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The central institutional model that served Jewish Orthodoxy in its struggle with the threat to the tradition of the modern era and from which grew its intellectual leadership was ultimately the model of the Lithuanian Yeshiva. However, from the second half of the nineteenth-century, new models of Jewish higher education institutions emerged and were even adopted by Orthodox circles. How, then, did the trustees of the Lithuanian yeshiva model see the new institutional models? Our discussion will focus on the modern yeshivas and rabbinical seminaries that accepted the Orthodox halakhic view, including the Tahkemoni rabbinical seminary in Warsaw, the Hildesheimer Seminary in Berlin (1873–1938), and the Seminary for the Diaspora in Jerusalem (1956). The Lithuanian rabbis held to the supremacy of the Lithuanian Yeshiva model. However, until World War II, they saw the Orthodox rabbinical seminary as an institute suitable to its time and place—Germany, most of whose Jews were liberal—and did not consider it able to produce a Torah scholar worthy of his name. They opposed the establishment of rabbinical seminaries in Eastern Europe and the Land of Israel, and after the war, when the issue of establishing a rabbinical seminary in Jerusalem was raised, they rejected the Orthodox rabbinical seminary outright and no longer recognized its contribution to its time and place—Germany. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An interview between Sandi DuBowski and Amy Herzog takes up the film Sabbath Queen, about Rabbi Amichai Lau-Lavie. Lau-Lavie's family legacy spans at least thirty-seven consecutive generations of rabbis. Through Rebbetzin Hadassah Gross, Lau-Lavie's drag alter ego, allows Lau-Lavie to experiment with multiple facets of his identity, "to be very queer, very spiritual, to navigate and fuse both." DuBowski and Herzog explore themes, production processes, and formal decisions used in the film to portray Lau-Lavie's relationships with his family and his communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent scholarship has demonstrated the political and intellectual connections between Rabbi Jacob ben Meir ('Rabbenu Tam') and Henry the Liberal, Count of Champagne, and his court. Further evidence found in Hebrew manuscript sources serves to fine-tune earlier conclusions and provide new insights regarding the unique nature of the relationship. Rabbenu Tam's rulings on matters of secular governance suggest a positivistic stance toward Henry's rule vis-a-vis baronial authority in the 1150s and 1160s, at a time when Champagne was rapidly developing politically and economically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the administration of the Ottoman Empire, non-Muslims could apply their community laws under the protection of the state and lived in peace for centuries. However, in the 18th and 19th centuries, influenced by both foreign interventions and the rise of nationalism, they began to incline towards separation from the Ottoman Empire. Non-Muslims, who were regarded as "citizens" starting from the reign of Sultan Mahmud II (1808-1839), officially gained this status with the 1876 constitution. Ottoman rulers, influenced by both internal and external circumstances, paved the way for legislative activities in 1862 to prevent non-Muslim citizens from being disconnected from societal unity. Each community prepared law texts resembling its constitution, and when these texts were approved by the state, they were put into effect. In this study, the law proposal dated 1864 prepared by the Ottoman Jews (Jewish National Code) was examined and compared with the Rabbinate Regulations, which was put into effect by the state a year later. As a result, it is understood that only the chapters regarding the central administration of the community were taken into consideration in the proposed legislation, and proposals regarding other community practices were largely not accepted. This proposal, which most researchers have overlooked, is evaluated for the first time in this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores interreligious encounters between Orthodox Jewish and Christian communities in the U.S., focusing on gender and the influence of illiberal religious ideologies. Topics include the adaptation and critique of non-Jewish self-help materials within Orthodox Jewish circles, the role of rabbinic mediation in shaping these exchanges, and the broader implications for political and cultural alliances.

