Korot is devoted to the study of the philosophical, sociological and ethical aspects of the history of medicine and Judaism. The topics covered by the journal include: medicine in Jewish and Hebrew sources, the history of Jewish physicians, medicine in Palestine and Israel and medicine during the Nazi period. Each volume contains mostly English-language articles, together with some Hebrew contributions (abstracted in English). The "Historical Notes" and "Notes and Events" sections cover recent important developments and events in the above mentioned topics around the world. Each issue also includes several reviews of noteworthy books and contributions to the field.

Marx’s 1857 introduction to his Critique of Political Economy , which was not published in his lifetime, remains his only mature attempt to formulate the philosophical presuppositions of his economic research. Marx’s preface to the same work, published in 1859, contains a complementary philosophical discussion on the relations between economy and society. Their joint translation presents Hebrew readers with an accessible overview of the philosophical principles at the basis of Marx’s research.

Identity and Its Discontents is an intellectual, gothic journey, which explores and interprets for the readers the personal story and thought of fourteen "marginal Jews", Jewish intellectuals from a variety of disciplines who lived in Europe from the end of the nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth century. Jacob Golomb does a good job of describing the twisted Jewish-European identity of these spiritual giants in the face of the fractured European humanist ideal. The book is structured as a fabric created from the intersecting stories of key thinkers who left a singular intellectual mark on the twentieth century and the shaping of Jewish consciousness in it - from Kafka to Freud, from Bruno Schulz to Gensin, from Ahad Ha'am to Berdichevsky, from Herzl and Nordau to Martin Buber and Zeev Jabotinsky, and from Stefan Zweig to Primo Levi. The original key that Golomb offers to understanding the mechanisms of the identity construction of the "fringe Jews" is the attitude of these thinkers to the thought of Friedrich Nietzsche, and the ways in which this illuminates the question of identity politics and the internal struggle in modern Judaism between nationalism and universal humanism. Identity in Discomfort is the fruit of the author's many years of important research work on Kierkegaard and Nietzsche and their acception in Hebrew literature and thought. Prof. Hagi Kenaan

In this issue: Chaim Milikowsky | The Transformation of Traditions and the Creation of Variant Readings in Vayyiqra Rabba Chapter 25 Sections 1-2 – Preceding and Succeeding the Redactorial Moment Shulamit Elizur | 'The birth of poems' – Deliberations on the Conception of the Poem and Longings for Zion in a Previously Unknown Piyyut by R. Judah Halevi Judith Weiss | The Sefer Yetzira Commentary Attributed to Isaac the Blind: Evidence Supporting Its Early Dating, Its Central Status among Thirteenth century Kabbalists and the Validity of Its Attribution to Isaac the Blind Simcha Emanuel | Rashba’s Responsa to North African Sages Israel Ori Meitlis | The Place of Izhbitza-Radzin Thought in the Tekhelet writings of the Radziner Rebbe

This volume is the first attempt at broad and deep research from a gender perspective into the halakhic attitude towards abortion. With the argument that halakhah reflects the male outlook and the consequent gender biases taken as its starting point, it examines the influence of gender concepts on contemporary halakhic rulings about abortion, in light of bio-ethical, conservative, liberal, and feminist theories, as well as the ideas of feminist legal theory and the feminist critique of the reigning epistemology. The book analyzes the gender implications of the stringent halakhic rulings of the twentieth century and the way they construct women. It asserts that the halakhic stance that takes the ban on abortion as a Torah-based prohibition constricts the idea of the sanctity of life to biological terms only and thereby highlights the reduction of women to mainly an entity for reproduction. The research raises a number of questions that have never been asked before: How do the decision makers see the female essence in general, and specifically in the context of abortion? Where do the woman’s needs rank on the scale of the decision makers' considerations? Are women perceived as subjects with their own interests and will—or are these deemed irrelevant and appropriated for the benefit of the collective (the family, the Jewish people)? These questions serve as the foundation for the discussion in the present volume. Even though it deals mainly with abortion, I suggest that it be seen as demonstrating the masculine identity of the halakhic discourse in general.

