Selected articles from current issue: Arnon Atzmon | ‘He Who Seeks Out Good: This is David’: The Opening Unit of Midrash Psalms as an Introduction to the Book of Psalms David Sabatto | ‘Thus, I Received it From the House of My Father’s Father’. The Sources and Structuring of the Legend of Yehonatan, Moses’ Grandson Ido Hevroni | Turning the Hearts of the Children to Their Parents: The Education of R. Elazar Son of R. Shimon (Pesiqta de Rab Kahana 11) Omri livnat | ‘Samuel, The Son of Labrat Has Died’: Between Manuscript and Edition, Between Panegyric and Lampoon

In this issue: Moti Benmelech | From the Sambatyon to Tiberias: An Unknown Version of ‘MaꜤaseh Akdamut’ Rella Kushelevsky | Affinities between Orality and Literacy in Medieval Folktales in Western Europe: ‘The Tale of a Rich Man who used to seat Himself among the Poor’ David Manrique | Yohanan ben Zakkai meets Vespasianus: A Study of Midrashic History according to ‘MeꜤam Loez’ by Argüete Zeev Kitsis | The Baal Shem Tov’s Neighbor in the Garden of Eden ‒ A story from ‘Once There Was a Hasidic Man’ and its Connection to the Hasidic-Israeli Identity

How might a poem acquire divine forgiveness? Ariel Zinder’s book Arise and Sing follows medieval Jewish poets from Iraq and al-Andalus as they seek answers to this pressing question. The book presents close readings of liturgical poems (piyyutim) written in the 10th and 11th centuries, and brings them into contact with contemporary literary theory as well as modern philosophical discussions of the possibility of forgiveness.

This book deals with the cultural and emotional world of Jewish schoolchildren in the “Tarbut” school network in Poland between the two World Wars. It is based on a unique corpus of about 80 letters, written between 1934-1935 by 10-11-year-old fifth graders in the Tarbut school in the town of Nowi Dwόr in Poland to their beloved teacher who had immigrated to Eretz Israel – the place and destination they too dreamed about. In these letters – all composed in Hebrew – the children write about their class, their school, but also about themselves and their families. The pupils’ letters are analyzed in light of the educational practice of pen-pal culture which was developed in and encouraged by “Tarbut” schools, especially between pupils in the Diaspora and their cohorts in Palestine. The letters are also examined as ego-documents that reveal personal stories about the intimate and private world of children, their experiences, fears and hopes, their relationship with their teacher, their families and their friends. Studied as a corpus, they reflect the complexities of the educational experience in a Hebrew Zionist school in Poland. The uniqueness of this book is that it is attentive to children – not teenagers or adults – in their own voice and in real time, telling about their lives, and not from a place of retrospection or later memory. Sources that allow us to hear the authentic voice of a child in real time are very rare indeed. The letters, which were critically edited and published in full next to a clear photograph of the letter, are discussed from various perspectives including Jewish, Hebrew and Zionist education, the history and culture of the child, and the relationship between the Diaspora and Eretz Israel. The book also offers a short history of the influential, now almost forgotten, school network – Tarbut. Finally, the book presents a detailed history of one class in one town in Poland a few years before this world vanished.

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: Omri Livnat | From Masorah to Poetry, from Poetry to Masorah: on Saadia Gaon’s ‘Ohel Mekhon Binyanay’ Simcha Emanuel | A Collection of Laws from the German ' Genizah' Amir Boas | Kodesh Kodashim – An Annotated Critical Edition with an Introduction Noam Lev-El | ’Questions to the Sages of the Land of Israel’: Kabbalistic Responsa from the Mid-Sixteenth Century—Introduction and Edition

The book contains the first-ever Hebrew translation of a collection of medieval Arabic stories, entitled The Hundred and One Nights . The chapters of the book deal with a variety of issues, for instance, the work’s origins and history, extant versions and manuscripts, language, material culture, poetics, the ideas and themes reflected in the stories, and Jewish background elements that can occasionally be discerned in some of the stories.