The Hebrew word "golem" means "unformed", yet it evolved to denote a definite creature, the protagonist of a significant Jewish legend. Initially, in oral and kabbalistic lore, the creation of the golem was a mystical experience aimed at imitating God. However, gradually it transformed into the creation of a clay servant at the orders of the Rabbi. The legend took a turn during the 19th century when the tradition of the Maharal of Prague was widely expanded outside the Jewish circles. While the most well-known version was later made famous by Rosenberg, German romantics created a local tradition that would have a significant impact on the visual representation of the creature. This paper traces the earliest descriptions and visual representations of the golem in the Central European context, which transformed formlessness into tangible imagery. Notable examples include Aleš' first illustration, Steiner-Prag's lithographs in Meyrink's Der Golem novel, and Wegener's film adaptation. In these renditions, the golem assumed the role of a double, becoming a doppelgänger of certain characters or embodying the Jewish ghettos. However, on a deeper level, it also served as a metaphor for creation itself. Following Čapek's RUR play, the golem evolved into a "metal contraption", shaping our contemporary understanding of a robot. This trajectory shows that the myth of the golem, whose very name reflects lack of definition, prompts a transcendent reflection on the act of creation. Its inherent "not yet finished forming," is somehow completed by those who reshape it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of Political Sciences is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This research was entitled “Intentionality in Zionist Religious Thought, Fatwas of the Rabbis as a Model” This research applies Intentionality, Intent criterion means starting what the ideas and information the auther implies in the text. In this research, I presented The Book of Torat HaMelech==. It is one of the books that represent the thoughts of Jewish theologians and it discusses Jewish religious thought and contains rabbinic instructions and ideas from The Old Testament and The Talmoud and other books that reject the other. The researcher made a connection between the fatwas mentioned by the rabbis, whether in the Old Testament, the Talmud, or the Book of the Law of the King, and the extent of its application to Palestine now. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the performance of shehitah (ritual slaughter according to rabbinic law) in British Mandate Jerusalem under the guidelines of the HCC (Hebrew Community Council)—an arm of the Jewish National Institutions—and the alliances that were forged around shehitah among various social and ideological sectors of the city. A prominent example is the collaboration of HCC at times with Agudath Israel, the main political-religious opposition party to the National Institutions, and at other times with Sephardi shehitah services, while creating shehitah regulations that negated the founding principles of the National Institutions. In the present article I argue that these alliances represent compromise over national principles that favored economic and civic interests; as such, civic compromise in Jerusalem engendered alliances in the communal sphere that would have been unrealizable in the national sphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Hebrew translation of Euclid's Elements ascribed to Rabbi Jacob is based on two leading sources. The definitions and the enunciations rely on an extant Arabic version which until recently was commonly considered to be a revision made by Thābit ibn Qurra of a translation by Isḥāq ibn Ḥunayn. The proofs and diagrams are based on a different version whose exact identity is unknown and had strong affinity to an Arabic version of the Elements axcribed to al-Ḥajjāj ibn Yūsuf ibn Maṭar. Focusing on the first six Books, this paper presents a fresh analysis of the sources and use of sources in Rabbi Jacob's translation, on the basis of a systematic comparison of this translation to the recently "discovered" new source of al-Ḥajjāj's work, namely the Arabic version of the Elements in MS Paris, BULAC ARA. 606. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article was a memorial lecture to the author's father, Rabbi Harry Jacobi, and begins with a tribute to his commitment to justice. It traces the concept of justice and its application from Leviticus to the Talmud to Lily Montagu. It suggests three models of approaching justice. In Leviticus, the principle of justice is clear and its application radical, especially in the concept of the Jubilee year. In the Talmud, the complexity of justice is addressed. Examples are given of debates about disputed possession, compensation and taxation. Finally, a biography of Lily Montagu and examples of her work are presented to show how she put the theory of justice into practice. It is suggested that a threefold approach to building justice is needed: a strong sense of justice, an acknowledgement of the complexities and a commitment to actively working for justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the field of Talmudic Temporal logic, an important question has been how to model the approach known in one paper as 'Shkop logic' (after the 19th-20th century philosopher of Jewish law, Rabbi Shimon Shkop). Previous suggestions have included a model that involved a 'Dual-time' account. In this paper we first analyse the Dual time approach, including the logical language, its motivation and mechanism for diffusing legal contrary-to-time paradoxes. We compare the Dual time approach to a logic whose semantics need not appeal to Dual-time, but that employs a combination of trivalent truth function for the future, together with legal-functions designed to achieve the same conclusion. We show why such an approach would be inadequate, but then claim that a similar objection can be raised against the 'Dual-time' account. We then offer our own proposal, which involves a two-dimensional temporal model, thus permitting truth-valuations for events at moments in time to shift relative to other moments without any temporal loops. The language in which the model is expressed is sufficiently context-sensitive to permit a shift in perspective form the antecedent of a condition to its consequent. We argue that such an approach has significant benefits both in terms of being truer to the Talmudic sources, and in terms of its ability to diffuse legal paradoxes. We anticipate criticisms of the approach and argue that it can meet those criticisms. This is a part of a series of papers, and in future papers we intend to demonstrate the potential for this Perspectival 2-D Talmudic Temporal logic to resolve paradoxes such as Liar Paradoxes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

JUDAISM IS not even a religion.' This striking line appears in Immanuel Kant's Religion Within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, a book devoted to winnowing down the articles of J [...]

