The articles in this volume: Yoav Rosenthal The History of the Final Chapter of Tractate Shevu ʿ ot Menahem Kister Exod 4:24-26: The Complexity of Jewish and Christian Interpretations Ronny Vollan Coptic Hebraists in the Middle Ages? On the Transmission of Rav Sa ʿ adiah Gaon’s Tafsīr Avi Shmidman The Liturgical Role of Ḥatanu Poems in שפוך חמתך ‘ Avraham Fraenkel Curse Poetry and the Verses of Ancient Jewish Italy Mordechai Akiva Friedman Maimonides Appoints R. Anatoly Muqaddam of Alexandria Oded Yisraeli From ‘ Torat Ha-Shem Temimah ’ to the Torah Commentary: Milestones in Nahmanides’ Creative life Avishai Bar-Asher Sefer ha-Neʿelam , New Parts of Sefer Or Zaru ʿ a and Clarifications Regarding the Early Writings of R. Moses de León: Studies and Critical Editions Books Received English Abstracts For contents and article abstracts in English press on Sample pages which is located on the right of the cover photo.

The articles in this volume: Naama Alfasi-Weiss The Biblical Story of the Announcement of Isaac’s Birth : A Structural Analysis Avraham (Rami) Reiner On the Origins of the Expression Amen, amen, amen sel Rella Kushelevsky Between the Heritage of the Middle Ages and the Winds of the Renaissance: The Midrash of the Ten Commandments in the Parma Manuscript 2269 (De Rossi 473) Tal Goitein Elijah’s Cup: An Unknown Fifteenth-Century Depiction of the Custom in the Erna Michael Haggadah Noga Rubin ‘ The Legend of Three and Four’: An Account of Jewish Story-Telling Tradition in Prague of the Seventeenh Century Tsila Zan-Bar Tsur ‘ A woman is like a stew, warm and nourishing’: Kitchen and Femininity in the Folk Culture of Afghan Jews Yael Zilberman ‘ I would have died had God not sent me Elijah the Prophet’: Class, Body, and Sexuality in the Life Stories of Elderly Oriental (Mizrahiot) Women of Beer Sheva Noga Libi Cohen ‘ In the merit of a woman – the miracle happened’: Conformism and Subversion in the Story of Judith as Told by an Ultra-Orthodox Woman Towards a History of Folkloristics Rina Benari Blessing Scrolls and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem: The Case of the Blessing Scroll from Mława – 1925 Book Reviews Yael Guilat Material-Culture Research in Israel [On: Aviva Muller-Lancet, Garments with a Message: Ethnography of Jewish Wear in Islamic Lands, Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi and The Hebrew University of Jerusalem 2010, 389 + 67 pp. (in Hebrew)] Haim Weiss Current Aspects of Folklore Research [On: Regina F. Bendix & Galit Hasan-Rokem (eds.), A Companion to Folklore (Blackwell Companions to Anthropology, 15), Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012, 660 pp. (Paper edition, 2014)] Dani Schrire Encyclopedic Knowkege and Jewish Folklore [On: Raphael Patai & Haya Bar-Itzhak (eds.), Encyclopedia of Jewish Folklore and Traditions, Armonk, New York: M. E. Sharpe, 2013, 2 volumes, 680 pp.] English abstracts at the end of the book.

Eshbal Ratzon - The Gates of the Sun and the Moon in the Astronomical Book of Enoch Aharon Semesh - Transmitting Regular and Irregular Semen Impurity at Qumran: A Study of 4QTohora (4Q274) Michael Rand - Was Mahzor Eretz Israel - A Geniza Codex Indeed Used in Eretz Israel? New Fragments of the Codex and their Contribution to an Understanding of the Nature of its Liturgical Rite Simcha Emanuel - The Rabbis of Germany in the Thirteenth Century: Continuity of Crisis? Ram Ben-Shalom - Kabbalistic Circles Active in the South of France (Provence) in the Thirteenth Century For contents and article abstracts press on Sample pages which is located on the right of the cover photo.