Although rabbinic compilations were composed hundreds of years after the destruction of the Second Temple, and despite differences in language, genre, and cultural setting, Dynamics of Midrashic Traditions seeks to demonstrate that both corpora preserve a common heritage, albeit replete with conflicting traditions and polemics. The integrative study carried out in this book sheds light on both corpora, paying special attention to the dynamics that shape and reshape the midrashic traditions throughout their transmission. The book deals with exegetical aspects incorporated in textual variants of the Bible, in Second Temple Literature (especially the "rewritten Bible", Sirach, Book of Jubilees, the Dead Sea scrolls, Hellenistic Jewish works, Philo of Alexandria), as well as passages of Paul and early Christian writers, scrutinizing them in tandem with parallels from rabbinic literature, Targum and ancient piyyutim . Among the themes discussed are the following: the knowledge of good and evil given to Adam; Abraham the monotheist; Moses’s death; Pesher and allegoristic interpretation; and halakhic issues in rabbinic literature and the Dead Sea scrolls. Table of Contents in English

The fourth volume of Meḥqerei Talmud published on behalf of the Department of Talmud at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem is dedicated to Professor David Rosenthal on the occasion of his eightieth jubilee. Professor David Rosenthal is one of the leading researchers of the Mishnah and the Talmud , and his research also encompasses diverse bordering fields. In his bright studies and his captivating teaching, he produced countless brilliant and pulsating innovations. Some of them, which constitute the core of Talmud research, changed research concepts and set the research agenda with basic questions. Prof. Rosenthal, together with his colleagues, edited the series Meḥqerei Talmud from its inception in 1959. The articles in the collection are the fruit of the research of his colleagues and students, in his main fields of activity and in bordering fields.

The Rebellion of the Daughters reveals for the first time the phenomenon of young Jewish women from Orthodox families escaping their homes in Krakow and its surroundings at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century. In extreme cases, hundreds of these young women sought refuge in a convent in Krakow and converted to Catholicism there, and in other cases they sought to exercise their right to higher education, including at a university that recently opened its doors to women. The book relies on an abundance of archival documents, including police and court investigations, correspondence and memos of government ministries as well as personal letters, press reports and literary works, including the well-known story "Tehila" by S.Y. Agnon. Through all of these, the stories of three of the young women who run away are reconstructed and the background to their escape is revealed, the struggle of their families in trying to bring them back to their home, and the stormy discussions that the phenomenon of the Rebellious girls provoked in Jewish society in its various guises. The last part of the book describes how the crisis of rebellious girls later motivated Sarah Schnirer, a young woman from Krakow, to establish an afternoon school for girls, an institution that provided girls with religious education in a formal framework and later developed into the Beit Ya'akov educational chain.

Tarbiz is the only Hebrew academic journal devoted to the entire range of Jewish studies. Appearing quarterly, this journal is the principal forum for the expression of the most important developments in Jewish studies in our generation, and among its contributors are the leading scholars in the various fields of Jewish studies in Israel and the world, as well as young scholars who are beginning to make their mark. Tarbiz was first published in 1930 by the Institute of Jewish Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, under the editorial pen of Prof. Jacob Nachum. Purchase of the subscription online includes domestic shipping via registered mail of the Israel Post. Other delivery options are available in the online form . International subscriptions include shipping via Fedex.

In his two masterworks, Mishneh Torah and The Guide for the Perplexed , Maimonides explicitly articulates a dual crisis: the disintegration of the Halakhic tradition and the erosion of the esoteric knowledge of the Torah. This study presents a novel interpretation of Maimonides’ crisis proclamations and the narratives linked to them. It primarily analyzes how Maimonides crafted a discourse of crisis, illuminating this through a comparison with earlier discourses in the Jewish canon and parallel crisis narratives in Islamic sources. The key question it seeks to answer is: why did Maimonides prominently employ this discourse in his works? The exploration of crisis discourse in Maimonides’ work reveals how he introduces a marked internal tension in each of his two major works. On the one hand, he declares his commitment to both the halakhic tradition and the esoteric knowledge tradition, even as he retrospectively reshapes them. On the other hand, he emphasizes the urgent need for reforming these traditions to confront the rupture they have undergone. This study demonstrates that in both Mishneh Torah and The Guide for the Perplexed , Maimonides portrays the process of breaking and refashioning tradition as an act of loyalty to these traditions during a time of crisis.

In this issue: Adiel Schremer and Benjamin Katzoff | The Tannaitic Tradition Concerning the Passover Celebration of King Hezekiah Menahem Kahana and Ofra Tirosh-Becker | Jeshua ben Yehuda’s Contribution to the Study of the Mekhilta of Rabbi Shimon ben Yoḥai and Its Language Israel Ori Meitlis | ‘Sidrei Taharot’: An Attempt to Complete the Talmud as a Chapter in the History of Hassidism and Its Opponents (Hitnagdut) Simcha Emanuel | An Error Always Repeats Itself