In his autobiography, Abraham Halevi Fraenkel describes growing up as an Orthodox Jew in Germany and his development as a mathematician at the beginning of the twentieth century. In his memoir, originally published in German in 1967, Fraenkel painted a unique picture of the complexity of Jewish life in Germany with special emphasis on the developments in the Orthodox community. He described the world of mathematics in Germany in the first half of the twentieth century, in the context of the great mathematicians he met, many of whom were Jews or had Jewish roots. In his personal life, Fraenkel merged the worlds of orthodox Judaism, liberal Zionism and mathematics, in a period of global and national upheavals, which included the two World Wars and the establishment of the State of Israel. The last chapter of the book, which describes his extensive public activity in Israel from the 1930s until his death in 1965, was written by Prof. Jiska Cohen-Mansfield. Introductions were added by Prof. Yehoshua Bar-Hillel and Prof. Menachem Magidor, the former president of the Hebrew University.

The Hebrew community that lived in Acre during the British Mandate period did not leave an actual signature on the urban landscape, and did not record glorious tales of heroism or destruction. This fascinating story, which had been omitted from the collective memory and is currently revealed in depth in this book, illuminates this community's place in the building of the Jewish national society in Palestine. In particular, the book reveals the complex relationships that existed between the Zionist institutions and the Jewish and Hebrew societies in the Arab cities. Despite the decline of the old Jewish communities in the Arab cities, the unusual story of Acre shows how it managed to attract new, nationalist settlers. For a brief moment in the city's history, a Hebrew community existed that combined old and new settlements, had a national Zionist orientation and included Jews with local and Mizrahi recognition. This is a local story, but it seeks to shed light on the complexity and diversity of the Zionist enterprise in relation to the Arab and mixed cities of mandatory Palestine, by raising questions about the relationship between the "history of a place" and the "national history". Through the description of the failure of the Hebrew settlement in Mandatory Acre, the book looks at the Zionist project as a fascinating meeting point between the dreams of those who created the leading narratives and between the local interests and the geographical conditions unique to the region.

The Shema prayer is, among other things, the demand to understand. Prominent thinkers such as Saadia Gaon, Bahya ibn Paquda and the Rambam all made tremendous efforts to understand it, which were highly controversial. This controversy pushed aside the discussion of the uniqueness of God, which ended up in the field of the history of ideas. This book is an attempt to revive the metaphysical reading of the uniqueness of God, while addressing these controversies. It offers a explanation of Shema, which is loyal to the constitutive Jewish sources on the one hand and in dialogue with modern thought on the other.

In this issue: Hillel Mali | Ritual Leftovers and the Tannaitic Perceptions of Holiness Idan Pinto | Universe – Sanctuary – Man: On a Threefold Analogy in Two Anonymous Texts and their Traces in Thirteenth century Kabbalah Yudith Weiss | Isaac of Acre’s Commentary on the Sefer Yetzirah Commentary Attributed to Isaac the Blind: Research and Edition Haviva Pedaya | Kabbalah Out of Context: On the Erasure of the Provençal School in Kabbalah Research

Hoshea was active during the decline of the Kingdom of Israel, from the twilight of the long reign of Jeroboam II (788-747 BCE) until nearly the end of the days of Israel, probably before the Assyrian conquest (720 BCE) of Samaria. Hoshea's prophecies enrich our knowledge of the chaotic period in which, throughout twenty years of intrigues, rebellions and murders, six kings had been replaced, and Israel was lost.

We do not know who Malachi was. Malachi might have been his birth name, or perhaps his nickname, as God's messenger. He was active during the reign of Persia, around 500 BCE. The subjects with which Malachi was preoccupied were different from those that preoccupied the classical prophets and reflected his time. But one can find in them beautiful comparisons to today's problems as well. One of the main subjects in his prophecy was the covenant between God and Israel, as well as his criticism of the people's disdain for the worship of the temple, and of the priests for misusing their position.