The extent of a community rabbi's ability to change the practices of his flock may be a reflection of his status. The stronger his status, the better he can effect change, even if his reform will replace prior practice. In this article, I present two examples in which the dayyanim (rabbinical judges) of the Jewish community in the late nineteenth century acted against Rabbi Ḥazzan during the latter's term as the Ḥakham Bashi of the Jewish community in Libya. The examples, both dealing with Torah affairs, occurred in close temporal proximity and may be instructive of the atmosphere between Ḥazzan and part of the Jewish community at that time. Notably, shortly after these events, Rabbi Ḥazzan decided to resign his post and move on to a rabbinical position in the Alexandria community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this essay, I examine the intersection between the concepts of freedom, the self, God, and creativity in the works of one of the most prominent twentieth-century Jewish thinkers, Rabbi Abraham Isaac HaCohen Kook (1865–1935), exploring his use of these concepts through the lens of the Lebensphilosophie of the French philosopher Henri Bergson (1859–1941). I first draw a historical and thematic parallel between Bergson's and Kook's philosophies that to date has not been considered extensively. I then argue that five different interpretative puzzles related to the topic of freedom in Kook's teachings can be explained against the background of Bergson's thought. This Bergsonian interpretation enables the reader to appreciate in what way different aspects of Kook's thought—the metaphysical, ethical, epistemological, and theological—are interconnected and can be understood as an organic whole. I thereby show that the Bergsonian philosophical and systematic models are an important, and yet unexplored, interpretative tool for the study of Kook's theological and philosophical thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What strategies are used to legitimize and enhance the popularity of the Reform marriage ceremony among Israeli Jews? Using a mixed-method grounded-theory technique, this study stresses that the strategies used to legitimize and enhance the popularity of the Reform marriage ceremony among Israeli Jews take place in two parallel realms: the organizational and the individual. At the organizational level, the Israel Reform Movement invests resources into institutionalizing the Reform marriage ceremony in Israel, using the judicial and the political strata to accomplish this goal. At the same time, at the individual level, Reform rabbis operate as street-level policy entrepreneurs by enhancing the visibility of the Reform marriage ceremony among Israeli Jews by advertising themselves and conducting as many ceremonies as possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In modern psychiatry, drug addiction is considered as mainly a mental disorder and a brain disease problem, of complex aetiology. In addition, drug addiction has been characterized as a loss of willpower or akrasia, and even a sin. In this essay, I analyse Maimonides' (Rambam's) treatises More Ha-Nevuchim (Guide for the Perplexed) and Shemona Perakim (The Eight Chapters). He asserts that the soul is one, but has many different faculties (functions) and is intrinsically linked to the body. I argue that drug addiction is a psychological, social-moral deviance, as well as straying from God's path. Addiction is a disorder of the soul and body. Consequently, healing should include social-moral guidelines as well as physical/bodily health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In rabbinic tradition, measures, weights, and volumes are of great importance in many halachic matters. The rabbis had to establish and explain: What is the minimum amount of food one must eat in order to recite the blessing after a meal? What is the maximum amount of non-kosher food in a kosher food that will not make the food inedible? What is the minimum amount of unleavened bread that one should eat on the first two days of Passover? Why is a person unjust if he weighs inaccurately and even if he weighs accurately and gives nothing extra? How is it possible to punish a person for an act he has not yet committed (ie, before „unfair" weighing or measuring)? