Prayer in Israel is not only a personal and occasional expression of man's relationship with his God, but a complete way of life, organized around a set of daily prayers, on weekdays, on Shabbat and on holidays. But many questions hover around the genesis of this system: When was it designed? At what stages? What is the relationship between its different parts and between its different ways - blessing, reading and prayer? What is the difference between public prayer and individual prayer? Extensive literature has already been written on the history of the prayer, but since the main design of the prayer emerged from the Talmudic literature - Tanna'im and Amora'im - it is essential to place the study of the prayer on the basis of a detailed analysis of the Talmudic material, according to the ways of updated Talmudic science. From this a reliable picture of the prayer in Israel may be drawn from within the literature of the Sages. This essay seeks to present basic chapters from this task.

Sabbatian Songs of Faith: Ritual, Community, and Interreligious Encounters in the Late Ottoman Empire unveils the hidden world of the Ma’aminim—followers of the 17th-century Jewish messianic figure, Sabbatai Tzvi. After Tzvi’s dramatic conversion to Islam in 1666, many of his followers returned to mainstream Judaism. However, a dedicated group followed in his footsteps, converted to Islam, and established a new path, blending Sabbatian, Jewish, and Islamic elements within a distinct Ottoman-Sephardi cultural framework. For centuries, the Ma’aminim maintained secrecy, forming distinct communities (known as the Dönme) and playing a multifaceted role in Jewish and Ottoman histories. This book sheds new light on their social life and esoteric traditions through a comprehensive, interdisciplinary analysis of previously mostly unexamined mystical manuscripts in Ladino, Hebrew, and Ottoman Turkish. It explores their sacred songs, radical theology, rituals, folklore, and musical practices as reflections of communal reality and developments. By placing the Ma’aminim within a broader historical and cross-cultural perspective, Sabbatian Songs of Faith offers fresh insights into religious transformation, intercommunal exchanges, and the interplay between faith, ritual, and popular culture in the late Ottoman world and beyond.

Rabbi Eleazar be-Rabbi Qilar was the most prominent and prolific poet during the heyday of Hebrew liturgical poetry in Eretz Israel: between the sixth and eight centuries ACE. Some of the thousands of poems he wrote was preserved in the Ashkenaz, France and Italy machzorim, while a small part is recited in synagogues even today. This book compiles all his poems that survived for all prayers, with an attempt reproduce the full compositions.

Selected articles from current issue: Arnon Atzmon | ‘He Who Seeks Out Good: This is David’: The Opening Unit of Midrash Psalms as an Introduction to the Book of Psalms David Sabatto | ‘Thus, I Received it From the House of My Father’s Father’. The Sources and Structuring of the Legend of Yehonatan, Moses’ Grandson Ido Hevroni | Turning the Hearts of the Children to Their Parents: The Education of R. Elazar Son of R. Shimon (Pesiqta de Rab Kahana 11) Omri livnat | ‘Samuel, The Son of Labrat Has Died’: Between Manuscript and Edition, Between Panegyric and Lampoon

How might a poem acquire divine forgiveness? Ariel Zinder’s book Arise and Sing follows medieval Jewish poets from Iraq and al-Andalus as they seek answers to this pressing question. The book presents close readings of liturgical poems (piyyutim) written in the 10th and 11th centuries, and brings them into contact with contemporary literary theory as well as modern philosophical discussions of the possibility of forgiveness.

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 issue: Omri Livnat | From Masorah to Poetry, from Poetry to Masorah: on Saadia Gaon’s ‘Ohel Mekhon Binyanay’ Simcha Emanuel | A Collection of Laws from the German ' Genizah' Amir Boas | Kodesh Kodashim – An Annotated Critical Edition with an Introduction Noam Lev-El | ’Questions to the Sages of the Land of Israel’: Kabbalistic Responsa from the Mid-Sixteenth Century—Introduction and Edition

The book Registers of Ashkenazi Communities in Italy from the 18th Century presents a scientific edition of three files documenting customs in Ashkenazi communities in the north of Italy in the 18th century, from Trieste, from Mantua and Padova, with an introduction and indices. The world of Halacha in Italy, starting from the beginning of the Rishonim period, was influenced by different centers, and was not an independent center. Ashkenazi Judaism had a decisive influence on Italy beginning in the 13th century. Files documenting customs of Ashkenazi communities existed already in the 11th century and continued to be written throughout the generations in the Ashkenazi communities. However, files documenting the customs of Ashkenazi communities on Italian soil were relatively few. The book before us hence makes up a little for this lack. It is true that the writing of files documenting customs is an Ashkenazi phenomenon, we have found it among Ashkenazi people in all generations, but in the 17th-18th centuries, which are documented by the files before us, the Jewish communities in Ashkenaz and in Italy were subject to the influence of important historical processes, such as heated rabbinic polemics, the beginning of the Enlightenment, the French Revolution and its cultural and political effects and the emancipation processes. These processes had a profound impact on the Jewish world and we find echoes of this impact in the custom files as well. The certificates published here were written at a unique historical, cultural and religious junction, and have great significance in all these fields.

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

The commentary of Rabbi Joseph Hayyun, who was one of the greatest rabbis of Portugal in the generation before the deportation, to Jeremiah, has remained since its composition only in manuscript and did not reach the printing press. In this edition, an effort was made to invent for those seeking biblical interpretation, an illustrated scientific edition of the commentary, from the only surviving manuscript, which is apparently an autograph that Rabbi Hayyun repeatedly proofread several times. At the beginning of the book is a comprehensive introduction, which discusses Rabbi Hayon's interpretive way as it is reflected in his commentary on Jeremiah, various matters arising from his commentary concerning the book of Jeremiah, and matters of faith and philosophy mentioned during the commentary.

In this issue: Haim Shapira | The Courts in the Mishnah : M. Sanhedrin , Chapter 1, Revisited Elyashiv Cherlow | Milta belo Taʿama : A Chapter in the Textual History of the Talmud Yerushalmi Moshe Idel | On ‘The Book of the Elderly Man’, The Backgrounds of Its Composition and the Research on it

In the current book two of the most prolific authors in the area of Medieval Judeo-Arabic and poetic Hebrew Medieval texts go back to its basic theses on the relations between Hebrew literature and its parallel Arabic and Judeo-Arabic texts. By re-establishing an up-to-date picture they are attacking the field of encounters from new and different angles.

In this issue: Gal Sela | The Long Sleep of Honi the Circle-Maker: The Ecotype and the Conglomerate as Analytical Concepts Roni Cohen | Between 'Blessed Mordechai' and 'Cursed Haman': The Story of Esther in Kalonymos ben Kalonymos' Massechet Purim and the Medieval Custom of Hitting Haman Vered Tohar and Noga Rubin | A Comparative Study of the Shared Stories of the Yiddish Sefer Midot (Isny, 1542) and the Hebrew Orhot Tzaddikim (Prague, 1581) Eli Yassif | Menasseh ben-Israel and the Early Study of Jewish Folklore