Thank you for such a very neat and valuable showcase of many of the latest seforim!
Can I just ask Rav Brodt what type of seforim you set out to profile? I notice here mainly 3 types of works:
a)critical new/re-done productions of Rishonim, Achronim, Mishna vchu' - i.e. Talmud Torah kipshuto
b)works collecting Torah sources on various topics, e.g. re suicide, kivrei tzadikim, minhagei yisroel
c)many academic works about Torah works but not actual Torah e.g. Prof. Grossman about Rashi, Rav Shochet's wrok about Gra's opinion of Geulah
d)many academic works not about Torah per se e.g, 'Kiyum Be'idan shel Temuras' about life in Germany, book about Aguda, book about crazy people in Middle Ages book about Gedolim's holocaust intros etc
I think that there should be a slightly clearer de-marcation between actual Torah works, academic works on Torah, and academic works on Jewish phenomena that have no specific Torah. Most people have more interest in certain categories than others.
But all in all, a fantastic lineup of works that add much to Torah and much to academic scholarship (sometimes the two are paired in these works, sometimes not). A groyse yasher koach.
Ezrie
What is your problem exactly? I chose to divide each group according to their Publishing house and I clearly define each work.
Rabbi Brodt: Great and extrmely informative article, as usual. You left out from the volumes of the Keter Tanakh, however, Shoftim, Shmuel, and Melakhim! Please correct.
thanks for the update!
just a few minor points:
a) chem'at ha-chemda of r' shet bar yefet was printed in its entirety (5 vol.) quite a while ago by y. salem (the person with exclusive rights to the ben ish hai's works).
b) this may be a burdensome request, but if you can please transliterate without the ashkenazi pronunciation, and with an adherence to dikduk, it would be a tremendous improvement. i find the current style confusing.
again, thanks for everything you do.
albeit, it was not a scholarly edition.
Its just that there's a slightly bewildering array of seforim covering extremely varying material and most people will choose to focus on one genre not every conceivable type of sefer.
Where in Yerushalyaim can one go to to purchase the seforim listed in the post? Is there one central place?
When does shavua sefer end? I will be in Israel next week. Will I miss it?
The sale ends this week.
haRav Steinsaltz's second volume of Menahot came out as well.
Also, of importance and no dubt interest is the diary of Prof E.E. Urbach obm who served in the army with the British in the early 1940s.
Further, the festschrift for Prof G Blidstein includes many impt articles as well.
There is yet another book with the title "moadei yisrael" -- this, new, by Y Rapel.
The much awaited volume two
of Keter Shemot. but strangely, vol 1 has yet to come out.
Iyunei Hamikra volume eight
in honor of Prof E.Touitou (expert on rashbam and much else parshanut wise)
You mention Mechon Yerushalayim -- but they were not among the publishers represented at the Yerushalayim fair -- why? i cannot figure (they also do not appear in the haredi seforim sale in Center 1)
--mivami
Does anyone know when Machon Yerushalayim is publishinf further volumes of their shulchan aruch? it's been a real long time since the last volum came out.
Machon Yerushalayim OC 5 just came out within the last 2 months
one other item to mention: Michael Segal, a haver from yu, and brother in law of YU RY R Weider, came out with a full study on the book of Jubilees (in hebrew) this past year (not very new, but i just saw it)
--mivami
Thank you for the listing. I would just add that using the word 'incredible' regarding Professor Soloveitchik's book is an incredible understatement. It is a scholarly tour deforce that defies description. In addition to the exhaustive examinatio of the subject, he provides a) a full review of the historiography of Ashkenaz and of medieval enology b) reviews and provides his own interpretation of early Ashkenazic and Tosafist culture c) anchors that culture in its material and cultural sitz im leben d) provides the reader with a bibliographical scope that is extremely rare and all the more precious for that.
Once again, Professor Soloveitchik has set the (very daunting) bar for Jewish scholarship.
I think that this book from Bar-Ilan could have been included: Olam Nistar b'MeMadei HaZman: Torat haGeula shel HaGR"A M'Vilna, M'koroteha v'Haspa'ata L'Dorot by Rafael B. Shoche"t.
The fair is near the Old Railway Station.
The book is already included in the list.
Great post - keep it up!
I wrote a short review on "misinai lelishkat hagazit" here:
http://ravtzair.blogspot.com/200...-
post_2021.html
I enjoyed the book very much.
On the Maariv web site today they are publicizing a new biography on Rav Yehuda Amital put out by Yediot. See here:
http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/AR...T1/742/
248.html
see http://www.sfarim.org.il/index.php for the official website of the sale.
Great article! Is the Machon Yerushalayim Ramban Al HaTorah available in the US?
just to be correct: The work on Shut Harif was done by Rabbi Dov Zvi Rotshtein, not Dovid.
Yavetz
Mivami-
Micahel Segal's book also came out in English:
Michael Segal, The Book of Jubilees: Rewritten Bible, Redaction, Ideology and Theology (Leiden: Brill, 2007)
The index in soloveitchik's book is wonderful. Also, the safrai mishnah is not critical, but useful nontheless.
http://www.vosizneias.com/16770/...to-read-online/
Bar Ilan to offer free seforim online service...
I haven't figured out the Haaretz/Vosisneias article. How will Bar-Ilan's offering be different than:
http://www.hebrewbooks.org/?
Can someone please explain?
I'd like to second Dr Woolf's comments re: Soloveitchik's ha-Yayin.
