Articles in this issue : Hallel Baitner | Sprinkling at the Temple Entrance: A Forgotten Temple Ritual Gideon Libson | Maimonides and the Muslim Theologian Muhammad Al-Ghazali on the Generality of Law and the Doctrine of Distinction Yosseph Schwartz | Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed in Jewish and Christian Mysticism: A Chapter in Comparative Historiography Adam Afterman and Ido Pinto | On Apotheosis in the Kabbalah of Rabbi Bahya ben Asher

Elijah the Prophet is a remarkably impressive figure whose life is full of dramatic moments: the decree to stop the rain, the fierce tension with King Ahab and Queen Jezebel, the war on idolatry which had its climax on Mount Carmel with the killing of the prophets of Baal, God’s revelation at Horeb, the ascent to heaven in a chariot of fire, etc. These episodes sparked the imagination of readers and commentators, thinkers and artists, who continued to study the figure of Elijah throughout the generations. The book Until Elijah Comes: The Portrayal of Elijah the Prophet in Tannaitic Literature is an examination of Elijah’s multi-faceted character as reflected in Tannaitic sources, the earliest stratum of rabbinic literature. Adiel Kadari presents an in-depth analysis of the major issues related to Elijah the Prophet in the intellectual world of the sages, such as the principles and limits of halakhic discourse, messianism and eschatology, religious and political zealotry, the phenomenon of prophecy and the question of its persistence in the post-biblical era, and the relationship to history, religious piety and asceticism. The analysis of Elijah in this volume is rooted in philological studies concerning the origin and transmission of the text, and branches out to an examination of ideological aspects and worldviews. The synthesis of various approaches employed in the study of rabbinic literature yields a rich and variegated discourse. The book’s various chapters reveal the tremendous importance of Elijah in the eyes of the sages, as well as the exegetical and ideological struggles over the shaping of his image.

The book Shamanism and Literary Criticism deals with the unique attention that scholars of art and literature pay to the object of their study. This specific attention is based on a communitarian approach, a special type of research empathy, and a contemplation radically focused on literature, art, and the community of its readers. What do scholars of literature do in a community where literature is created, read, and interpreted by them? What is the attitude of these scholars to literature and its readers? What is the role entrusted to them by their community? This book offers a new theory about the attitude of the study of literature toward literature, art, and communality. It illustrates the theory and its features as a method of research and interpretation in the works of Uri Nissan Gnessin, Micha Yosef Berdyczewski, Shimon Halkin, A. B. Yehoshua, Aharon Appelfeld, Dahlia Ravikovitch, Ronit Matalon, Orly Castel-Bloom, and Anna Hermann.

The book examines the relations between Oriental, local Jews and Palestinian Arabs in Mandatory Palestine. It focuses on the role of Oriental Jews as possible mediators from a cultural, political and social perspective, as those who sought to bridge Jewish-Arab culture, Jewish-Arab nationalism, and Jewish-Arab identity. Examining these relations from the perspective of Oriental and local Jews sheds new light on the history and historiography of Zionism, the Yishuv, and the Jewish-Arab conflict.

Articles in this issue: Menahem Kahana | The Tosafot (‘Marginal Annotations’) in Sifre on Deuteronomy Omri Livnat | Discoveries from Constantine: New Liturgical Poems by Yosef Ibn Avitur and Evidence of the Inclusion of Byzantine Poems in a North African Maḥzor Omer Michaelis | Ṣūfī Terminology and Its Meaning in Maimonides’ Guide of the Perplexed Jonatan Howard | The System of Exceptions: On the Organizational Structure of Grammatical Knowledge in Medieval Ashkenaz

Zionists without Borders tells the story of the Halutz movement in Poland and its role in helping the Labor movement rise to the leadership of the Zionist Movement in the interwar period. It describes the founding of a mass national and socialist movement, which changed the face of the Zionist map. The leaders of the Labor movement in Israel established strong ties with pioneers from Poland, thus making the Halutz a cross-border movement, connecting Jews by means of politics, nationalism and socialism.

