This issue contains the following essays : Guy D. Stiebel | ʻBurns Like Fireʼ - Mustard and Viniculture in Roman Palestine Jonathan Vardi | Song-Cycles in the Dīwān of Samuel Ha-Nagid Hillel Ben-Sasson | Transgressions and Punishments. The Special Contribution of Rabenu Yonah Gerondi’s Shaʿarei Teshuvah Kedem Golden | Addenda to the Poetry of Yosef Ben Tanḥum Hayerushalmi Avishai Bar-Asher | ‘Berikh Shemehʼ: The History of an Anonymous Aramaic prayer that Found its Way into Sefer ha-Zohar and the Prayer Book

This issue contains the following essays : Menahem Kahana - The Good in the Sight of Heaven and Right in the Sight of Man Yair Furstenberg - From Tradition to Controversy: New Modes of Transmission in the Teachings of Early Rabbis Gideon Bohak - A New Genizah Fragment of Toledoth Yeshu in Aramaic Yehoshua Granat - To Alexandria, with the sound of bell and pomegranate: Yehuda Halevi’s Arrival in Alexandria in Light of a Newly Identified Poem by Aaron Ibn Al-ʿAmmānī Shulamit Elizur - Between Poetic and Statutory Formulations: A Note on the History of the Ha-Maʿariv ʿAravim Benediction Menahem Kister - ‘The Lord of Hosts is His Name in Ha-Maʿariv ʿAravim Benediction: Metamorphoses and Erosion of Benediction Formulae Joshua Blau - Review of: W. Randall Garr and Steven Ellis Fassberg (eds.), A Handbook of Biblical Hebrew , I: Periods, Corpora, and Reading Traditions (xii + 228 pp.); II: Selected Texts (vi + 136 pp.), Winona Lake, IN 2016

Birkat Ha-Avoda of Tefillat Ha-Amidah has a long history spanning the Second Temple period to the early Middle Ages. This title follows the different formats of the prayer through the ages, examining a variety of sources: Writings from the Second Temple period, rabbinic texts, Christian texts, early Piyutim, medieval sources, and dozens of Siddurim and excerpts from Siddurim. The comparative study of these sources generates a detailed description of the development of Birkat Ha-Avoda, which sheds light on the history of the regular prayers and Jewish customs.

Articles: Haim Weiss | ‘From That Hour the Doom Was Sealed’: On Class Reversals in the ‘Legends of Destruction’ Vered Tohar | ‘Rabbi Hanina and the Frog’: An Ancient Ashkenazi story Adapted for Children by Asher Barash Lital Lieberman-Avital | ‘Take the Illness and Give the Medicine’: Removal by Salt – Traditional Women’s Healing Practice on a Socio-Cultural Borderline Yuval Harari | Wonders and Sorceries in Yeruham: A Magical-Political Rashomon Dalia Marx | Welcoming the Sabbath in the Kibbutzim: Secular Religiosity Narmina Abdulaev | Narration Surfing: Folklore Published on the Internet and Its Analysis Shany Kotler-Fux | ‘Hitler-Pants’ Parodies: Folklore in Israel’s Virtual Sphere Reviews: Aharon Maman | [Review of:] Yosef Tobi and Tsivia Tobi, Judeo-Arabic Literature in Tunisia, 1850–1950, Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 2014, 367 pp. Jacqueline Laznow | [Review of:] Tsivia Tobi, From Bride to Daughter-in-Law: The World of Jewish Women in Southern Tunisia and Its Reflection in Popular Literature, Jerusalem 2016, 344 + [iv] pp. [Hebrew] Tzila Zan-Bar Zur | [Review of:] Idit Pintel-Ginsberg, The Angel and the Tcholent: Food Representations in Folktales, Haifa 2016, 176 pp. [Hebrew] English Abstracts

This issue contains the following essays: Ariel Seri-Levi | Sělîḥâ in the Priestly Literature David Henshke | ‘It is Joy for Him’: On Additions to the Mishnah and Their Developments Ella Tovia | A Different Version of Bavli Sabbath and Its Implication for the Final Stage of Its Redaction Mordechai Akiva Friedman | Repetition of the Evening ʿAmida on Festivals and Special Sabbaths in the Custom of Eretz Israel Uri Safrai and Uri Ehrlich | The Ancient Version of the Maʿariv ʿAravim Blessing in Cairo Genizah Prayer-Books Mosh Idel | R. Nehemiah ben Shlomo’s Commentaries on the Alphabet of Metatron – Additional Inquiries English Abstracts

