The eBook version of this book can be bought here . This book situates Levinas in the pantheon of modern Jewish thinkers, discussing a number of themes that frequently occur in Jewish thought. The author presents Levinas’s oeuvre, which comprises two parts - his Jewish, “confessional” writings and his philosophical, “professional” writings - as a unity. The question of the exact relationship between these two types of writings is a lively discussion in present day scholarship. How does Levinas perceive the relationship between revelation and philosophy, the biblical address and the logos, the Saying and the said, faith and reason? There is a long oppositional tradition which contrasts Athens with Jerusalem, yet Levinas does not take part in such an antithetical tradition. Without reconciling or harmonizing, he belongs to the philosophical tradition as well as to the Jewish tradition. This double allegiance explains the presence of philosophical terms and themes in his Jewish thought and the presence of Jewish words and ideas in his metaphysics. Levinas is presented by the author as a frequent traveler between Athens and Jerusalem and as a great translator from “Hebrew” to “Greek.” However, the relationship between “Hebrew” and “Greek” in Levinas’s writings is not one of prototext and phenotext or of subtext and text, but rather one of a primordial inspirational word and the conceptual discourse. In an inclusive reading, Meir shows that the acquaintance with Levinas’s Jewish writings is helpful in understanding his subtle philosophical analyses and a necessary condition for the understanding of the whole Levinas.

In the mid-1960s, Gomulka’s government adopted an antisemitic stance in consequence of which nearly 15,000 Jews left the country, effectively ending Jewish life in the country for over a decade. These events, long ignored by scholars, are now increasingly seen as an important step in the process that led to the collapse of communism. This volume illuminates the events that triggered the crisis, the crisis itself, and its consequences.

Judah Halevi is the most prominent Hebrew poet of the Middle Ages. This book tells his life story, from the early publications of his poems in Toledo and until his tragic death, which occurred during his heroic journey to the Land of Israel. For the first time, the presentation of Halevi’s story is based on his entire oeuvre - his poem collections and dewans - written during different landmarks in the poet’s life in the east and west. In addition, this study compares and confronts his autographic letters with letters written by his contemporaries, unraveled upon the historic discovery of the Cairo Geniza.

There are abstracts of all the articles in English For contents and article abstracts please press " Sample pages " by the cover photo.

The Jewish National and University Library came into being in the years of the British mandate. Its mission was to collect preserve and centralize the spiritual treasures of the Jewish people. Eventually, it would contribute to the fulfillment of the Zionist objective of nation building. The Tel Aviv municipality brought the literary remains of national poets and writers like Bialik and Ahad Ha-Am into its library system. Their collections were developed into public municipal libraries. The Histadrut established a central library and supplied the settlement movement with library services. In that way it contributed to the realization of political, social and ideological aspirations of establishing a socialist society. Simultaneously, with these efforts to collect centralize and preserve the Jewish spiritual heritage in Palestine, the evil Nazi regime became active in destroying Jewish culture by book burning, cleansing German libraries of Jewish books and scattering Jewish libraries and collections in ghettos and concentration camps. Nevertheless and paradoxically, the Nazis have secured and preserved some of the more valuable Jewish library collections for future research in order to be able, post factum to legitimize the destruction of the Jewish people and its spiritual heritage. The two sections of the book document and describe conflicting processes: building and destruction, collecting and dispersion, securing and destroying, plunder and restitution of private and public Jewish book collections and libraries. In the first part, "Libraries and book collections during the British mandate in Palestine" the creation and shaping of a national library and public libraries are described. In the second part "Burning scrolls and flying letters" the negative processes of confiscation and plundering of Jewish libraries throughout Europe are delineated. The salvaging activities of libraries and books by Hebrew University emissaries after the Holocaust and the transfer of the remnants to Jerusalem are discussed. In the last section of the book, the reader may find some historical documents that lend support to the two sections of the book and have never been published so far.