Abstract In this contribution we offer an edited text with commentary and a full English translation of one Seder ʿAvodah in the Adler Collection of the Jewish Theological Seminary, ENA 2385, fol. 26–27. What is very striking about this piyyut is the way in which the poet has abridged the obligatory subjects of the ʿAvodah. There are surprising omissions in the description of the creation of the world, but there are also activities of the High Priest that receive extra emphasis. All in all, this is a Seder ʿAvodah that needs to be studied within the framework of this venerable and longstanding genre within medieval Hebrew hymnology.

Abstract For survivors of the Shoah in 1945 Amsterdam, broadsides or single-sheet prints, such as proclamations and circular letters, had an important disseminating function. This article highlights the first efforts of relief, religious, cultural, and Zionist organisations to rebuild Jewish community life at various locations in the city through a selection of broadsides from the collections of the Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana, the Jewish Cultural Quarter, and Amsterdam’s Orthodox Ashkenazi congregation (NIHS). It is a first attempt to demonstrate the significance of looking at this type of source for the liminal early post-war period.

Abstract This article investigates the linguistic and graphic form of the intertwining of the Arabic and Hebrew languages and their respective scripts in the pages of a medieval poetic notebook from among the manuscript fragments of the Cairo Genizah. The owner-producer of the notebook employed transcription, translation, code-switching and script-mixing, exploiting fully the bilingual nature of Jewish intellectual culture in the medieval Islamicate world. In this article we present the fragment and explain the probable strategy behind the language- and script-switching.

Abstract Based on an analysis of approximately 1,400 Hebrew printed books from Rabbi David Oppenheim’s collection, housed in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, this article examines the handwritten inscriptions of their owners and users. In the second part, we explore what the nature of these inscriptions reveals about Ashkenazic Jewish society’s relationship to books. The absence of aesthetic sensitivity and, more generally, the lack of what is referred to in non-Jewish culture as bibliophilism – such as the individualization of books through uniform bindings, supralibros, ex libris, and the collector’s interest in amassing books – leads to the conclusion that, while 16th- and 17th-century Ashkenazic Jews undoubtedly demonstrated a strong affinity for the text (what Avriel Bar Levav termed ‘textual intimacy’), they did not display a significant interest in books as material objects.

Abstract This article examines select responsa literature and manuscripts to expand our knowledge concerning Meir ibn Gabbai (1480/1–after 1546) and his family. It begins by detailing a responsum by Joseph b. Moses of Tarani (1568–1639) concerning an unmentioned son, Ezekiel ibn Gabbai, which also records the names of Ibn Gabbai’s wife and daughter-in-law. This responsum is further contextualized through recourse to other contemporary responsa that mention other individuals named. In so doing, this article suggests that Ibn Gabbai had a family home in Manisa, Turkey. Next, this article identifies three manuscripts as containing Ibn Gabbai’s autograph through the employment of paleographical, codicological, and philological tools. One of these manuscripts offers us his latest known date and place, Edirne, Turkey in 1546.

Abstract This article explores the relationship between two tales from the Arabian peninsula in the high middle ages, in both of which the protagonist declares that he will prove his identity by coming back to life after being decapitated. One is the tale of Bu-Saʿid of Lahsa in Nasir Khusraw’s Book of Travels (11th cent.), and the other is the tale of the Yemen messiah as told by Maimonides.

Abstract Joseph Ben-Adahan, an 18th–19th century rabbi of Tétouan, wrote an egodocument narrating the sequence of events from the moment he dreamed about emigrating to Eretz Israel to his eventual settlement in Jaffa (1845). Through analysis of his writing, this article expands the academic discourse on egodocuments to the Jewish diaspora in North Africa, an area not yet discussed in this context. Ben-Adahan’s account confirms several scholarly findings regarding mid-19th-century immigration to Eretz Israel from Morocco. Moreover, it enriches our knowledge of subjects such as the complex reaction of the sages and community leaders to their colleague’s decision to emigrate. Ben-Adahan’s egodocument illuminates the behind the scenes of the immigration drama and reveals the individual face hidden until now behind the dry statistical data of the immigration process.