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.

A Guide to Jewish Warsaw 1938 is an extraordinary book, describing a place that no longer exists: Jewish Warsaw was, as is well known, utterly destroyed in World War II. And yet, the book seeks to pretend as if everything is still intact, and it is possible to go on a tour following it or embark on an imaginary journey. Every detail is based on information pertaining to Jewish Warsaw in 1938 from countless sources: newspapers, literature, travel guides, written and oral memoirs, archives, interviews, films, and exhibitions. A Guide to Jewish Warsaw 1938 seeks to reveal the beauty hidden from the eye in the largest Jewish city in Europe before the war. The acquaintance with Jewish Warsaw is made through general and useful introductions, describing its history, its beliefs and opinions, its unique language, and its tastes and smells. At the center of the book are seven walking tours, revealing the city's delights: the antique bookstores on Świętokrzyska Street; the buffet at the Writers and Journalists Association at Tłomacka 13; the "Maccabi" swimming pool and the Bund's sports field; cantorial music at the Great Synagogue and Hasidic melodies in the Modrzyc courtyard in the resort town of Otwock; the summer terrace at the Rubinchik cafe, opening onto Krasiński Garden, "the Jewish Garden"; modern marble sculptures in the cemetery; the "Tel Aviv" cafe on Nowolipie Street; the treasures in the Jewish Museum; courtyards that are a world of their own on Nalewki Street and its surroundings, and much more.

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

The Italian commedia dell’arte troupes roamed across Europe for two hundred years, captivating wide and diverse audiences. The performances of the commedia dell’arte were improvised, as the actors executed on stage a concise outline of a play, called "scenario". This book presents, for the first time in Hebrew translation, complete scenarios written by one of the greatest men of the Italian Renaissance theater, Flaminio Scala. The scenarios are accompanied by annotations and a comprehensive essay that reviews Scala’s life and work, and presents his scenario as a perfect recipe for comic improvisation. The book will therefore be of interest to theatre enthusiasts and scholars alike, and will provide directors, actors, and acting students with new and refreshing tools for staging comedies.

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 this issue: Diego Rotman | The Sukkah and Its Double: Copies, Variants, and the Stereoscopic Image Shani Tamari Matan | The First Hebrew Dance-Gathering at Kibbutz Dalia (1944): Decoding of an Archival and Choreographic Event Hagar Salamon and Carmela Abdar | Glory of the “Sets”: Praxis and Meaning of Dressing Children in Haredi Families in Israel Ravit Raufman | The October 7 Massacre in Light of the Folktale “The Wolf and Kid”: A Realization of Primal Fantasy Ronni Shaked | Commemoration and Conflict: How the Palestinian Calendar Shapes Identity and Resistance

Yehuda Jud Ne'eman's latest book, Auschwitz Capital of the 20th Century , presents the work of one of the most important scholars of Israeli cinema, who was also a groundbreaking director and creator. In this book, Ne'eman shares with his readers his involvement as a creator and intellectual in the establishment of Israeli cinema as a space for central artistic, cultural, and political discourse, whose significant contribution to Israeli culture and society is beyond doubt. The book includes two parts that complement each other. The first part contains an innovative and original discussion that maps the history of Israeli cinema by comparing it to cinema that began during the yishuv period. During this period, cinema was committed to the Zionist narrative, and the work is characterized as a continuous conflict between avant-garde and ideology, similar to Soviet avant-garde cinema. Within the framework of this comparison, Ne'eman emphasizes the preoccupation with modernist cinema of the "New Sensibility," a term coined years ago, and refers to films created by Israeli directors following the French "New Wave," including his own films. In doing so, he claims that between Israeli folk film and the modernism of the "New Sensibility" films, there was in fact cooperation in opposition to the establishment and Zionist ideology. The second part of the book discusses films made in the State of Israel and during the yishuv period that deal with the representation of the Holocaust as a central test case. Among other things, Ne'eman shows that the attempt to heal the horrors of the Holocaust in a simplistic national way expresses feelings of guilt and offers a limited solution to the problems of the survivors.

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.