Writing back in 1888, Adolf Neubauer, the father of modern scholarship on the Lost Tribes, warned that “It would be lost time . . . to trouble ourselves about the identification of this stream.” Neubauer was referring, of course, to the Sambatyon River, the mythical waterway that, according to common understanding, rests each Sabbath and separates missing Jews—the ten lost tribes or others—from their brethren, and indeed from the known world. Six days each week, according to the legend, the river runs so powerfully that neither these tribes nor their seekers can cross it; on the Sabbath, either natural wonders or halakhic restrictions prevent them from doing so as well. Thus, whether showcasing the sheer power and solemnity of the seventh day or the piety of the isolated (or general) community, the Sambatyon legend certifies that only in the messianic age will this lost population be restored to the rest of the Jewish people.

This paper reveals one of the most unique Zoharic Shema mysteries identified as “Rav Hamnuna Sabba's Mystery of Unity” [רזא דיחודא דרב המנונא סבא]. This mystery is deeply connected to two narrative figures in Zoharic literature: The Yanuka (the Zoharic wunderkind) and the Saba (the wise old man). This paper argues that various poetic aspects of these two figures illuminate the theosophic and mystical contents of their homilies as can be shown in the various homilies of the Yanuka and Saba on their unique Shema mystery.

A sugya just a few lines long in the Babylonian Talmud, Gittin 88b, had enormous influence on the development of Jewish law in the area of the authority to pass judgment given to rabbinical courts in our day. According to the simple, commonly accepted understanding of this sugya, the Tannaim ruled that the Torah forbade men who had not received ordination to act as judges, and as a result, the judges in Babylonia were permitted to adjudicate, of necessity, only as agents of the judges of Palestine (שליחותייהו קא עבדינן, we act as their agents). The article reexamines these positions. The first part suggests two new ways to understand the essence of the agency of which R. Joseph spoke in the sugya. The second part of the article reexamines the source of the prohibition, to the extent that it exists, against adjudication by laymen.

A strange statement appears in Maimonides' (d. 1204) code of Jewish law, the Mishneh Torah. When dealing with prohibited marriages, Maimonides writes that a convert from among the gentiles, including the seven Canaanite nations (Deuteronomy 7:3), may marry within the Jewish community. Originally there were some exceptions to this in regard to four nations: Ammon, Moab, Egypt, and Edom. However, Sennacherib, King of Assyria, commingled all the nations, and since then these four nations have been mixed up with all the other permitted nations, and they have all become permitted. “Thus a convert these days, whether he be an Edomite, an Egyptian, an Ammonite, a Moabite, a Kushite, or any other nation, whether male or female, is permitted to enter the community [of Israel, i.e. to marry within the community] immediately.”

Researching the translation and commentary of the tenth century Karaite scholar and exegete Yefet ben ʿElī on the Book of Proverbs, numerous statements that seemed to ring with egalitarianism were found. Some of these statements found in Yefet's commentary on wisdom literature and biblical narrative will be examined in this article. One case in which he speculates on biblical Hebrew syntax will also be examined. Gender equality in Yefet's work is anchored in the principle of logical inference, also known as analogy, qiyās, which served as one of the three major sources for the determination of Karaite halakhah. This article includes also a brief discussion of the role of qiyās in Karaite halakhah on marriage, divorce, and inheritance laws.

Applying a social interaction approach to the study of the reception of different literary genres, this article focuses on an unnoticed Judeo-Arabic Genizah fragment whose contents deal with the relative cultural value of midrash and piyyut in medieval Mediterranean society. The fragment describes a debate concerning the identity of Elijah and his connection to the zealous act of Phineas. The debate, which probably took place in the early thirteenth century in Fustat, occurred in reaction to a synagogue performance of Havdalah liturgical poetry. The arguments for and against the poems were based on aggadic traditions. A survey of relevant piyyutim reveals that this debated motif was indeed subject to variations and alterations. A similar development can be traced in the evolution of another Havdalah piyyut composed by Rabbi Yehudah Ha-Levi. The fluidity of the poetic texts likely reflects the same literary hierarchy presented in the events recorded in the Genizah fragment (and at the same time reinforced by them): a growing appreciation of the authority of aggadic midrash, alongside the perception of the Havdalah piyyut as creative performance, and not as an authoritative source of knowledge.