The articles in this volume: The Legislation of War: A Study of the Story of the Israelite War against Midian (Numbers 31) - Ariel Kopilovitz ‘You shall hamstring their horses and burn their chariots’ (Joshua 11:6): The Identification of Horses and Chariots as the Weapons of Israel’s Enemies in Biblical Literature - Yakov Dolgopolsky-Geva A Complete Root Glossary of Canaanite Words and Forms from the Amarna Tablets - Esther Haber ‘We must have a king over us, that we may be like all the other nations’ (I Sam 8:19): Israelite Kings in Art - Irit Ziffer The Story of the Sons of God and the Daughters of Men (Gen. 6:1–4) in Light of the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women Akkadian Itineraries: From the Kingdom of Akkad to the Assyrian Empire - Amitai Baruchi-Unna The Akkadian Wisdom Composition ‘Hear the Advice’: Traditional Wisdom versus Rebellious Skepticism - Yoram Cohen The Leqah Tov Commentary on Song of Songs: Its Place in the History of Biblical Exegesis and its Relationship with the Commentary of Rashi - Jonathan Jacobs Nachmanides’ Exegesis of Midrash in his Commentary on the Torah - Miriam Sklarz Additions and Changes in Nachmanides’ Commentaries relating to the Geography of Israel - David Shneor Book Reviews For contents and article abstracts please press "Sample pages "

For contents and article abstracts press on Sample pages which is located on the right of the cover photo. The articles in this volume: Aharon Shemesh and Moshe Halbertal - The Meʾun (Refusal): The Complex History of Halakhic Anomaly Shulamit Elizur - The Early Scope of Parashat Sheqalim Gideon Bohak - The Hidden Hekhalot: Towards Reconstructing an Unknown Hekhalot Composition from the Cairo Genizah Avraham Grossman - The Impact of Rabbi Samuel of Spain and Reuel of Byzantium on Rashi’s School Idit Einat-Nov - Uncertainty as a Poetic Principle: A Reading of Nəʾum Ašer Ben Yəhudah by Shlomo Ibn Ṣaqbel English and Hebrew Abstracts

For contents and article abstracts press on Sample pages which is located on the right of the cover photo. The articles in this volume: Alexander Rofé - Redressing the Calamity in the Transmission of the Bible Yonatan Feintuch - The Textual Development of the Aggadah of Rav Ada b. Abba (b BB 22a) in Light of the Evidence of an Early Genizah Fragment Avi Shmidman - Quina Poems for the 10th of Tevet and the 17th of Tamuz Avraham Fraenkel - Kingdoms and their Harsh Decrees in Medieval Italian Jewish Poetry Tzahi Weiss - ‘Most of the Errant Err in Malkhut’: The Worship of the Shekhinah in Early Kabbalah Tsippi Kauffman - Rabbi Simcha Bunim of Przysucha English and Hebrew Abstracts

The articles in this volume: Jonatan Feintuch – The History of R. Ada b. Abba – Multiple Contexts and Multiple Messages in a Babylonian Talmudic Sugya. Shulamit Elizur – Exile on Native Soil. Avital Davidovich-Eshed – Sanetified God, Desecrated Woman: The Female Body as a Site of Cultural Conflict. Rereading the Story of the Murder of Sarit from a Hebrew Chronicle of 1096 . Tsippi Kauffman – Birth in Hasidic Literature: Gendered Readings. Yakir Englander – Tension Regarding the Status of the Zaddik's Body: The Stories about the Ba'al 'Ahavat Israel' from Viznitz. Yaniv Goldberg – 'You Are Not My Groom' – A Feminist Reading in S. An-sky's Between Two Worlds (The Dybbuk). Omri Ben-Yehuda – Between Bialik and Himslef: Acting Hyperbole Out. David Heyd – 'The House which Householders Attend': Agnon on the Theater. Zahava Caspi – Apocalypse, Territory and Identity in Joseph Mundi's The Ruler of Jericho and The Messiah. Shimrit Peled – Construction of Female Sexual Subjectivity in Victoria by Sami Michael in Comparison to other Hebrew and Israeli Writers. List of Contributors. English Abstracts.

