The book Registers of Ashkenazi Communities in Italy from the 18th Century presents a scientific edition of three files documenting customs in Ashkenazi communities in the north of Italy in the 18th century, from Trieste, from Mantua and Padova, with an introduction and indices. The world of Halacha in Italy, starting from the beginning of the Rishonim period, was influenced by different centers, and was not an independent center. Ashkenazi Judaism had a decisive influence on Italy beginning in the 13th century. Files documenting customs of Ashkenazi communities existed already in the 11th century and continued to be written throughout the generations in the Ashkenazi communities. However, files documenting the customs of Ashkenazi communities on Italian soil were relatively few. The book before us hence makes up a little for this lack. It is true that the writing of files documenting customs is an Ashkenazi phenomenon, we have found it among Ashkenazi people in all generations, but in the 17th-18th centuries, which are documented by the files before us, the Jewish communities in Ashkenaz and in Italy were subject to the influence of important historical processes, such as heated rabbinic polemics, the beginning of the Enlightenment, the French Revolution and its cultural and political effects and the emancipation processes. These processes had a profound impact on the Jewish world and we find echoes of this impact in the custom files as well. The certificates published here were written at a unique historical, cultural and religious junction, and have great significance in all these fields.

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. The articles in this issue: Yeruḥam Aviad Goldman | The Secret of The levirate Marriage and Ḥalitzah : A Kabbalistic Text Attributed to Rabbi Yosef Gikatilla Naʿama Ben-Shaḥar and Tzaḥi Weiss | Ten Holy Sefirot, and their Inverse : A Commentary on the Ten Sefirot alongside the Left Emanation Eliezer Baumgarten and Uri Safrai | Some Traces from R. Isaac of Acre’s early draft of Otzar Ḥaim Eli Gurfinkel | Commentary on Lamentations (1:1–6) by Rabbi David ben Yehuda Messer Leon Yohanan Kapaḥ | Rabbi Joseph Ḥayyun’s Commentary on the Book of Malachi

The book explores the representations and depictions of old age in the rabbinic Jewish literature of late antiquity. Through close literary readings and cultural analysis, the book reveals the gaps and tensions between idealized images of old age on the one hand, and the psychologically, physiologically, and socially complicated realities of aging on the other hand. The authors argue that while rabbinic literature presents various statements on the qualities and activities that make for good old age, on the respect and reverence that the elderly should be awarded, and on harmonious intergenerational relationship, it also includes multiple anecdotes and narratives that portray aging in much more nuanced and poignant ways. These anecdotes and narratives relate, alongside fantasies about blissful or unnoticeable aging, a host of fears associated with old age: from the loss of physical capability and beauty to the loss of memory and mental acuity, and from marginalization in the community to being experienced as a burden by one’s own children. Each chapter of the book focuses on a different aspect of aging in the rabbinic world: bodily appearance and sexuality, family relations, intellectual and cognitive prowess, honor and shame, and social roles and identity.

In this issue: Avishai Bar-Asher | The Earliest Extant Version of Sefer Yesirah Tamar Kadari | Thousands unto Solomon: The Relationship Between Midrash Kohelet Rabbah and Midrash Shir Hashirim Rabbah Elyashiv Cherlow and Adiel Breuer | Remnants of ‘Maʿasim Livne Ereẓ Yira’el’ Written on a Scroll

From this volume: Emanuel Tov | The Septuagint Translation of the Torah Was Based on Palestinian Sources Sholomo Bahar | Circular Patterns in Biblical Thought Ariel Kopilovitz | Regalia Deformed and Restored: Ezekiel’s View of Israel’s Future Leadership Rama Manor, Avi Gvura and Pnina Tromer | The Verb Lekh in the Bible: From a Verb of Motion to Urging of Action Mordechai Weintraub | A New Page of ‘Sefer Tagey’ from the Cairo Genizah Yigal Bloch | ʾEzrāḥ: and Dĕrôr: Two Instances of Assyrian Linguistic Influence in the Holiness Code and Nili Samet | The Origin of the Day of Yahweh Tradition: A New Suggestion

