Danny Schwartz to deliver lecture at York University

Prof. Danny Schwartz to deliver York University PACE lecture on "Changing Premises in the Study of Ancient Judaism: Josephus and Rabbinic Literature, 1901 - 2009" at 3:00 to 5:00 p.m., Tuesday Feb. 2nd, 3:00 to 5:00 p.m., Vanier College 001 (Renaissance Room). Hat tip: Toshunka

Bar Ilan Responsa

Another (strange) article about the Bar Ilan Responsa project. (Version) 17+ and counting.

A Peek Ahead and a Look Back

The venerable Jewish Quarterly Revew celebrates its centennial volume this year. The journal will be looking back at its early roots and will also reflect on its new directions. The current editor in chief, Elliot Horowitz, is well known not only for the breadth of his scholarship, but also his humor, biting irony, and general good-hearted inappropriateness. The man can, at times, be rip-roaring hilarious, and his humor should be linked to a kind of post-modern stance, making him the perfect person to bring the journal into the Future Shock.

And now, for a peek ahead:

100.1 due out this winter, includes an article by Josh Levenson on "Enchanting Rabbis: Contest Narratives between Rabbis and Magicians in Late Antiquity." Jordan Rosenblum publishes “'Why Do You Refuse to Eat Pork?': Jews, Food, and Identity in Roman Palestine,: and there is a certainly to be frequently downloaded symposium on Jim Kugel's How to Read the Bible. 100.2 (Spring) is devoted to rabbinics and will include:

Herod’s Jewish Ideology Facing Romanization: On Intermarriage, Ritual Baths and Speeches

Eyal Regev

Tradition and Truth: The Ethics of Lawmaking in Tannaitic Literature

Tzvi Novick

“Fruit and the Fruit of Fruit”: Charity and Piety among Jews in Late Antique Palestine

Michael L. Satlow

Josephus, the Rabbis, and Responses to Catastrophes Ancient and Modern

Jonathan Klawans

and my own little contribution,

Reading the Bavli in Iran

For a nice retrospective by Horowitz on JQR and the Bible, see here.

For a review of Rosenblum's forthcoming book, see here. (hat-tip: Adderabbi).

Conference at Bard College

This sent in by Jacob Neusner:

The Institute of Advanced Theology at Bard College will be holding a conference April 27-29, 2010 on "Judaic and Christian Visions of the Social Order: Describing, Analyzing and Comparing Systems of the Formative Age." Tzvee, who will be speaking, has the program with a scan of the glossy catalogue.

Cyrus

In case you haven't been following, there seem to be important tablets intimately related to the famous Cyrus cylinder (which I got to stare at this past summer at the BM). Of course there's politics thrown in for good measure. The Guardian reports.

Article on David Weiss Halivni's work

Apropos of the previous post, MM has posted on a recent article by one Florain Deloup Wolfowicz that summarizes Halivni's work on the Stam. Welcome to the blogosphere (and to Modiin?).

Upcoming Conferences

- University of Ottowa to hold a workshop revisiting the "parting of the ways" between Christianity and Judaism.

- A conference meets next week (January 26th, 2010) at GTU and Berkeley on "The Literary Art of the Bavli":

Jewish Studies of GTU and UC Berkeley
Exploring narrative and literary art in the Babylonian Talmud.
9.00-9.45 am
Moulie Vidas, "A Contribution to the History of the Stam"
9.45 - 10.30 am
Daniel Boyarin, "'And I am of their children's children': Pseudepigraphy in Sanhedrin"
10.45-11.30 am
Barry Wimpfheimer, "Talmudic Dynamics"
11.30am-12.15 pm
Holger Zellentin, "Stam Plagiat: What does the Bavli (and we) owe to the Yerushalmi?"
12.15 - 1:45 pm
LUNCH BREAK
1.45 - 2.30 pm
Michal Bar-Asher-Siegal, "The Art of Absorptive Quotation: Monastic Sources and the Redaction of the Bavli"
2.30 - 3.15 pm
Aharon Shemesh, "How much stamm in the stamma: Bavli Nazir 24a."
3.15 - 4 pm
Robert Brody, "Dating the Anonymous Talmud

It looks like Brody will continue in his efforts to urge "stammaitists" to rethink the late dating of the anonymous parts of the Talmud. But in many ways, it is Moulie Vidas who is really changing the rules of the game. His dissertation, which I've mentioned before, is quite cutting edge. The first two chapters urge scholars to completely reconceive of the relationship that the Stam has to its traditions. In fact, to think about their relationship to tradition as, paradoxically, a kind of discontinuity. And two more chapters engage with the Bavli's context - both Eastern Christian and Zoroastrian.

