The book examines the ideological motivations behind the selection of representations for Israeli banknotes and coins. The research is based on the proceedings and correspondence of the Bank of Israel Banknotes and Coinage Planning Committee from its inception in 1955 to 2012. The study reveals the mechanisms in which the legal tender is exploited as an expression of banal nationalism, implementing national emblems in an unnoticed manner. Banal nationalism is one of three theoretical frameworks we adopted. The other two are the long history of the Jewish people in the territory which today is the State of Israel; and selective tradition as a means for designing a nation. The book comprises eight chapters: theoretical overview; analytical portrayal of the working methods of the Bank of Israel Banknotes and Coinage Planning Committee; a study of the first designed “Allegoric Figures Series” (1959); analysis of the selection of human figures; the construction of the state borders through an array of landscape images; the reflection of the shifting boundaries in the changing representations Jerusalem; the selection of archaeological emblems as a proof for national continuity; and the symbolic role of flora as identification with the land.

In this issue: Yair Lorberbau | On Rules and Reason on Law and Halakhah - A Fresh Conceptual Framework for the Study of the Rationale of the Commandments Shalom Zadik | The Status of the Tormented Heretic according to Rabbi Hsdai Crescas and his Relation to Abner of Burgos Hillel Ben-Sasson | The concept of Repentance in the Zohar Itzhak Brand | Commandments between Man and God and between Man and his Fellow: A Study in the Dualistic Thought of R. Isaac Abarbanel Eliezer Baumgarten and Uri Sfrai | Kabbalah and Marriage Customs in Early Modern Italy Dvir Warshavski | Zot Torat Ha-'Ola : The Belief in the Creation of the World in Rema's Thought Barak Hoffman | The Lurianic Zimzum Revisited Moshe Halamish | Kabbalistic Customs during Hosha'na Rabba Sara Habshush | Differing Explanations for the Recitation of Mourner's Kaddish and their Influences on the Custom Michal Ohana | The Sepharadic Diaspora in North Africa following the Expansion from Spain on the Relation between Torah and Philosophy Dov Schwartz | R. Zvi Hirsch of Ziditchov on the Beginnings of Creation: A Hasidic Theology? Ofer Chen | The Religious Kibbutz: Between Mysticism and Halakhah Hana Riklin-Natan | Between Religious Zionism and Chabad: Rabbi Ginsburg's Response on Disengagement Shraga Bick | Radical There, Conservative Here: Religious Pluralism, Secularization and Questions of Power in the Thought of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks

Bilha Shilo unfolds the complex plot of the extraordinary success of the restitution of the collections of YIVO (Yidisher Visnshaftlekher Institut) – the prestigious research institution of the Yiddish language and culture. A Drama in Acts traces the fragments of post Second World War YIVO, which meanwhile moved from Vilna to New York - in restituting its cultural property in the West, in the American occupied zone, and documents its bitter failure in the Soviet occupied territory in the East. The book explores, through the question of cultural property ownership, a range of historical issues: the development of modern Jewish culture in Eastern Europe, the advance of Yiddish as a modern literary language, the history of Jewish culture under communist regime, and its extermination under Nazi rule. Other issues addressed are the demise of Jewish culture in Eastern Europe following the division of Europe and the Cold War, and lastly - the conflict between Israel and the Diaspora over the inheritance of Jewish European culture. The book is published in the series "Hefez", which presents the latest research on Jewish cultural property and its demise, in German by the Dubnow Institute, Leipzig, and in Hebrew - in collaboration with The Hebrew University Magnes Press, Jerusalem.

Nietzsche is not ordinarily considered a philosopher of law, and despite the voluminous literature on almost every other aspect of his thought, little has been written about his reflections on the role of law in the social, intellectual, and personal spheres. Yet careful reading of his works reveals a significant body of critical reflection on socio-jurisprudential questions regarding the nature of law, obedience to the law, the criminal mindset, punishment, and more. The book presents for the first time, a comprehensive collection of aphorisms gathered from the entire Nietzschean corpus that explicitly or implicitly addresses the subject of law, arranged thematically, along with contextualization, annotation, and commentary. The book contains six chapters - The self in the presence of law, The criminal: a profile, Causation, action, free will, Punishment, Rights and obligations, Religion and state. It thus provides a panoramic view of Nietzsche’s critical discourse on law and legal culture.

The World of Machiavelli explores his teaching by placing it squarely in its political and intellectual context. Based on a wide range of personal letters, diplomatic dispatches and administrative memoranda as well as on his treatises, plays and poems, it traces the development of his skills, mental habits and unique views from his youth, through his turbulent public career, to his last days. Alongside the formative historical and personal circumstances, the book explores the universal dimensions of Machiavelli’s thought, which forms an integral part of an ongoing conversation about our ability to organize our shared lives and shape our destiny. Thus, The World of Machiavelli differs from most biographies and studies of his thought: focusing on a cluster of themes that are central both in his works and in our modern public life, the book invites the readers to reflect on major issues of our time by engaging with Machiavelli.