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is sometimes assumed that Talmudic civil law was barely more than a copy of Roman law. Rabbis indeed lived in a Roman-law environment and a superficial look at Talmudic and Roman law does reveal many similarities. However, an attentive analysis of the rules on liability for animals unveils Talmudic law's single characteristics and indeed its resistance to external influences in this context; most likely the rabbis endeavoured to preserve the independence of Talmudic law from the secular ruling authority rather than conforming with it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article proposes a close reading of Jonas's halakhic treatise with two central goals. The first is to locate Jonas's text within the broader debates on the changing role of women in Judaism and contemporary European society and the changing role of rabbis in Central Europe (and beyond). We will see how her thesis reflected broader social and cultural trends that shaped modern European Jewish communities. The second goal of this article is to examine the ways in which Jonas constructed her argument and in so doing to remind the reader of the more nuanced and complicated landscape of German Judaism that existed prior to the Holocaust, of which she was but one voice. By examining her arguments and the sources she employed, we can see where she aimed to uphold halakhah and to use it to make her highly innovative argument, just as we can also see where she pushed boundaries, arguing for the possibility of change within it. We can also identify the issues she chose to elide and consider the implications of her argumentation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Anales del Seminario de Historia de la Filosofía is the property of Universidad Complutense de Madrid and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The fifth part of Rabbi Khalifa Ben-Malka's Kaf naki (Clean Hand), Meshovah nizahat (Triumphant Response) portrays a series of interreligious disputations that he conducted with Christian colleagues in Agadir during the first half of the eighteenth century. A study of Meshovah nizahat reveals that, while these debates represent a direct continuation of medieval interreligious polemic, occasionally the traditional arguments took on a new garb--for example, those proofs relying on the era's geographic or scientific discoveries. Ben-Malka was well-versed in the intricacies of theological debate and was familiar with the most sophisticated tools the medieval polemical tradition had to offer, as well as with post-medieval Jewish anti-Christian literature. His writing opens a window onto eighteenth-century Jewish-Moroccan intellectual history while simultaneously raising a number of questions. Further study will be necessary to paint a fuller and more diverse picture. Key words: Agadir (Morocco), early modern period, Jewish-Christian polemic, Rabbi Khalifa Ben-Malka was born in Safi in western Morocco during the second half of the seventeenth century. Though he was orphaned at an early age, in his youth he [...]

This article addresses a lacuna in scholarship: the burial and mourning rites for pre-modern Jewish children's deaths. I explore three genres of sources from western and central Europe: bylaws, custom books, and epitaphs. I argue that communal leaders regulated the process of grieving one's children, marking those deaths in ways that are different from how an adult is memorialized. Nevertheless, by creating additional rites or by permitting parents to circumvent certain norms, communal leaders acknowledged and even facilitated more intense expressions of parental loss. Key words: burial, children, death, early modern, Hevrah Kadishah, In the winter of 1747, Rechel, the daughter of the rabbi of Mainz, and her almost seven-year-old son Shmuel, died approximately three months apart. Their respective deaths are commemorated in [...]

I APPRECIATED MATTHEW Burdette's insights into 'Progressive Supersessionism' (October 2024), drawing out continuities between today's anti-theological progressive claim to supersede traditional religion and culture and that movement's forebear, a theological [...]

The article discusses the theological work of St. Bonaventure, focusing on his lectures on the first chapter of Genesis known as Collations on the Hexaëmeron. The text is described as deeply theological and symbolic, addressing challenges faced by the Franciscan order. The author, Douglas Dales, provides a detailed commentary on Bonaventure's work, highlighting its historical context and theological significance. Despite some minor inaccuracies, the article praises Dales' commentary as a valuable resource for scholars and students interested in Bonaventure's theological writings. [Extracted from the article]