This book, stemming from a PhD dissertation under the advising of Prof. Moshe Bar Asher, offers a description of the traditional Hebrew of the Jews of southern Yemen. The description is based on a lengthy and intensive field work consisting of recording their reading of biblical, rabbinic, and liturgical literature. As S. Morag's The Hebrew Language Tradition of the Yemenite Jews (Jerusalem, 1963) focuses mainly on central Yemen, especially the city of Sanaa, the study of the southern Yemen phonological tradition remained a desideratum, which the current book aims at fulfilling. Thus, the first part of the book includes addenda et corrigenda to the description of the southern Yemen phonological system. One major innovation in this regard is the different pronunciations of the holam, along with several phonological matters missing in Morag's book, such as the principles of the mobile shewa and the primary and secondary accents (the ga'aya). The second part consists of a description of the traditional reading of the Mishna in southern Yemen, including a very meticulous comparison to the mainstream tradition of central Yemen, and to some other non Yemenite traditions. In chapter 2, some phonological matters concerning the Tiberian Hebrew are discussed, such as the conditions for gemination (doubling), different issues related to the gutturals, and the principles of the dagesh lene in the bgdkpt consonants. The largest chapter of this book, chapter 3, consists of a detailed description of over 1200 Mishnaic nominal forms as realized traditionally. Organized alphabetically, this list includes post-biblical nouns, biblical nouns pronounced differently in their Mishnaic occurrence, and inflections of biblical nominal forms not attested in the Bible. The entries offer oral information based on six main informants and vocalized manuscripts from southern Yemen. Every entry has been compared to the data available from reliable informants, existing recordings, vocalized manuscripts and printed editions from central Yemen, along with other circumstantial. evidence. The material was systematically compared to other linguistic traditions, such as the Babylonian, and to almost all the vocalized manuscripts and printed editions ever used in southern Yemen. In chapter 4, several topics are discussed with regard to the traditional reading of the Mishnah: Various participle forms, the punctuation of relative ש, pausal forms, the definition of nominal forms, ketiv and qere in Mishnaic reading, and the like. The database analysis reveals that the southern Yemen tradition is certainly a Yemenite one, correlating very well with the central Yemen tradition. Yet, in some details it rather correlates with ancient traditions of Mishnaic Hebrew on the one hand, and with vocalized printed editions, including mistakes and inconsistency, on the other. A fundamental outcome of this work is that the Yemenite Rabbinic Hebrew tradition should be examined within its regional backdrop and variations. Needless to say, that this work has been a rescue mission of a tradition not extensively recorded and of which the number of individuals familiar with is rapidly decreasing. This work, based on recordings and vocalized manuscripts from southern Yemen, ensures that the memory of this tradition is perpetuated for future generations. Introduction The Research on the Language Traditions The Research on the Yemenite Tradition The Research on the Southern Yemenite Tradition The Communities in this Paper Shar'ab Aden The Jews of Southern Yemen and the Printed Books Research Methods The Corpus The Informants Presentation of the Results and an Analysis Phonology in the Reading of the Bible Preface The Sound System The Consonants The Vowels Stress in the Reading of the Bible Primary Stress Secondary Stress Secondary Stress in Closed Syllables Gemination Furtive Patah Phonology in the Reading of the Mishnah Gemination ר Gemination in אהח"ע Gemination in In shva and in מ in shva י Gemination in מה Gemination after Gemination of Dehik The Influence of the Gutturals The Vocalization of a Prefix before a Guttural The Gutteral Vowel Furtive Patah Changes in Verbs with Gutturals The Vocalization of Definiteness before Gutturals and before ר Fricative and Plosive בגדכפ"ת Letters Plosive בגדכפ"ת Letters Not Following the Tiberian Tradition Fricative בגדכפ"ת Not Following the Tiberian Tradition Analysis and Conclusions Stress in the Reading of the Mishna The Noun in the Tradition of Mishnaic Hebrew Some Participial Forms The Vocalization of the Relative Pronoun ש The Vocalization of ובכ"ל in Pretonic Position Pausal Forms Participles with First Person Pronouns Feminine Participles with Object Suffixes Absolute Forms in Construct State Construct Forms in Absolute State Joining של to the Following World Second Person Suffixes Definiteness of Nouns Ketiv and Qere in the Reading of the Mishna The Southern Yemenite Tradition – A Summary Phonetics The Reading Tradition of Mishnaic Hebrew Some Notes on Noun Morphology Characteristics of the Southern Yemenite Tradition Insights on the Central Yemenite Traditions Conclusive Remarks Bibliography and Abbreviations Index of Words