This volume contains the following essays: Adiel Schremer | Parvanka: The Mandaean Context of an Anti-Heretical Polemic in the Babylonian Talmud Shlomi Efrati | A Quire of Chapters of Sanhedrin and Megillah, Part II: A Unique Textual Tradition of the Babylonian Talmud Shulamit Elizur | Ke-ha- yom ha-ze bi-Yerushalayim: The Origins, Distribution and Evolution of a Prayer Marking the Conclusions of Ceremonies Vered Raziel-Kretzmer | How Late was the Palestinian Rite Practiced in Egypt? New Evidence from the Cairo Genizah Joshua Blau | Review of: Alexey Eliyahu Yuditsky, A Grammar of the Hebrew of Origen’s Transcriptions, Jerusalem: The Academy of the Hebrew Language, 2017 [Hebrew] English Abstracts

This issue contains the following essays: Ronnie Goldstein | YHWH’s Inheritance and His Enthronement Shraga Bar-On and Yakir Paz | The Land of God to the Sons of God: Deuteronomy 32: 8-9 and the Inheritance of the Land of Israel Shlomi Efrati | A Quire of Chapters of Sanhedrin and Megillah, Part 1: A Unique Textual Tradition of the Babylonian Talmud Mordechai Akiva Friedman | The Shabbat Evening Prayer in the Palestinian Congregation of Fustat in Abraham Maimonides’ Times

Contents Tsippi Kauffman and Itamar Brenner | Narrative and Normative Discourse in the Sugiyot of Procreation Yair Lorberboim | On the Rejection of Reasons in Halakhic Discourse: The Debate on the Reason for the Prohibitions on Marring the Corners of the Head and the Beard Esti Eisenmann | God's Attributes according to Rambi and Crescas Raphael Shuchat | The Place of Manuscripts in Research of the Vilna Gaon’s Writings Ora Wiskind-Elper | Rebbe Yehoshua Heschel Rabinovitz of Monastyrishche: Contemplations of a Hasidic Leader on Judaism in Troubled Times Yaron Naim | Rabbi Kalphon Moshe Hacohen’s Struggle with the Issue of Women’s Status David M. Feuchtwanger | On Theology, Politics and Disobedience in Agnon’s Shlom Olamim Ronit Irshai | The Return of Aqedah Theology: The Relationships between Religion, Gender and Ethics

This volume contains the following essays: Yitzhak Avishur | Names of Jewish Holidays in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic Ilan Eldar | The Hebrew of Dutch Sepharadim in Seventeenth Century Amsterdam David M. Bunis | The Iberian Judeo-Arabic Roots of the Ladino Bible-Translation Tradition Joshua Blau | Remarks on the Biblical Dictionary of David Alfasi Joshua Blau and Joseph Yahalom | The Typology of Palestinian Vocalization Systems Preserved in Manuscripts from the Last Quarter of the First Millennium Dror Ben-Arié | Miqneh Abram of Abraham de Balmes: A New Reading of a Sixteenth Century Hebrew Grammar in the Light of Hebrew and Latin Treatises Nasir Basal | On the Comparison between Languages in Tafsīr al-̓Alfāẓ by ̓Abū al-Faraj Hārūn: Comparisons to Rabbinic Hebrew and Aramaic Moshe Bar-Asher | The Limitations of Orthography, Script, and Morphology: A Problem of Mishnaic Hebrew Grammar Elitzur Bar-Asher | Siegal Rhetorical Questions in Jewish Babylonian Aramaic Yochanan Breuer | Rabba and Rava, ’Abba and ’Ava - Spelling, Pronunciation, and Meaning Chanoch Gamliel | Lexical Definitions in Menaḥem’s Maḥberet and Rashi’s Commentary Santiago García-Jalón | Manuscripts that Preceded the Introductiones of Alfonso de Zamora Aron Dotan | The Double Pronunciation of the Ancient Resh Jonathan Howard | Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek: The List of Languages in Me’or ‘Ayin and the Transmission of Diqduqe ha-Miqra Yehudit Henschke | On the Language of the Musta‘arabi Jews of Peqi‘in: between Jewish Arabic and Local Arabic – A Look at the Names of the Holidays Doron Yaakov | Remarks on a Verbal Form in the Yemenite Tradition of Mishnaic Hebrew Geoffrey Khan | The Pronunciaton of Dageš in the Tiberian Tradition of Biblical Hebrew Asher Laufer | Contemporary Realizations of Qameṣ: The Pronunciation of Qameṣ before a Ḥaṭef-Qameṣ José Martinez Delgrado | The Making of Accumulative Lists in the Maḥberet of Menaḥem ben Saruq Hananel Mirsky | The Maḥberet Menaḥem According to the Critical Edition of Sáenz-Badillos Yosef Ofer | Two Masoretic Notes about Words Vocalized with a Qameṣ and Their Metamorphosis Steven E. Fassberg | Perfect Third Masculine Singular בעו and Related Forms in Samaritan Aramaic Yona Sabar | Hebrew in the Shadow of Neo-Aramaic: Mizraḥi Hebrew as Reflected in the Report of a Kurdish Hakham Traveling in Kurdistan in 1932 Moshe Kahan | The Transformation of Ellipsis from an Exegetical Rule to a Logical Theorem in Kaspi’s Work Michael Ryhzik | Orthographic Differences between Orders of the Mishnah in MS Kaufmann Yael Reshef | Distinctive Lexical Features in the Written Hebrew of the Revival Period Ora (Rodrigue) Schwarzwald | The Common Denominator Principle in the Formation of Israeli Hebrew Joseph Chetrit | Representations of the Jewish Community and Communal Ethos: A Socio-Pragmatic and Linguistic Analysis of a Hebrew Elegy by R. Shemuel Haliwa (Meknes, 1790) Joseph Tedghi | Neologism and Rare Forms in the Spiritual Works of the Sages of Morocco Ofra Tirosh-Becker | Hebrew and Judeo-Arabic of Bar Mitzva Homilies from Ghardaïa English Abstracts

