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.

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

For some, on Yom Kippur the fast pace of life stops and the needs of the body seem to fade away, while the person stands before God. On this day, during the time of El'azar Berabbi Qillir the people of the Land of Israel used to stand at the synagogue throughout the entirety of the holy day, listening to the public representatives who prayed and prayed. The material for these long prayers was supplied by the poets, with El'azar Berabbi Qillir at the forefront. He renewed his piyyutim time and time again, presenting to his listeners new and spectacular Kedushtaot meant to replace the former poems. In these works he gave a voice to the audience standing at the doorstep and anticipating redemption. Other than descriptions of prayers and asking for forgiveness, the piyyutim include a variety of themes like the work of the High Priest at the Temple on Yom Kippur; the praise of God and His greatness, often in comparison to the futility of man; and the story of Elijah the Prophet on Mount Carmel and his prayer. The patriarchs are also present in almost all the works, with the angels joining the prayers of humans. This is only a taste of the astounding wealth found in the piyyutim in the book.

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.

This issue contains the following essays : Guy D. Stiebel | ʻBurns Like Fireʼ - Mustard and Viniculture in Roman Palestine Jonathan Vardi | Song-Cycles in the Dīwān of Samuel Ha-Nagid Hillel Ben-Sasson | Transgressions and Punishments. The Special Contribution of Rabenu Yonah Gerondi’s Shaʿarei Teshuvah Kedem Golden | Addenda to the Poetry of Yosef Ben Tanḥum Hayerushalmi Avishai Bar-Asher | ‘Berikh Shemehʼ: The History of an Anonymous Aramaic prayer that Found its Way into Sefer ha-Zohar and the Prayer Book

This issue contains the following essays : Menahem Kahana - The Good in the Sight of Heaven and Right in the Sight of Man Yair Furstenberg - From Tradition to Controversy: New Modes of Transmission in the Teachings of Early Rabbis Gideon Bohak - A New Genizah Fragment of Toledoth Yeshu in Aramaic Yehoshua Granat - To Alexandria, with the sound of bell and pomegranate: Yehuda Halevi’s Arrival in Alexandria in Light of a Newly Identified Poem by Aaron Ibn Al-ʿAmmānī Shulamit Elizur - Between Poetic and Statutory Formulations: A Note on the History of the Ha-Maʿariv ʿAravim Benediction Menahem Kister - ‘The Lord of Hosts is His Name in Ha-Maʿariv ʿAravim Benediction: Metamorphoses and Erosion of Benediction Formulae Joshua Blau - Review of: W. Randall Garr and Steven Ellis Fassberg (eds.), A Handbook of Biblical Hebrew , I: Periods, Corpora, and Reading Traditions (xii + 228 pp.); II: Selected Texts (vi + 136 pp.), Winona Lake, IN 2016

This issue contains the following essays: Ariel Seri-Levi | Sělîḥâ in the Priestly Literature David Henshke | ‘It is Joy for Him’: On Additions to the Mishnah and Their Developments Ella Tovia | A Different Version of Bavli Sabbath and Its Implication for the Final Stage of Its Redaction Mordechai Akiva Friedman | Repetition of the Evening ʿAmida on Festivals and Special Sabbaths in the Custom of Eretz Israel Uri Safrai and Uri Ehrlich | The Ancient Version of the Maʿariv ʿAravim Blessing in Cairo Genizah Prayer-Books Mosh Idel | R. Nehemiah ben Shlomo’s Commentaries on the Alphabet of Metatron – Additional Inquiries English Abstracts

This volume contains the following essays: Adiel Schremer | Parvanka: The Mandaean Context of an Anti-Heretical Polemic in the Babylonian Talmud Shlomi Efrati | A Quire of Chapters of Sanhedrin and Megillah, Part II: A Unique Textual Tradition of the Babylonian Talmud Shulamit Elizur | Ke-ha- yom ha-ze bi-Yerushalayim: The Origins, Distribution and Evolution of a Prayer Marking the Conclusions of Ceremonies Vered Raziel-Kretzmer | How Late was the Palestinian Rite Practiced in Egypt? New Evidence from the Cairo Genizah Joshua Blau | Review of: Alexey Eliyahu Yuditsky, A Grammar of the Hebrew of Origen’s Transcriptions, Jerusalem: The Academy of the Hebrew Language, 2017 [Hebrew] English Abstracts

This issue contains the following essays: Ronnie Goldstein | YHWH’s Inheritance and His Enthronement Shraga Bar-On and Yakir Paz | The Land of God to the Sons of God: Deuteronomy 32: 8-9 and the Inheritance of the Land of Israel Shlomi Efrati | A Quire of Chapters of Sanhedrin and Megillah, Part 1: A Unique Textual Tradition of the Babylonian Talmud Mordechai Akiva Friedman | The Shabbat Evening Prayer in the Palestinian Congregation of Fustat in Abraham Maimonides’ Times

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

The articles in this volume: Hallel Baitner - The Unintentional Killer and the Blood-Avenger –New Perspectives in the Rabbinic Exegesis of Num 35 Shulamit Elizur - The Origins of the Seliḥot Piyyutim Shalem Yahalom - The Pilpul Method of Talmudic Study: Earliest Evidence A. Bar-Asher - The Earliest Sefer ha-Zohar in Jerusalem: Early Manuscripts of Zoharic Texts and an Unknown Fragment from Midrash ha-Neʿlam [?] For contents and article abstracts in English press on Sample pages which is located on the right of the cover photo.

The articles in this volume: Nili Samet - New Light on the Administrative Term bēn bayît in Biblical and Rabbinical Sources Bezalel Bar-Kochva - The Religious Persecutions of Antiochus Epiphanes as a Historical Reality David Henshke - Between Blessings and Prayer: On the History of the Amidah Prayer Mordechai Sabato - On the Inclusion of the ‘Mikan Ameru’ Homilies in the Halakhic Midrashim Michael Rand - Surviving Fragments of the Qillirian Heritage in Provence/Catalonia and in Spain: In the Wake of New Materials from the Genizah Jonathan Vardi - Between Shemuel Ha-Nagid and the Poets of Zaragoza For contents and article abstracts in English press on Sample pages which is located on the right of the cover photo.