Samuel ben Hosha‘na was a prolific author of liturgical poetry and a member of the political and religious leadership of the Jewish community of the Land of Israel in the late tenth and early eleventh century CE, yet over the centuries his poetry and his very existence were forgotten by history. He was rediscovered by twentieth-century scholars from manuscripts in the Cairo Geniza. This volume presents all the information known about Samuel's life, and a selection of his poetry, as well as Megillath Miẓrayim, his prose account of a harrowing event that he experienced in Cairo in 1012. The texts are presented in Hebrew, with an English translation on facing pages, and English commentary explaining the poet's allusions.

The Book of Psalms contains a selection of religious hymns, which reached us in various versions and through different historical sources. In his book, Michael Chyutin contemplates the processes through which this book consolidated, by tracing the early collections and discussing their editing principles.

Contiruptance: Poetical Fluctuations in Naomi Frankel’s Work is the first book dedicated to Frankel's literary work, offering an in-depth reading of her entire fictional oeuvre. The concept of "Contiruptance," which indicates ruptures and continuity, provides insight into Frankel's poetics; suggesting that it may serve to deepen the analysis of the works of other authors.

The book is concerned with the main trends in Jewish Liturgy during Late Antiquity and its connections and inter relations with Aramaic Targum, Midrash, mysticism, popular beliefs, structure and rhyme patterns as performed amid Late Antique Synagogues in Palestine, as well as the later spread of these fertile products to Southern Italy and then to the rest of Europe. The book discusses the different layers of poets and performers as presented in ancient manuscripts which were preserved in the Cairo Geniza collections and later in European Mahzorim, and the fascinating struggle of survival of the different liturgical cycles.

A qedushta is a series of piyyutim for the ‘Amida prayer, which is expanded in honor of the recitation of the Qedusha, and includes many complex components. Its origins are in the Land of Israel, in the fourth or fifth century. We first see it as a constructed composition with set, complex, rules in the work of the poet Yannai, who lived in the mid-sixth century, the teacher of Rabbi El‛azar berabbi Qillir (who is known popularly as “the Qallir”). The qedushta, as it appears in the hundreds of compositions by Yannai and his followers, conceals many secrets: mysterious strings of biblical verses accompany its first components; a fixed biblical verse concludes the third component, followed by the strange words “El Na”; then comes a fourth component, whose structure is free, and always concludes, for some reason, with the word “Qadosh”; the fifth component in Yannai’s compositions is the ‘asiriya, a poem constructed of a truncated alphabetical acrostic from only aleph to yud, followed by a prayer beginning “El Na Le‘olam Tu‘aratz” – and it is unclear why this prayer appears here; then there is a group of poems called rahitim, which are written, for some reason, in unique, stereotypical structures. These are only a fraction of the various strange features of the qedushta’ot of Yannai and the other poets. The discussions in the book are dedicated to suggesting solutions to all these questions, and to others, and involve uncovering fragments of qedushta’ot that preceded Yannai; by examining these texts, they excavate the literary remains to construct a model of the gradual development of the qedushta over time, from its origins until it reached its complex structure in the days of Yannai and Rabbi El‛azar berabbi Qillir. The book is intended first and foremost for scholars, but it will also enable people interested in piyyut and its history from outside the world of academia to gain exposure to a great corpus of early piyyutim, among which are several stunningly beautiful gems, which are being published here for the first time.

The dictionary mainly covers the Hebrew component in languages that have not been documented or that have been documented less than that of the prestigious Judeo-languages, Yiddish and Latino. Thus, it encompasses the different dialects of Judeo-Arabic from North Africa, Yemen and Iraq, and to some extent from Syria, Judeo-Georgian and Judeo-Persian. Other languages are included sporadically. It also includes Haketiya (Moroccan Judeo-Spanish), Judeo-Italian and others.

Kobez Al Yad , an annual of the Mekize Nirdamim Society, is a forum for the publication from manuscript sources of ancient texts in Jewish studies that are shorter than book-length. Contents Avishai Bar Asher Isaac b. Shelomo Ibn Sahula Commentary on Psalms Leore Sachs-Shmueli The Beginning of Sefer Toldot Adam by Joseph of Hamadhan Eric Lawee and Doron Forte The Book of Strictures on Rashi's Torah Commentary Ascribed to Rabad Ofer Elior R.Shalom 'Anabi's Commentary on the Laws of the Foundations of the Torah Yohanan Kapah R. Joseph Hayyun's Commentary on Amos

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.