For once I'm sorry that I'm in the East while this conference will be at the "ends of the West" - in more ways than one.

Two New Talmudo-Iranic Articles

The Bulletin of the Asia Institute 19 (2009) has recently been published. This issue is a Festschrift for my teacher in Iranian studies, P. Oktor Skjaervo and includes the first part of an article by Yaakov Elman (my Doktorvater) entitled "The Other in the Mirror: Iranians and Jews View

One Another: Questions of Identity, Conversion, and Exogamy in the Fifth Century Iranian Empire." The article looks at talmudic and Zoroastrian debates concerning, among other things, the non-Jewish / non-Zoroastrian capacity to convey impurity. The second part of the article, to be published next year, includes a groundbreaking attempt to firmly date the Zoroastrian sages of the Zand. I have an article entitled, "Studying with a Magus / Like Giving a Tongue to a Wolf" that looks at b. Shabbat 75a (Rav Zutra b. Tuvia said that Rav said, "one who learns something from a magus is liable death") in light of Zoroastrian study techniques and a reverse parallel in the Middle Persian Herbedestan which discusses whether one may teach a non-Zoroastrian "the holy word."

Rosenthal and Epstein Prizes

At 6:30pm on February 24th, Hebrew University's Talmud Department will hold its annual evening in memory of the two "foundation stones" of the department: E. S. Rosenthal and Y. N. Epstien. This year's awardees are חנן מזא"ה (Epstein Prize) and Isaiah Gafni (Rosenthal Prize). The former will speak about some connections between rabbinic literature and the Dead Sea Scrolls, while the latter will talk about Rosenthal's triad of "(textual) version, language, and context).

The event will be held Beit Maiersdorf on Mount Scopus.

Review of Dvora Weisberg, Levirate Marriage and the Family in Ancient

Jane Kanarek at H-Net Judaic reviews Dvora Weisberg's volume on Levirate Marriage.

Cornell Visiting Position

Job Watch

Cornell is potentially looking for someone who researches / teaches classical Judaism for Fall 2010. How is that job search shaping up?

Iraqi Jewish Treasures

Reports of ancient Jewish manuscripts rescued from Iraq at the beginning of the US invasion have been in the news now and then. I believe paleojudaica has links to previous discussions. An update has just been published in the Washington Post. The picture accompanying the article is of a Vilna edition tractate Niddah - nothing new about that. But it does sound like there are some interesting things in the collection. Who in the Iraqi Jewish community will stand up and fund a "salvage" electronic preservation if the collection has to go back to Iraq?

Update: Ezra Chwat writes: From what we've seen of this collection, its mostly community documents and 20th century printed volumes that apparently belonged to the community. Not much in the way of manuscripts. What appears to be a much more Rabbinic collection, is well preserved in the Iraqi National library. their 820 items are catlogued at in their online catlaog at www.iraqnla.org

The Leiman Collection

The library of the impossibly-erudite, ever-entertaining Sherlock Homes of Jewish scholarship now has a web presence. If you have have never merited a perusal among the bookshelves in his unassuming Kew Gardens Hills home with a perfect Judaica book collection, well then too bad for you. At least you can visit online.

Hat tip: Adderabbi

Once again, Rachel Elior on the DSS and (not!) the Essenes

Scholarly Sorties

From the Haaretz book supplement. Hat tip to Adderabbi, who is celebrating a five year blogiversary and the launch of Jewish Ideas Daily. Check it out.