During the last decades there have occurred significant upheavals in the political and military position of many religious and ethnic communities in the Middle East and North Africa. Communities which had been rejected and discriminated for decades rose to power or strengthened their political position in their countries by means of military struggles. Meanwhile, in Israel/Palestine, the ethnical-religious Jewish minority has become a ruling majority, while excluding the former Arab-Muslim-Sunni majority, following the wars of 1948 and 1976. This book examines these processes.

Rabbi Moses ben Nahman (c. 1194-1267), rabbi, commentator, Kabbalist, and public leader, was one of the most prominent and influential Jewish figures in the Middle Ages. His diverse works reflect the history of Jewish communities in Western Europe in the thirteenth century and particularly the story of his own life. This book seeks to illuminate Nahmanides' works and beliefs, on the background of the challenges during his life. How was his thought formed, and what were its sources? In what stage of his life was he acquainted with the Kabbalah? To what extent was his immigration to Eretz Israel the consequence of Barcelona disputation? This book offers a new – historical-biographical – perspective for understanding Nahmanides' religious and intellectual world.

This research project tries, for the first time, to analyze and compare all the key Spanish Jewish apostates, especially Petrus Alfonsi, Abner of Burgos, Geronimo de Santa Fe, Pablo de Santa Maria and Pedro de la Caballeria. The aim of this research is to understand the ideological background of the mass conversion of the Spanish Jewish community from the perspective of the intellectual elite involved in the conversion itself and not – as has usually been the case in modern scholarship – according to the rabbis who decided to stay Jewish. In the first part of the book, the author explains the impact of the conversion of a part of the Jewish intellectual elite on the Spanish Jewish population. In the second part, he examines the opinion of the various ideological converts regarding Christianity (especially the dogmas of the Trinity and Incarnation). In the third part, he analyzes their criticisms of Judaism. The main conclusion of this research is that there is a very important difference between the various converso intellectuals regarding the essence of Christianity. The conversos who were philosophers or kabbalists before their conversion continued with a similar approach even after their conversion, using their former philosophical/kabbalistic knowledge to try to convince their fellow Jews to convert as they had. The common denominator of the different writings of these apostates is not their opinions on Christianity but rather their similar criticisms of Judaism, and especially with regard to keeping Jewish religious obligations.

Few articles in this issue: Haim Hayun | Between Bible and Midrash: The Story of Abram and Sarai in Egypt (Genesis 12:10–20) and the Story of Moses’ Birth (Exodus 2:1–10) Bnayahu Bronner | On Ḥerem Adam (Proscription of Persons) and its Significance: The Temple as a Place of Freedom and Justice Hagit Shabtai | Prophetic Rebuke and Northern Redaction: Judges 6:7–10 as a Test Case for Understanding the Processes of Composition and Redaction in Judges and the Deuteronomistic History Noach Hayut | Individual and Collective Retribution in the Book of Kings

Chronicle of French and Ottoman Kings was written by a sixteenth-century Jewish doctor of Spanish origin living in Italy. According to the writer, his intention was to document the hardships and injustices suffered by Jews in the Diaspora - especially the expulsion of Jews from Spain and France - and include them in the history of the conflict between the French kinds and Ottoman Empire over the rule in "the land of Judea and Jerusalem." In effect, this is a story, set in chronological order, of selected events in world history, similar in structure and content to hundreds of writings published at the time. It was written in fine biblical Hebrew, and as such was aimed at an audience who knew the language and could appreciate the conflict between the French kings and the Ottoman Empire as representing world history.

The story recalls the life and work of Josef ha-Cohen, the author of The Chronicles of the French and Ottoman Kings and Sefer Emeq ha-Bakha (The Vale of Tears), published simultaneously. The story reflects a momentous experience of joy and bereavement, love and desire, youth and old age, and most particularly the feeling of human transience.