For contents and article abstracts press on Sample pages which is located on the right of the cover photo. :Participants in this volume Dr. Matti Huss Prof. Uri Ehrlich Dr. Maoz Kahana Prof. Alexander Lubotzky Prof. Yair Lorberboim Prof. Yosef Ofer Prof. Menahem Kister Dr. Avraham (Rami) Reiner Dr. Avi Shmidman

We are pleased to present the readers with a new, double issue of Massorot , volumes 16–17, published through the collaboration of the Center for Jewish Languages and Literatures and the Jewish Oral Traditions Research Center of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The present volume offers ten articles devoted to Hebrew and Jewish language studies, some by veteran researchers, others by younger scholars. Half of them were originally presented as lectures at the Fourth International Conference of the Center for Jewish Languages and Literatures, convened to mark the 25th anniversary of the Center at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The theme of the conference, held in Tammuz 5770 / June 2010, was “Original Compositions and Translated Works in Jewish Languages”. The articles published in this volume deal with a range of Jewish languages, the majority of them Jewish languages of Romance stock: the articles by Shmuel Refael, Ángel Berenguer Amador, and Omer Shafran focus on Judeo-Spanish (or Judezmo, Ladino); the articles by Cyril Aslanov and Doron Modan are devoted to Jewish varieties of French; and the article by Michael Ryzhik concentrates on Judeo-Italian. Jewish Malayalam, the study of which is still in its infancy, is discussed in the article by Ophira Gamliel. Issues relating to the study of languages in contact, which frequently arise in Jewish language analysis, come to the fore in several of the articles in the present volume: the article by Esther Adamit analyzes the ways in which multiple languages influenced the selection of Jewish toponyms appearing on the title pages of Hebrew-letter works published in Europe; and the contribution by Doron Modan analyzes the influence of several European languages on the Hebrew component incorporated in a collection of communal regulations written in the language of the Jews of Bordeaux and Bayonne.Two of the articles in this volume discuss Hebrew language traditions. The article by Moshe Bar-Asher analyzes the Hebrew that emerges from tombstone inscriptions from Meknes as reflected in the volume Avne Zikkaron, by Rabbi Yosef Messas. The contribution by Ilan Eldar discusses the origins of the traditional Ashkenazic pronunciation of Hebrew. The book features article summaries in English.

Shlomo Naeh - Tradition and Interpretation in Mishnah Sheqalim 5:3–5 and Its Talmud David Henshke - On the Strata in the Passover Haggadah in the Mishnah David Rosenthal - An Additional Stage in the History of the Mishnaic Text Robert Brody - Two Traditions with Regard to a Particular Passage in Mishna Sheqalim Moshe Bar-Asher - On General Rules and Individual Cases in Mishnaic Noun Formation Daniel Boyarin - Once Again: ‘Two Dominions in Heaven’ in the Mekhilta Menahem Kister - The Manifestations of God in the Midrashic Literature in Light of Christian Texts Menahem Kahana - ‘When You Enter the Land’: A Tannaitic Controversy and Its Realistic Meaning Joseph Tabory - The Baraita of the Four Sons Moshe Assis More on the Question of the Redaction of Yerushalmi Neziqin Binyamin Elizur - A Genizah Manuscript of Yerushalmi Sheqalim according to Its Recensions Yoav Rosenthal - The Integration of Sugyot on Mishnah Middot into Bavli Tamid Aharon Shweka - The Tablets of Stone, the Law, and the Commandment Vered Noam - Did the Rabbis Know Josephus’ Works? H. Ben-Shammai - Yohar: The transformations of a Middle-Persian Word in Judaeo-Arabic and in Medieval Hebrew Hananel Mack - Homilist and Literalist: Rabbi Moses Hadarshan Heralds a Literal Exposition of the Bible Simcha Emanuel -From First to Third Person: A study in the Culture of Writing in Medieval Ashkenaz M. H. Schmelzer - Avigdor Aptowitzer’s Letters to Shalom Spiegel

Moshe Simon-Shoshan: The Story of Honi Hame'agel in Mishnah Ta'anit 3:8: A Case Study in the Art of Mishnaic Narrative The articles in this volume: Gilad Sasson: The Expanded Biblical Story about Abigail Who Prevents David from Shedding Blood Uriah Kfir: On Poetry and Potency: En Ron Becha – A Muwashshah by Abraham haBedersi Nicham Ross: The Tale if Not Higher and its Hasidic Source Ariel Levinson: The Riddle of Berdichevsky's Miriam Mimi Haskin: Dancing Amidst Flames of Fire: The Hora Dance in the Hebrew Culture and Literature Dror Eydar: 'Sometimes the Holy May Erupt Out of the Ghostly Shame of our Language': On the Subconscious Materials in the Hebrew Language and Literature Eran Tzelgov: Ha-makom ve-shivro: Desire, Place and Myth in Moshe Smilansky's Khawadja Nazar Dana Keren-Yaar: Modernism of Her Own: Miriam Yalan-Stekelis and Trips Boys Take to where Dolls Grow Roni Miron: Historiography and the Problem of Historical Continuity: A Hermeneutical View of Baruch Kurzweill's Thinking Hadas Shabat-Nadir: The 'Yeshurun Effect' in the Poetry of the Seventies: Avot Yeshurun, Dan Pagis and Erez Biton Miriam Neiger: 'And I didn't say, "A vision for the end of days"': Eschatology in the Poetry of Yehuda Amichai Anat Danziger: Four Exercises in Visual Poetrics: On the Poetry Album of Dalia Rabikovitch