לעתים נדירות זוכה מחבר לקרוא בביקורת על ספרו שהוא משתייך "למי שמקובל לראותו כנמנה על ה'אופוזיציה', על הסטרא-אחרא". כך כתבה ברוב טוב טעם ודעת עדנה אולמן-מרגלית על אלה העוסקים במחקר מגילות מדבר יהודה, "הכופרים באחת או יותר מצלעות המשולש איסיים-מגילות-קומראן" ("הארץ, ספרים", 25.11.09). ממילא מובן מדבריה, על דרך ההיפוך, כי אלה האוחזים ב"משולש של איסיים-מגילות-קומראן" הם "סטרא דקדושא", הלא הם "החוקרים המשתייכים כולם לפרדיגמה המחקרית הגדולה", אשר להם ורק להם, כעולה מדבריה, מונופול על האמת. אולמן-מרגלית רשאית לצדד ב"פרדיגמה המחקרית הגדולה" של איסיים-מגילות-קומראן, להעניק למשתתפיה את בלעדיות סמכות הדעת ולמתוח ביקורת על אלה הסבורים שאין קשר בין האיסיים לבין מגילות קומראן. אולם אני תוהה על הקושיה שהקשתה הכותבת על הגיונה של טענתי, שאין לזהות את הכוהנים בני צדוק ואנשי בריתם, מחברי המגילות, עם האיסיים. האם עלי לנקוט זיהוי זה לדעת המבקרת, חרף העובדה שיגעתי ולא מצאתי שום רמז לאיסיים בשפה העברית בכלל ובשפת המגילות בפרט? לעומת זאת מצאתי, כפי שאף מצאו רבים וטובים לפני (החל בפרופסורים מ' גושן-גוטשטיין וח' רבין), כי יש קשר הדוק בין לשון המגילות לבין עולם המקרא בכלל ולעולמם של הכוהנים בני צדוק בפרט, וכי אין לקשור את מחברי המגילות לאיסיים, וכלה בחוקרי העשורים האחרונים (כמו הפרופסורים י' באומגרטן, י' זוסמן וי' שיפמן), שהצביעו על הקשר ההדוק בין החוקים והמצוות הנזכרים במגילות, לבין ההלכה הצדוקית הנזכרת במסורת חז"ל, המעמידה בסימן שאלה את הזיהוי עם האיסיים...המשך.

Further on Kalla

Yachin Epstein, "Studies in Massekhet Kalla Rabbti: Text, Redaction, and Period (Hebrew University Dissertation, 2009).

Would like to see how this work relate to Brodsky's work on Kalla. Will keep you posted.
‬

More on Josephus Translations

More on Josephus' translations into Hebrew:

It was a daunting task she undertook: to translate from the Greek the work by the first-century historian Yosef Ben Matityahu - better known as Flavius Josephus - "The Jewish War." It took 10 years for her to complete the monumental effort of rendering into Hebrew the book's seven sections, originally written on papyrus. She finally finished it six months ago. Almost daily for a decade, she ensconced herself in her study to work on the project throughout the morning and in the afternoon. Like a good soldier, she hunched over the keyboard of her white Apple computer and coped with a 1,940-year-old Greek text. ...

Midrash Conference

Upcoming Aggada Conference

Bar Ilan UniversityFaculty of Jewish Studies Department of Talmud
Lander Institute Jerusalem Academic CenterGraduate School of Jewish Studies
Touro College New YorkGraduate School of Jewish Studies
Announce a two day international academic conference onAggadah and Aggadic Interpretation Throughout the GenerationsJanuary 18-19, 2010

The conference sessions will deal with attitudes towards the authorityof Aggadot, the methods used to interpret them, the use of Aggadah inbiblical commentary, Aggadah in philosophic and in non-philosophiccontexts over the ages, Aggadah and Halakhah, as well as Aggadah inpoetry and in polemics. Participating in the lectures will beprofessors from the sponsoring academic institutions, prominentprofessors from most of Israel's major universities, as well aslecturers from the U.S.A. and Canada.

The sessions will take place on Monday and Tuesday, January 18-192010. On Monday the sessions will be held at the Mintz auditorium onthe Bar Ilan University campus and on Tuesday at the campus of LanderInstitute at 3 Am Ve'olamo St. in Jerusalem.