The articles in this volume: Ilan Eldar Language Nationalism, Language Revival, and Language Planning Miri Bar-Ziv Levy The Cinematic Representation of Hebrew Speech in the 1930s Ariel Gabbay פּועֶֹלֶת or פּועָֹלֶת ? Feminine Participle Forms in Pausal Inflection in the 1644 Constantinople Edition of the Mishna Mitka Ratzaby Golub Ethnic Characteristics in Theophoric Personal Names Found in Archaeological Excavations in the Land of Israel during the First Temple Period Einat Gonen Grammatical Variation in Israeli Hebrew in the Light of the Formation of Early Modern Hebrew Ephraim Bezalel Halivni Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar in the Light of the Aleppo and Leningrad Codices Ohad Cohen The Syntactic Status of Verbal Forms Ending with Final Nun in First Temple Prose Chava Farstey “Reverse Calques” and Languages in Contact Rivka Shemesh-Raiskin From Biblical Hebrew to Mishnaic Hebrew: The Use of an Inner Object Forward and contents can be seen in PDF form, just press "SAMPLE PAGES".

This dictionary is the outcome of a over 20 years fieldwork. It presents over 4000 entries and over 12000 subentries of the Hebrew component in Jewish languages, most of which were recorded from the mouth or informants. The research was focused on languages that were not studied at all or poorly studied: Judeo-Arabic of North Africa, Yemen and Iraq, Judeo-Georgian, Judeo-Persian and some Jewish Neo-Aramaic dialects. The dictionary refers to thel literature relevant to this field and has systematic references to a dictionary on the Hebrew component in Judeo-Italian in the making by Prof. Maria Mayer-Modena. In some entries the dictionary functions merely as a bibliographical index. The examples are transliterated and translated into Hebrew. In parenthesis are given the intitals of the informants. Based on Shlomo Morag's records.

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'

Forward and contents can be seen in PDF form, just press "SAMPLE PAGES".

This book, Israel , honors the memory of Professor Israel Yeivin – teacher, dear friend and colleague, meticulous and diligent scholar, a modest man who edified us with his noble character as well as his ideas. Israelis published by the Hebrew University Bible Project (HUBP), of which Prof. Yeivin was one of the first staff members. He worked in this capacity for many years, leaving his mark on the project. His scholarship focused on Masoretic manuscripts, particularly the Aleppo Codex. The fruits of his labors were published by the Bible Project and in his book on the Aleppo Codex. The wonderfully detailed notes he wrote for the Project on the thousands of erasures and corrections made in the text of the Aleppo Codex still remain unpublished. Most of these were made by the leading Masorete Aharon Ben-Asher.

The literary creativity of Kurdistani Jews included translations of liturgical poems for Jewish holidays and other special days, such as the national mourning day of the Ninth of Ab. Normally the Rabbis discouraged translating and reciting Hebrew-Aramaic canonical prayers, but permitted doing so in the case non-canonical texts. Therefore, manuscripts from (Iraqi and Iranian) Kurdistan include many such translations. Actually, most of these "translations" include many additions, interpolations, local linguistic folklore, actualia, etc. Since the original Hebrew text includes typically many allusions to other Hebrew- Jewish texts and traditions, and in many cases even to Jewish law and customs that would not be clear to the average uneducated person, the translations include specific explanations which are embedded in the main poetic texts as well. These texts are a classical example of reducing difficult poetic texts to a level that would be understood by the common folk. In addition to the translations, there are some poems which seem to be original, such as the poem about the halakhic rules for Passover, since no Hebrew equivalent has been found for them. Even in the case of those which have a Hebrew parallel, which are the majority, the length of the hymn and the order of the verses of the Hebrew original and its tafsir-translation is not always identical (at least in versions known to us). Very few of these translations have been published, while most remain in manuscript form. Some tafsirs may appear in three or more lraqi and Iranian versions, but others are known from only one manuscript. The lraqi ones are usually the oldest (ca. 1650), whereas the oldest lranian (Azerbaijani) manuscript dates from 1780. The texts, as expected, include words which today would be considered archaic or are unknown. The same is true regarding the phonology, morphology, and syntax. Some of these were recited in the synagogue, but most were recited during home rituals, such as at the Passover Seder.