Few articles in this issue: Gilad Shapira | Hermenautics as Poetics: The Case of Midrash HaGadol Moshe Shoshan | The Road to Lydda: A Survivor's Story: Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai's Flight from Jerusalem According to Eicha Rabba 1:5 Richard Hidary | Why Are There Lawyers in Heaven?: Rabbinic Aggadot on the Divine Courtroom Kedem Golden | Solving a Riddle of Judah Halevi Idit Einat-Nov | 'Everybody wants to live': A Literary Reading of the Maqama by Yehuda Al-Harizi, 'The Rooster'

Through a detailed analysis of ghost tales in the Ashkenazi pietistic work Sefer ḥasidim , Susan Weissman documents a major transformation in Jewish attitudes and practices regarding the dead and the afterlife that took place between the rabbinic period and medieval times. She reveals that a huge influx of Germano-Christian beliefs, customs, and fears relating to the dead and the afterlife seeped into medieval Ashkenazi society among both elite and popular groups. In matters of sin, penance, and posthumous punishment, the infiltration of Christian notions was so strong as to effect a radical departure in Pietist thinking from rabbinic thought and to spur outright contradiction of talmudic principles regarding the realm of the hereafter. Although it is primarily a study of the culture of a medieval Jewish enclave, this book demonstrates how seminal beliefs of medieval Christendom and monastic ideals could take root in a society with contrary religious values—even in the realm of doctrinal belief.

The exercise book accompanying the textbook Hebrew: Take 2 was written in order to provide further exercises than those offered in the textbook. It contributes to the comprehension of the texts in the book and enriches the learning process with vocabulary exercises and oral and written capability exercises. The exercise book was written to serve both students and teachers, who expressed the need for such a book. The exercises are arranged by the order of the chapters and texts and by linguistic subject. Students and teachers can find further ideas for learning and teaching, as well as visual content for the different chapters on the Instagram account ivritb2hebrewbook.

The book traces contested visions and representations of al-Andalus/Sepharad in modern Jewish discourse through an in-depth analysis of the work of Sephardi intellectual network in the turn of the twentieth century Palestine/Land of Israel. Against the backdrop of the tumultuous political and social events of that period, and processes of national, ethnic, and religious partitions, the book explores the ways in which these Sephardi intellectuals fundamentally challenged the nationalistic and monolingual ideologies and looks at their efforts to establish a shared Jewish-Arab society based on a symbolic return to the Sephardi/Andalusian medieval legacy of Hebrew-Arabic bilingualism and a Judeo-Muslim joint cultural heritage. By exploring these contested representations of Sephardi identity and culture the book re-examines some fundamental issues that emerged at the turn of the twentieth century and which still accompany us to this day: the national conflict between Jews and Palestinians, the contacts and splits between Hebrew and Arab culture and the formation of ethnic hierarchies between Ashkenazim and Mizrahim. The book aims to contribute to the growing interest in modern Sephardi and Middle Eastern Jewish history and to broaden the scope of “Jewish studies” beyond the European Jewish experience.

Religious Zionism: Religion, Nationalism and Politics offers a new and groundbreaking understanding of the various forms of religious-Zionist political thought. It presents an analysis that undermines the common dichotomy between religion and secularism, and discusses in length the identity of religious Zionism as it consolidated during the past fifty years, based on this modern dichotomy, shedding new light on the movement.

The Western musical tradition has produced not only music, but also countless writings about music that remain in continuous—and enormously influential—dialogue with their subject. With sweeping scope and philosophical depth, A Language of Its Own traces the past millennium of this ongoing exchange. Ruth Katz argues that the indispensable relationship between intellectual production and musical creation gave rise to the Western conception of music. This evolving and sometimes conflicted process, in turn, shaped the art form itself. As ideas entered music from the contexts in which it existed, its internal language developed in tandem with shifts in intellectual and social history. Katz explores how this infrastructure allowed music to explain itself from within, creating a self-referential and rational foundation that has begun to erode in recent years. A magisterial exploration of a frequently overlooked intersection of Western art and philosophy, A Language of Its Own restores music to its rightful place in the history of ideas.

These two collections of Yiddish letters date from the second half of the 17th century and are being published here in full for the first time. The opening five-letter collection was archived together with extensive information about three Jews from Hamburg-Altona, who had been arrested and investigated in Copenhagen in August 1666. The second collection consists of eighteen letters exchanged between Hamburg-Altona and Copenhagen in January 1678. They concern the family and business affairs of a range of people, among them some of Glikl Hamel’s relatives, business associates and acquaintances. Together, the two collections provide a wealth of illuminating new details about the economic, cultural, social, and family life of early modern Ashkenazi Jews in Northern Europe, and also shed light on the practice of Yiddish letter-writing at the time. The English section consists of an introduction followed by a synopsis of each letter, while the Hebrew section comprises a transcription of the original texts as well as their facsimile images.

Purchase other products in this kit: Textbook and workbook / Textbook and workbook for Arabic speakers / Shuvi: An audio program / Audio sequences / Online presentation The First and Foremost set is designed for students of the Hebrew language at the beginners level. It was written along the principles of the communicative language approach. The contents of this book deal with the world and Israel, reflecting the varied aspects of the Israeli culture and aspiring to create a dialogue between the student and the many faces of Israeli culture, enabling a multicultural dialogue. It touches upon subjects that relate to the individual, society, and community. It includes translated instructions and the workbook includes a dictionary of all the words required at this level, as well as translated explanations of the linguistic issues. The set is accompanied by complementary teaching materials for the student and teacher: dictionaries, presentations, teacher’s guide, and more. First and Foremost - Teacher's Guide accompanies the set. It contains detailed lesson plans, suggestions and ideas for teaching methods and enrichment of the texts, conversations, exercises and the rest of the material in the textbook. The guide is designed to serve both beginning and experienced teachers. The guide includes references to the material in the various parts of the set: the presentations, audio files, and others.