The Intention of the Torah and the Intention of Its Readers surveys how traditional Jewish exegesis throughout the ages has coped with the literary and topical difficulties found in the Torah, in the context of the belief in the Torah’s divine source and sanctity. “All problems stem from expectations.” Readers and exegetes of the Torah throughout the ages supposed, and many continue to suppose, that the Torah is perfect and flawless. They expect the Torah to reflect superior and timeless standards of morality, as well as precise and eternal theological principles. They believe that everything written in the Torah is true, essential, and well thought out. The history of Torah scholarship from the end of the Second Temple period until our day can be conceived of as an uninterrupted continuum of challenges which this unique and, frankly, impossible level of expectations has imposed upon its readers and exegetes. These are glorious attempts to bring the Torah nearer the time and place of its devotees and to adapt its meaning to theirs. This book is the first attempt of its kind to examine the history of the enterprise of Torah exegesis from a distance. It contains an examination of dozens of key texts from the end of the Second Temple period, from Talmudic and Midrashic sources, dicta of medieval Sages, and the reflections and research penned by scholars of the Enlightenment (Haskalah) and the modern era. A bird’s eye view blurs the details which differentiate between these texts, enabling us to more easily focus upon the similarities; this point of view also allows us to note the central crossroads of change and development which characterize each period. This is an indispensable book for anyone interested in the changing nature of biblical exegesis over the generations.

Philo was the first Jewish philosopher who left behind one of the richest bodies of work from antiquity, yet his personality and intellectual development have remained a riddle. Maren Niehoff presents the first biography of Philo, arguing that his trip to Rome in 38 CE was a turning point in his life. He was exposed then not only to new political circumstances but also to a new cultural and philosophical environment. The Intellectual Biography traces Philo's trajectory from his early days as a Bible interpreter in the Jewish community of Alexandria to his diplomatic and intellectual activity in Rome, when he engaged Roman philosophy. Anticipating Sa'ada Gaon and Maimonides by almost thousand years, Philo creatively presents Jewish philosophy in the context of contemporary culture and thought.

Charles Perrault’s “Puss in Boots” was published in Paris at the end of the seventeenth century in his collection Stories or Tales from Times Past or, Tales of Mother Goose. Yigal Schwartz reveals how Perrault dresses the story in a new and colorful literary garment woven from the fairy tale and the contemporary story of the court of Louis XIV. Perrault’s story and the fairy tale both conceal and reveal things about each other and cruelly illuminate the nature of crowds and the royal court. Among the folds of this literary garment, a social, cultural, and political crossroads can be found. And what do the cat’s boots conceal? This question has excited Yigal Schwartz since childhood and is what sent him on a unique, sometimes perplexing, and multifaceted quest for “Puss in Boots.” In this in-depth literary study, Schwartz analyzes the well-known tale and determinedly examines each of its details, comparing style and content. Why does the cat wear boots? Why a miller’s son? Why the Marquis of de Carabas? And why the ogre’s castle? Schwartz draws his answers from a wide range of perspectives—those of psychoanalysis, phenomenology, sociology, and literary studies—all of which meet at the roots of the anxiety he identifies at the foundation of the tale: the anxiety involved in concealment, which is at the same time anxiety about the mask but also about what may not be concealed behind it at all.

Pesikta de-Rav Kahana (below: Pesikta ) is arguably the most structurally complex midrashic composition in the landscape of the classic midrashim . The Pesikta was probably composed in fifth century Palestine and consists of sermons on special Sabbath and festival Torah and Haftarah readings. The work was designed to influence the atmosphere of the synagogue during events of calendrical significance and is therefore of great importance for reconstructing the spiritual and cultural encounter that took place between the sages and their synagogue audience. The Pesikta , whose very discovery and reconstruction were beset by multiple obstacles, remains in some ways an unsolved mystery and many questions concerning the context in which it was created continue to occupy scholars to this day. Up until now, the scholarly world has produced only partial and incomplete studies of the Pesikta and its formation. This book, “My Children, Read this Passage Every Year”: Composition and Meaning in Pesikta De-Rav Kahana , is a comprehensive attempt to fill this gap and afford a glimpse into the workshop of the Pesikta's editor.

In this issue: David Henshke | Ma'amadot : A First Stage in the History of Rabbinic Prayer? Hannan Mazeh | Amanos or Ammana: An Emerging Interpretative Tradition and Maimonides' Emendation of the Mishnah Elyashiv Cherlow | The History of the Text of Talmud Yerushalmi : Studies of the Genizah Fragments Yehuda Zvi Stampfer | Sa'adia Gaon's Interpretation of the thirteen Hermeneutical Principles according to the Arabic Source: Commentary, Tendencies, and Unknown Sources

The book offers a fresh view on the life of Jews under National Socialism. Focusing on the spatial and temporal aspects of the changes brought about by the new regime, it highlights the “tactics” utilized by German Jews to cope with the new reality, make sense of it, and rethink their position vis-à-vis German nationality. Based on a rich theoretical framework from various fields in social and cultural studies (human geography, environmental psychology, sociology of time and so on) the book examines German Jews’ reflections on their new experiences through the paradigms of "lived space" and "lived time." In discussing two main types of sources—private (diaries, correspondences and memoirs) and public (Jewish press)—the book sheds new light on the topics of maintaining Jewish agency under Nazism; the possibility and forms of Jewish defiance; and scope (and limits) of Jewish awareness of the processes that reshaped Germany’s approach to its Jewish population. The book’s analysis of Jews’ reflections on the spatial and temporal aspects of life under Nazism portrays an intricate endeavor to understand the new reality, adjust to it, and answer its increasing challenges.