaign of 701 BCE Dead Sea Scrolls and Apocryphal Literature Vered Noam-'You Shall Pass Through Fire’ (Numbers 31:23) – An Early Exegetic Tradition Michal Bar-Asher Siegal-The Problem of Evil in the Syriac Translation of the Book of Ben Sira: the Differences between the Hebrew and the Syriac Texts Reconsidered History of Exegesis Yeshayahu Maori-‘Aggadot Hallukot’ in Rashi’s Commentary on Scripture Gila Prebor-The Use of Midrash in Rashi’s Commentary on Ecclesiastes Sara Japhet-Rashbam’s Introduction to his Commentary on Lamentations Aharon Mondschein-‘The Masoretes fabricated explanations for full and deficient spellings’: On Abraham ibn Ezra’s Struggle against the(Ab)use of Biblical Spelling as an Exegetical Tool Book Reviews Eran Viezel-On: Joseph Cohen, Uriel Simon (eds.), R. Abraham IbnEzra: Yesod Mora Ve-Sod Torah – The Foundation of Reverence and the Secret of the Torah, an annotated critical edition, second revised and enlarged version (Sources and Studies, XI, The Institute for Jewish Bible Interpretation, Bar-Ilan University), Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2007, 272 pp. (in Hebrew) Ronie Goldstein-On: Mariano Gómez Aranda, El comentario de Abraham Ibn Ezra al libro de Job: Edición crítica, traducción y estudio introductorio (Serie A: Literatura Hispanohebrea, 6) Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Instituto de Filología, Madrid 2004, cxl, 342, 94 pp.; Mariano Gómez Aranda, Dos Comentarios de Abraham Ibn Ezra Al Libro de Ester: Edición crítica, traducción y estudio introductorio (Serie A: Literatura Hispanohebrea, 9) Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Instituto de Filología, Madrid 2007, cxxviii, 193, 70 pp. 339