This volume presents twelve scholarly chapters by Prof. Ilan Eldar, discussing ancient Hebrew vocalization methods and reading traditions (pronunciation and configuration) among Jewish communities, especially among ancient Ashkenazi communities. These chapters have been published over the years as separate essays, and are compiled here for the first time. This volume contains the following chapters: Chapter 1: The Palestino-Tiberian Vocalization Chapter 2: The Vocalization of the Passover Haggada in Mahzor Vitry Chapter 3: The Sources of the Hebrew Reading Traditions in the Middle Ages Chapter 4: The Research of Oral Reading Traditions of Hebrew Chapter 5: The Hebrew Reading Traditions of the Baghdadi Community Chapter 6: Doublets in the Language Traditions of Hebrew Chapter 7: The Pre-Ashkenazi Reading Tradition Chapter 8: The Sources of Ashkenazi Reading Tradition Chapter 9: Vocalization Systems and Pronunciation Traditions of Hebrew Chapter 10: The Contribution of Prof. Shlomo Morag to the Study of the Hebrew Language Heritage of the Yemenite Jews Chapter 11: Neologisms in the Piyyutim of the Ashkenazi Mahzorim Chapter 12: Post-Biblical Forms in the Ashkenazi Tradition as Reflected by the Vocalization of the Worms Mahzor

The eighteen studies presented here originated in a symposium held at Yale in 2014, attended by scholars from Europe, Israel, and North America. The papers approach the subject of Mishnaic Hebrew from many different angles and directions, including grammar, from morphology to syntax to pragmatics; the relationship between the literary dialect and epigraphic evidence; manuscripts; questions of language contact, lexicography, social history, and medieval traditions; and the problem of translating Mishnaic Hebrew into modern languages. The contributors to this volume are among the leading scholars in the field and the collection represents both the current state of research and the cutting edge of future work. This volume includes the following essays: Chanan Ariel | Deviations from Mishnaic Hebrew Moshe Bar-Asher | Problems in the Description of the Morphology of Mishnaic Hebrew Elitzur A. Bar-Asher Siegal | Towards a Reconsideration of the Tense-Aspect-Mood System of Tannaitic Hebrew Gabriel Birnbaum | Phonological and Morphological Studies in MS Antonin 262 (Mishnah Seder Teharoth) Steven E. Fassberg | The Language of the Bet Amar Papyrus in Light of Other Judean Desert Documents Steven D. Fraade | The Innovation of Nominalized Verbs in Mishnaic Hebrew as Marking an Innovation of Concept Aaron Koller | The Social and Geographic Origins of Mishnaic Hebrew Aharon Maman | Rabbinic Hebrew in the Eyes of Medieval Hebrew Philologists Emmanuel Mastey | Cases of Semantic Variation in Mishnaic Hebrew: The Verbs hillek and qaras Michael Ryzhik | The Language of the Mishnah from the Late Manuscripts to the Printed Editions Bernard Septimus | The Face of Shame: Between Palestinian Blushing and Babylonian Blanching Rivka Shemesh-Raiskin | Towards a Description of Halakhic Give-and-Take Conversations in the Mishnah Nurit ShovalDudai | Identical Lemmata of Greek and Latin Loanwords in the Historical Dictionary of the Hebrew Language: Classes and Criteria Ruth Stern | The Noun haluq and Its Variant Forms in Rabbinic Hebrew Daniel Stokl Ben Ezra | The Mishnah into French: Translation Issues Ofra Tirosh-Becker | The Relative Pronoun Se- Rabbinic Hebrew as Reflected in Karaite Sources Doron Ya'akov | The Relation between Maimonides and the Yemenite Tradition in Mishnaic Hebrew Alexey (Eliyahu) Yuditsky | qosin and qorpayot To view the other volumes please press here

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

Kobez al Yad , an annual of the Mekize Nirdamim Society, is a forum for the publication from manuscript sources of ancient texts in Jewish studies that are shorter than book-length. The articles in this volume: Vered Raziel Kretzmer and Uri Ehrlich - Additional Leaves from the “Tetragrammaton Siddur” Eden HaCohen - Fragments of Yoṣer Compositions for the Day of Atonement by Shelomo Sulayman al-Sinjary Yehoshua Granat - A Yoṣer Composition for Simḥat Torah, based on Psalm 119, by Yosef ibn Abitur Avi Shmidman - Fragments of Weekday Qerovot Attributed to Yosef ibn Abitur Ariel Zinder - New Seliḥot by Yosef ibn Abitur and Yiṣhaq ben Levi ibn Mar Shaul Michael Rand - Hoshaʿna El meriaḥ ʿarugat ganni – A Qedushta for 18 Benedictions for Hoshaʿna Rabba by Dosa he-Ḥazan be-Rabbi Yehoshuaʿ in Imitation of the Qillirian Qedushta: Hoshaʿna El emuna Sarah Cohen - The Piyyutim of Yaʿakob al-Aʿyan Tova Beeri - The Poems of Yeḥezkel ha-Kohen ben Eli Mordechai Akiva Friedman - A Letter to Abraham the Pious in Praise of the Prayer Ritual in Fustat Simcha Emanuel - Supplement to Arugat HaBosem, the Piyyut Commentary of Abraham ben Azriel Benjamin Bar-Tikva - Tehillah: A Letter-Decorated Baqqasha by Yehosef ha-Ezovi Shulamit Elizur - A Collection of Medieval Wisdom Proverbs from Ashkenaz