You've got to love chapter 9 of Soloveitchik's book where he takes to task all of the Israeli historians for ignoring general medieval historiography (and discussion of the Pirenne thesis) of the last 70-80 yrs in continuing to spout simplified ideas about connections between medieval Ashkenaz and Eretz Yisrael traditions via Italy.
(He's discussed this type of thing previously in his article on martyrdom in Ashkenaz which many had claimed was also based on Eretz Yisrael sources. And on p. 339n77 of ha-Yayin he refers to a forthcoming article on the topic of Eretz Yisrael and Ashkenaz. Can't wait. I imagine that he'll deal with Bonfil's article attributing Eretz Yisrael influence on Ashkenazi Hilkot Terefot - I've heard HS give a lecture in which he demolishes Bonfil's article point by point.)
Unbelievable review of seforim in such a short time.Amazing.Kol Hakovod.
The Machon Yerushalayim seforim can be found at the Rav Shefa Mall in Yerushalayim.
Can someone please explain?
I can't explain, but I could guess. I imagine that BI has access to more seforim. Also, BI has a lot more resources, considering that Hebrewbooks.org is virtually a one-man operation.
bar ilan has a SEARCH ENGINE
duh,
Check again (I just did).
Hebrewbooks.org ALSO has a search engine.
Amit,
What's the Safrai Mishna?
Can anyone provide more info regarding Prof. Steinfeld's sefer on avoda zara.
Rk
see this link - you can view table of contents http://www.biupress.co.il/websit...egory=18&
id=653
MDJ
The Safrai mishna is a historical and sociological commentary on the whole מסכת שביעית. It is very useful.
The name of the Gra's work on the geulah is קול התור
All have seen this?
State renews efforts to bring disputed Jewish manuscript collection from Russia
By Anshel Pfeffer
The State of Israel plans to renew its efforts to retrieve the world's second-largest collection of ancient Jewish manuscripts from Russia.
Various parties have been trying to bring the impressive Ginzburg collection to Israel for years. Now, they are hoping that renewed Russian-Israeli cooperation, primarily Israel's expected transfer of the Sergei building in Jerusalem to Russia, will enable the collection to be brought to Israel.
The noble Russian-Jewish Ginzburg family acquired its collection over three generations, beginning in the 1840s. The collection includes 14,000 books, 45 incunabula (books published in the 14th century at the start of the printing era), more than 2,000 Hebrew manuscripts and 1,000 Arabic manuscripts. It is considered the second largest collection of antique Jewish literature in the world, after the Bodleian Library in Oxford.
Baron David Ginzburg, the last of the collectors, died in 1910. After his death, Zionist activists, including Eliezer Ben Yehuda, began trying to bring the collection to the land of Israel. In May 1917, the National Library in Jerusalem signed a contract with parties in Russia to buy the collection for half a million rubles. The acquisition was funded by donations from Russian Zionists, and when the money was delivered, the books and manuscripts were packed into crates to be delivered. But the shipment was delayed by World War I, and when the Bolshevik Revolution broke out, the Soviet authorities seized the books and sent them to the Lenin Library in Moscow.
Over the years, prominent Jews, including Albert Einstein, Israel's first president, Chaim Weizmann, and Foreign Ministry officials, tried to bring the Ginzburg collection to Israel, but their efforts were rejected. Now the heads of the Jewish National and University Library (Israel's official national library, which is located in Jerusalem), including director general Shmuel Har Noy and board chairman David Blumberg, are trying to put the matter on the public agenda.
The issue is being revisited mainly because of the advanced talks on the Sergei building, which was built circa 1890 adjacent to the Russian Compound. It was named for Prince Sergei, heir to Czar Nicholas II, who was executed by the Bolshevik revolutionaries. The building served as a hostel for Russian pilgrims to the holy land, and currently houses the offices of the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel and the Agriculture Ministry.
The Russian government is demanding ownership of the building, and the negotiations are nearing completion, to the Russians' satisfaction. Meanwhile, Har Noy and Blumberg have demanded of Foreign Ministry Director General Aaron Abramovich that the same principle apply to the Ginzburg collection - that the ministry demand the Ginzburg collection in exchange for the Sergei building. The ministry does not believe Russia will accede to this demand, but intends to try to retrieve the collection in any case.
In the 1990s, the Russians photographed a large part of the manuscripts and books in the collection and allowed scholars to study them, apparently in order to quiet the issue. The Lenin Library even built a splendid building in Moscow to preserve the collection.
"If the state is returning property to the Russian government, there is no reason that something we have proof that Russian Zionists purchased should not be returned to the state," said Har Noy.
The Foreign Ministry responded, "The ministry received the request concerning Baron Ginzburg's book collection, and the issue is under examination. In the coming days, Foreign Ministry officials will be meeting with representatives of the National Library in order to receive the data and documents on the matter."
The Ginzburg collection includes a translation of Dionysius Cato's "Moral Distichs," Yehuda ben Moshe Albotini's 1519 commentary on the Rambam's Mishneh Torah, a 1671 essay written by well-known kabbalist Shmuel ben Hiam Vital in Damascus, and one of the first six books printed in Hebrew, "Answers to Questions" by the Rashba, which was printed in Rome.
"considered the second largest collection of antique Jewish literature in the world, after the Bodleian Library"
this is just laughable.
Where did this article appear?
--mivami
Haaretz
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spa...ges/
991994.html
Did you go to the Yerid of hamodia this year? if yes did you find any new biographies of gedolay yisroel?
thanks
Commenting by HaloScan