Volume one: A List of Galit Hasan-Rokem's Publications Intimate Dialogue: A Personal View of Galit Hasan-Rokem's Poetry On the Three 'Who is She...' Questions in the Song of Songs Rabbi Meir, the Babylonian Talmud, and Menippean Satire From Narrative Practice to Cultural Poetics: Literary Anthropology and Rabbinic Sense of Self Noah, his Family, and Other Animals: Midrash, Folklore and the Interpretation of a Biblical Story (or: Homage to Structuralism) 'The Earthquake in the Valley of Arbel': A Galilean Apocalyptic Tradition and its Historical-Liturgical Context The Literary-Parable in Seder Eliyahu Raba, in Light of the Homiletic-Parable in Rabbinic Literature 'Unto the Voice of the Girl's Songs': On Singing Women in Medieval Hebrew Poetry (The Andalusian School and it Offshoots) Intertextual Appropriation as Code: Between Palestine and Spain Jewish and Christian Dispute Poems on the Relationship between the Body and the Soul The Sorcerer Balaam According to Midrash Me'am Lo'ez The Plebeian and the Cultivated Proverb in Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote 'Irme Kero Madre' (Mother, I Wsih to Go): The Concept of Jerusalem in a Judeo-Spanish Folk Song as a Movement between Myth and Praxis Indescribable Female Beauty: Sephardic Wasfs, the Song of Songs, and Baffled Readers The Image of the Jew in Yiddish Proverbs Midrash Eliyahu, Mendelssohn's Version Freud and the Topos of the Wandering Jew The Retum of the Wandering Jews(s) in Samuel Hirszenberg's Art List of Contributors List of Abbreviations English Abstracts Volume two: Mitzvot Hannah: Visual Depictons of the 'Three Women's Commandments' among the Jews of Europe from the Middle Ages to Late Nineteenth Century Magic Dress of Jewish Groom from Rada'A' - a Town in Yemen Trousseaus of Jewish Brides from Izmir: Biographical Objects The Study of Folklore and the Process of Secularization of Modern Jewish Culture The Power of a Proverb - the Role of a Proverb in Agnon's Story Four Sages Who Were in Our Town: The Social Milieu in the Rabbinic Study Hall - from the Babylonian Talmud to S.Y. Agnon Source and Oblivion - Story, Folk and Folktale in Agnon's Writing Agnon's Biblical Ethnographies: Edo and Enam and the Quest for the Ultimate Song The Narrative Sub-Structures of S.Y. Agnon's 'The Lady and the Peddler' Leah Goldberg Meets Brenner 'Deportation Does no Solve Anything' - on 'Khirbet Khizeh' by S. Yizhar Purim in Sheinkin-Carnival in Tel Aviv of the Eighties A Yid Gefint an Eytse (Yiddish: A Jew Gets Advice) - A Reading in the Life History and Proverbs and Sayings of an Israeli Man of Transylvanian Origin in His Life in Communist Romania 'To Make Many More Menachem Mendels': Childlessness, Parturiton, and Creation in Messianic Habad Men and Women Narrating the Myth of the Creation of Woman - Hegemonic and Subversive Message 'Gobelin' Needlepoint: Introducing the Concept of 'Transitional Object; to the Study of Material Culture Jews in the Arabic Map: Hebrew Place Names Spoken by Local Arabbs - a Literary-Cultural Reading The Identity of Israeli Arabs as Reflected in Hebrew-Bases Nicknames The 'Bible Now': Contemporization, Political Satire and National Memory 'The Princess in the Rock': A South Indian Tale 'He That Travels Far Knows Much' English Abstracts