Ḥasdai Crescas briefly adumbrated his halakhic methodology in the introduction to his philosophic work, 'Or ha-Shem. He followed Maimonides by arguing for the importance of a comprehensive and succinct legal code and opposed himself to those who ascribe independent value to Torah study. However, Crescas disputed Maimonides on the proper goals and character of a legal code. Unlike Maimonides, he designated his code for Torah scholars and focused on the bedrock principles that are the bases for particular laws. According to Crescas, these principles allow the codifier to capture the infinite and boundless halakhah in a finite and accessible form. They also serve as exegetical rules that allow the Torah scholar to create new laws. In this regard, the halakhic enterprise resembles the process of creation and the scholar resembles God.

While discussing the rites and customs of burial and mourning in his book Tashbeẓ katan, the early fourteenth-century Rabbi Shimshon ben Ẓadok made the following remark:

A trenchant and rather paradoxical Hasidic saying asserts the following: He who believes the tall tales told by the Hasidim may be a fool, but he who does not believe them is a heretic. It turns out that many secular writers have in fact read and examined Hasidic tales sympathetically, without necessarily regarding them as true. But what exactly is the relationship of such non-believers to Hasidism? Can a secularist genuinely connect with texts that seem to be totally immersed in their religious context and driven by specifically religious interests? Can a reader who repudiates the assumptions of the original author (and even of his intended audience) nevertheless engage in a personally uplifting or even spiritually-inspired reading of such texts? Is there a spiritual dimension capable of traversing the barriers of religious doctrine, and penetrating the inner world of the heretic?

The acculturation Ashkenazic Jews in Italy is the focus of the present discussion. By 1500 Jews had been living in Padua for centuries, but their cemeteries were destroyed in the 1509. Four cemeteries remained with over 1200 inscriptions between 1530–1860. The literary features of the inscriptions indicate a shift from a preference for epitaphs written in prose, like those of medieval Germany, to epitaphs in the form of Italian Jewry's occasional poetry. The art and architecture of the tombstones are part and parcel of the Renaissance ambient, with the portals and heraldry characteristic of Palladian edifices. The lettering, too, presents a shift from the constituency's medieval Ashkenazic origins to its Italian setting. These developments are situated in the broader context of Italian Jewish art and architecture, while the literary innovations are shown to reflect the revival of the epigram among poets of the Italian Renaissance.

The controversy surrounding Hannah Arendt's reportage on the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem and the subsequent book cannot be underestimated. For Arendt personally, the trial was the decisive event in the second half of her life and amounted to nothing less than a second exile. On the world stage, it marked not only a critical turning point in international consciousness of the Holocaust, but also both initiated and reflected a critical shift in intra-Jewish representations and expression. Arendt's book could in fact be considered as a master text for Judaic studies in the second half of the twentieth century. To mention two of many possible consequences, the controversy may be seen as a pivot point from which the culture of the public intellectuals of New York argued itself out of the spotlight, as well as a primary catalyst for two of the most significant works on the Holocaust penned by women: Lucy Davidowicz's The War against the Jews (1975) and Leni Yahil's The Holocaust (1987).

This article touches upon the theme of delayed return: a familiar literary theme that is manifested in different languages, cultures, and periods; it usually involves a man returning to his home and wife after a prolonged absence during which he was presumed dead, while his wife's circumstances radically changed. S.Y. Agnon published two well-known works on the subject: “And the Crooked Shall Be Made Straight” (1912) and “Fernheim” (1949), which are the object of this study. This article approaches these two works in a comparative context from a genre analysis—a novella versus a short story—arguing that the subject matter sometimes dictates the choice of genre. Thus, the two delayed returns differ markedly. The novella form is well-suited to “And the Crooked Shall Be Made Straight” which places the devout protagonist, upon his delayed return, in a tragic dilemma, while Fernheim's is not a delayed return in the exemplary-archetypal sense.