ARITCLES Arnon Azmon - Editing and Meaning in Pesikta de-Rav Kahana, Pesikta Rabbati and Midrash Tanhuma on ‘Vayehi Beyom Chalot Moshe’ (Num 7:1) Yuval Fraenkel - The Hand-Leaning Controversy: Controversy and Authority Noam Samet - ‘The Wise Shall Inherit Glory’ (Prov 3:35) - The Redaction of the Sugya on Human Dignity Rachel Hitin-Mashiah and Tamar Lavi - Two Supplications (בקשות) by Rabbi Yedidya Monsoñego Amir Banbaji - The Maskilim as ῾Defenders of the Text’: A Third Paradigm of Jewish Enlightenment Tamar Salmon-Mack - The Weakening of the Parents’ Home and the Development of Other Kinship Relations in Epistolary Hebrew Literature in the 19th century Einat Baram Eshel - The Story of the Flood and its Representations in Hebrew Children’s Literature Shira Stav - Be My Mother and Brother: Rachel and Bialik Lilach Nethanel - Zalman Shneour’s Book of Wanderings Haya Shacham - ‘The World is a Riddle but the Riddle is a World’ Tal Holz - Slave of Time: The Work of Mourning in Israeli Holocaust Literature of the ‘1948 Generation’

The articles in this volume: Hallel Baitner - The Unintentional Killer and the Blood-Avenger –New Perspectives in the Rabbinic Exegesis of Num 35 Shulamit Elizur - The Origins of the Seliḥot Piyyutim Shalem Yahalom - The Pilpul Method of Talmudic Study: Earliest Evidence A. Bar-Asher - The Earliest Sefer ha-Zohar in Jerusalem: Early Manuscripts of Zoharic Texts and an Unknown Fragment from Midrash ha-Neʿlam [?] For contents and article abstracts in English press on Sample pages which is located on the right of the cover photo.

Contents: Nili Wazana – Preface In Memoriam Gershon Galil Prof. Zecharia Kallai 24.6.1923-17.1.2016 ) Amihai Mazar Prof Trude Dothan 12.10.1922-28.1.2016 ) Biblical Studies David Frankel - The Final Form of the Story of the Rape of Dinah in Light of Textual and Redaction Criticism Noam Mizrahi - From Wisdom to Hymn: The Literary, Textual and Linguistic Development of Jer 10:12-13 Miriam Sklarz - The Poet Before God, Against his Enemies and Facing his Congregation Naphtali S. Meshel - Dramatic Irony and double entendre in the Book of Job Amitai Baruchi - Unna Plural Forms Referring to ‘Elohim’ and the Israelite Cultic Proclamation Recurring in the Cult of the Calf The Bible in Relation to the Ancient Near East Shira J. Golani - ‘That (No) Plague May Come Upon Them for Being Registered’ (Exod 30:12): Census and Plague in the Bible in Light of the Ancient Near East Mordechai Cogan - Restoring the Empire: Sargon II’s Campaign to the West in 720/19 BCE History of Exegesis David Kopeliovich - Hated by his Brothers: The Typological Function of Jeremiah the Prophet in Josephus’ Jewish War Jonathan Jacobs - Use of the ʻNarrative Parableʼ by Northern-France Disciples (11th-12th Centuries) Isaac Gottlieb and Stewart Vanning - Rupert of Deutz (c.1075-1129) and Jewish Commentaries on the Joseph Story Itamar Kislev - The Contribution of Minhat Yehuda for Improving the Text of Rashbam’s Torah Commentary Yohanan Kapah - Joseph Hayyun’s Maggid Mishne