In this issue: Sharon Weisser | ‘Is it Good to be Healthy?’ Philo as a Participant in the Ancient Debates about the Kinds of Goods Colten Cheuk-Yin Yam | Philo’s Knowledge of Medicine in his Later Roman Writings Mira Balberg and Haim Weiss | ‘What Shall I Leave for Old Age’: The Old and the Young in the Rabbinic Study House Avigail Manekin-Bamberger | Healing and Protection in Rabbinic Liturgy and in the Jewish Aramaic Incantation Bowls Warren Zev Harvey | Ibn Daud, Ibn Matut, and the Secret of the Garment Assaf Tamari | ‘Like … the Proficient Physician’: On the Tradition of the Physicians of the Soul, and Lurianic Kabbalah’s Uniqueness within it Jonathan Garb | The Somatic Medical Model in Or ha-Torah by R. Itzhak Eizik Haver

In this issue: Shira Shmidman | The Textual Witnesses of Tosefta Yevamot: New Finding in Light of the Cairo Genizah Fragments Gideon Bohak | I Beg You: Appeals to Angels in the Talmudic and Gaonic Periods Avishai Bar-Asher | The Bahir as It Once was: Transmission History as a Tool for Reconstructing and Reassesing the Text, Format, and Ideas of the Original Composition

In this issue: Chaim Milikowsky | The Transformation of Traditions and the Creation of Variant Readings in Vayyiqra Rabba Chapter 25 Sections 1-2 – Preceding and Succeeding the Redactorial Moment Shulamit Elizur | 'The birth of poems' – Deliberations on the Conception of the Poem and Longings for Zion in a Previously Unknown Piyyut by R. Judah Halevi Judith Weiss | The Sefer Yetzira Commentary Attributed to Isaac the Blind: Evidence Supporting Its Early Dating, Its Central Status among Thirteenth century Kabbalists and the Validity of Its Attribution to Isaac the Blind Simcha Emanuel | Rashba’s Responsa to North African Sages Israel Ori Meitlis | The Place of Izhbitza-Radzin Thought in the Tekhelet writings of the Radziner Rebbe

In this issue: Hillel Mali | Ritual Leftovers and the Tannaitic Perceptions of Holiness Idan Pinto | Universe – Sanctuary – Man: On a Threefold Analogy in Two Anonymous Texts and their Traces in Thirteenth century Kabbalah Yudith Weiss | Isaac of Acre’s Commentary on the Sefer Yetzirah Commentary Attributed to Isaac the Blind: Research and Edition Haviva Pedaya | Kabbalah Out of Context: On the Erasure of the Provençal School in Kabbalah Research

Hoshea was active during the decline of the Kingdom of Israel, from the twilight of the long reign of Jeroboam II (788-747 BCE) until nearly the end of the days of Israel, probably before the Assyrian conquest (720 BCE) of Samaria. Hoshea's prophecies enrich our knowledge of the chaotic period in which, throughout twenty years of intrigues, rebellions and murders, six kings had been replaced, and Israel was lost.

We do not know who Malachi was. Malachi might have been his birth name, or perhaps his nickname, as God's messenger. He was active during the reign of Persia, around 500 BCE. The subjects with which Malachi was preoccupied were different from those that preoccupied the classical prophets and reflected his time. But one can find in them beautiful comparisons to today's problems as well. One of the main subjects in his prophecy was the covenant between God and Israel, as well as his criticism of the people's disdain for the worship of the temple, and of the priests for misusing their position.

Haggai was active for a very short time, only about four months, in the second year of Darius I (520/521 BCE). In these four months, Haggai managed to encourage the exiled people of Zion to return to Judah and Jerusalem, to begin building the temple. They faced many difficulties: they suffered from drought and shortage and did not manage to get by in the barren land. When they started building the temple, Haggai was required to strengthen the spirit of the people and its leaders, Zerubbabel the priest and Joshua the high priest, in view of the modest dimensions of the building, with the promise that "the glory of this new Temple will surpass that of the old".