Monday January 18 - Bar Ilan Campus
14:00 Opening remarks: Dr. Meir Rafeld, Chair, Department of Talmud, Bar-Ilan UniversityGreetings: Prof. Moshe Kaveh, President, Bar Ilan UniversityProf Eliezer Tauber, Dean of the Faculty of Jewish Studies, Bar-Ilan UniversityProf. Carmi Horowitz, Rector, Lander Institute, Jerusalem

First Session 14:15-16:15Chair: Prof Shama Friedman (Bar-Ilan University)

Prof. Moshe Halamish (Bar Ilan University)Differing Approaches to the Status of Rabbinic AggadahProf. Eli Yassif (Tel Aviv University)Aggadot Hazal in the Middle Ages: the Story as Cultural InterpreterProf. Meir Bar Ilan (Bar Ilan University)Thoughts on Numerology in Talmudic AggadotProf. Marc Bregman (University of North Carolina)Tanhuma-Yelamdenu Midrashim in Medieval Biblical Exegesis

Second Session 16:30-18:30Chair: Dr. Aharon Amit (Bar Ilan University)

Prof. Hananel MackJewish and Christian use of the Midrash of R. Moshe Hadarshan
Dr. Ayelet Seidler (Lander Institute and Bar Ilan University)Rashbam and Radak: Their Use of Aggadah in their Genesis CommentariesDr. Arnon Atzmon (Bar Ilan University and Lander Institute):The Corrections of the Author of Ot Emet and of R. David Luria toMidrash Esther RabbahDr. Tsafi Zeba-Elran (Haifa University)R. Yossi min Yokrat as a Modern Jewish Hero
Tuesday January 19 at Lander Institute Jerusalem9:00Opening Remarks: Prof. Carmi Horowitz, Rector Lander InstituteGreetings: Major-General (Res.) Yaacov Amidror, Vice-
President, Lander Institute

First Session 9:30 - 11:30Chair: Prof Yosef Tabory, Dean, School of Jewish Studies, Lander Institute

Prof. Sara Yefet (Hebrew University)From Peshat to Derash and Back Again as Seen from the Perspective ofShir HashirimProf. Shulamit Elitzur (Hebrew University)The Early Liturgical Poets of Eretz Yisrael as Creators of MidrashProf. Berekhyahu Lifshitz (Hebrew University)On the Definition of the term "Aggadah"Dr. Avinoam Rosenack (Hebrew University)Theory and Practice: the Contribution of the Rabbinic Derashah to theUnderstanding the Halakhah

Second Session 11:45-13:45Chair: Dr. Arnon Atzmon (Bar Ilan University and Lander Institute)

Dr. Aviram Ravitsky (Hebrew University and Ariel University Center)Tractate Avot in Maimonides' Ethical SystemDr. Esti Eisenman (Lander Institute and the Open University)Maimonides and R. Moshe ben Yehuda on Interpreting Rabbinic MidrashProf. Nahem Ilan (Lander Institute)Metaphor and Allegory - or the Simple Meaning? Exegesis and Philosophyas Reflected in Three Sephardic Commentaries to the Story of R. Yosi ben KismaProf. Eric Lawee (York University)"Davar lo Davur al Ofnav": A Late Medieval Criticism of Rashi'sMidrashic Hermeneutic in His Commentary to the Torah

Third Session 14:45-16:45Chairman: Prof. Nahem Ilan (Lander Institute)
Dr. Hannah Davidson (Lander Institute)Nahmanides' Approach to Midrash in the Context of the Barcelona DebateProf. Yaacov Elbaum (Hebrew University)Ein Yaacov and Aggadic Interpretation in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth CenturyProf. Carmi Horowitz (Lander Institute)Sixteenth Century Polemics Surrounding Aggadic ExegesisDr. Orah Wiskind Elper (Lander Institute)"Could They Have Spoken Speciously of the Lord"!? Maharal's Defense ofRabbinic Aggadah
Fourth Session 17:00- 18:30Chairman: Dr. Orah Wiskind-Elper (Lander Institute)

Prof. Ze'ev Greis (Ben Gurion University)Hassidic Interpretations of Avot in the 18th and 19th CenturiesRabbi Yitzhak BlauAggadic Exegesis Among Aharonim in the 18th and 19th CenturiesMr. Michael Gross (Lifschitz College)Peshat Exegesis of Rabbinic Aggadah by the Kabbalist Rabbi YosefHayyim of Bagdad

(via Look-JED)

Stiched

The much anticipated new season of the Israeli award-winning t.v. series, Srugim, is about to begin (January 10st), though virtually, it has already aired, following a few screenings and discussions in and around Jerusalem. The first season picked up prizes not just because of the generally good acting and artsy, sophisticated cinematography, but unquestionably, for the very novelty of screening a series about religious singles in Jerusalem. Srugim was reviewed and simultaneously praised and pilfered in the Israeli religious press, and as always, quality is in the eye of the beholder. Much of the wider audience saw in Srugim either a kind of ethnographic study of Israeli religious society whose success is to be measured by the lack of "mistakes" in accurately depicting a certain ethnographic reality (what we may call the Stranger Among Us" phenomenon" - good clip-on sidelocks, but did anyone notice how they did not check the eggs for bloodspots while baking, etc. etc.). In a similiar vein others, particularly the religious public, looked to Srugim and its religious director, Lazy Shapiro to represent halakha in its intracies, and to show the unbroken piety of the religious public. Of course Shapiro is interested in nothing but the creation of art and telling narratives of identity and community - of which the latter is quite problematic in the identity construction of older singles in the dati world. Shapiro's art reflects and refracts contemporary Israeli society in a myriad of ways.

The YES network on which Srugim airs has told us in no fewer words that מה שהיה היה, what was, was. Still, the series picked up from where it left off. Dati-hiloni issues continue to figure prominently and Srugim continues to have some new and interesting, if disturbing things to say. In this episode, Hodaya - the recently secular (or datl"ash, formerly religious) character - is still finding her place as a hiloni in Jeruslaem, and meets what turns out to be a fellow datlash at work, which by the end turns into something romantic - only confirming the truism that datlashim cannot mainstream into hiloni society. But what really does it mean to be hiloni, or formerly religious in Jerusalem? A difficult question indeed. Srugim seems to conceive of the issue as being largely about sex, with sexual initiation acting as the true initiation into secular society. Until Hodaya experiences sex she remains "dati" despite her previous Sabbath desecration. As Hodaya tells Yifat on her wedding day, she has still not done "anything". And so it goes. While the Datiim share their separate beds, and at that, only after marriage, hilonim experience something that datiim will never have - a different kind of sex. And yet, one cannot help but detect a look of dissapointment in Hodaya's contenance as she looked out that night on a suddenly cosmically changed Jerusalem.

There is much to say, too little time, and work beckons, but I cannot ignore the talmudic angle in this first episode. Indeed, one might say that Srugim is another form of the talmudic "language" that has had an uneasy but rich relationship with the modern State of Israel and the Modern Hebrew language. Like a talmudic sugya, it's structure is that of a postmodern cinematic quilt (hence the secondary meaning of the title - not just woven yarmulkes, but woven-together narratives, like the Aramaic word for tractate, "mesekhta" (think Babel). Aside from Hodaya's sorry tale, we also have simultaneously the much anticipated wedding between Amir and Yifat. At the end of last season Yifat finally gave up on Amir's roomate Nati and realized that her true love could be found with the divorcee, Amir. Of course it is then that Nati wants Yifat, but actually, Nati has no clue what he really wants. Nati's story is that while he is trying to be a good halakhic "best-man" and "watch" Amir as a shomer, his mother is dying in a hospital room with the rest of the family. The stories are gradually woven together. Yifat finds that she has had her period - a halakhic and sexual nightmare of immense proportions which requires all kinds of hoops and loops - the ring can no longer be handed directly to the bride, nor can the groom give her to drink of the wine. Worse, they need to spend their first week apart, generally with young relatives. Yifat is mortified and decides that though she and Amir will not actually sleep together, they will go through with the public aspects of the weddings as if nothing is wrong. What the rabbi doesn't know can't hurt him...Then, Nati's mother finally passes away and he bolts before he can sign his best friend's ketuba. We find Nati pulling back the cloth from his dead mother's face as Amir pulls the vale from on top of Yifat's head.

Is this episode's woven quilt merely about the cycle of life - weddings and funerals? Is it Nati's missed chances - Nati was uninterested in marrying Yifat so instead his roomate ends up marrying her - while Nati comes face to face with death and the mortality of being single (framed as dying a virgin in last season)?

This blogger cannot ignore a talmudic passage in Bavli Ketubot 4a-5a - a sugya known affectionately by my brother-in-law as "pop's in the freezer"; That is, if the bride or groom's father (or mother) dies, the wedding goes on while the deceased close-relative is "in the freezer". After the wedding, they bury the body and then...then the bride and groom must take great care not to touch each other or be secluded with one another. So beyond the case of a bride menstruating, the other archetypal religious wedding nightmare is a death in the immediate family. In both cases, bride and groom need to be kept separate from one another for (at least) seven days. The sugyot in the talmud are, as is common, textually woven together.

Some scholars, traditional and academic alike, have suggested that menstrual impurity in Judaism and other religions represents a kind of death of potential life, causing the need to separate though normally only physically. That is, while a husband and wife are normally "trusted" to keep to themselves during the wife's impurity, the threat of newlywed passion is too great to allow a new couple to stay together after either form of death - real or ritual - when sex or anything close to it is banned. Part of what the Bavli Ketubot sugya has to say is about the mingling of death and desire.

Nati, who has in the end not married Yifat, is the would-have-been-groom who now experiences death, plain and simple. Amir on the other hand, experiences with Yifat a temporary death which keeps them from consumating the marriage at this point, though anyone invested in the show wishes them (that is, the fictional construct of Yifat and Amir) only the best.

Srugim's weaving, as always, occupies the gap between halakhic reality and actual religious practice. Still, it somehow never loses the full symbolic gravity of the halakhic system.

An announcement regarding the new daf yomi cycle of the Talmud Yerushalmi, via Harry Myles:

The new cycle of Daf Yomi in Talmud Yerushalmi begins next Wednesday, 27
Teves, Jan. 13th. (The cycle lasts four years and three months, and the current
cycle ends, of course, the day before.)More information, and free audio MP3's of
shiurim on the entire Yerushalmi are available at http://www.yerushalmionline.org/, and/or by contacting me at http://us.mc1133.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=ygb@aishdas.org
or 845.216.1617.

The "Chabad Geniza"

Perhaps. See here. (Hat tip: Paleojudaica)

On Retirement

Dept. of Hoopla

At the end of last week, a large group of academics, family members, and interested laypeople got together to see off Prof. David Rosenthal - a professor of rabbinic literature at the Hebrew University - who has just retired from his position. The setting was unusually well appointed for such events, with scrumptious food - both fried Moroccan "soul-food" and of the more dainty variety - to boot. Where else but Hebrew University's faculty restaurant, Beit Maiersdorf. Time is short and I do not have time for a full review of the lectures that were given. In any case I could not hear some of them due to my position towards the back of a room filled with, by the end, close to 200 people , and due the speaking habits of some of the lecturers. I will say that Menahem Kister gave a tour de force on exegetical and "philosophical" speculation regarding the position of wind (ruah) in Genesis 1. He of course was ultimately interested in a certain, well known Tosefta, but referenced texts from the Rg Veda (a very brief reference, at that), to Eusibius and onward to Sufi speculation. Mordechai Sabato gave a quite dense, learned talk on the role of intonation in the creation of version differences. Though I had already left, my layman neighbor (a relative of Prof. Rosenthal) told me that Naeh reconstructed reconstruction the history of the first Mishnah in Berakhot, treating the old problem of where he section regarding הקטר חלבים came from, why it was placed there, and what that lead to - all the time emphasizing the Bavli's nusah ha-mishnah. Indeed, quite a few mentioned Prof. Rosenthal's work demonstrating the relative (and surprising, to some) reliability of the Bavli's Mishnah versus the Yerushalmi.

To my mind, the thing that made the most lasting impression was not simply the large number of people who had come out on a Thursday night to hear exceedingly learned talks on rabbinic literature (and archaeology). Rather, that every good word offered to Prof. Rosenthal by the speakers and the chairs (Moshe Bar-Asher and others from the Academy for the Hebrew Language) wished many years of productive research. For those of us in academia, we sometimes forget how unique that is. Anyone who has been to a retirement part for someone leaving (even within the realm of education), say the New York department of education knows that no one would dare wish the retiree more years of work! Best of luck, Prof. Rosenthal!