Bar-Ilan University Press Research Articles

Biblical Shakespeare: King Lear as Job on the Hebrew Stage

Comparisons between King Lear and the biblical Book of Job have become commonplace in scholarship. This paper traces the impact of the Lear–Job connection on the staging and reception of Shakespeare’s play in Hebrew theatre. Due to this connection, King Lear was put within the orbit of a central cultural endeavour for Zionism: the re-appropriation of the Hebrew Bible for the formation of a new national identity. In the mid-twentieth century, the play appealed to directors who searched for Hebrew ‘biblical’ theatre, and a web of intertextual allusions in the press tied Shakespeare’s tragedy to the Book of Job and to rabbinic interpretations of it. However, the equivocal position held by Job within the Zionist imagination undermined the place of King Lear as well. Ultimately, the two were intertwined in the politics of their reception in Hebrew theatre. Yair Lipshitz is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Theatre Arts in Tel Aviv University. In his research, he explores the various intersections between theatre, performance, and Jewish religious traditions. He is the author of two books in Hebrew: The Holy Tongue, Comedy’s Version (Bar Ilan University Press, 2010) and Embodied Tradition: Theatrical Performances of Jewish Texts (forthcoming).

Karaite Exegesis in Medieval Jerusalem: The Judeo-Arabic Pentateuch Commentary of Yūsuf ibn Nūḥ and Abū al-Faraj Hārūn; Yefet ben ‘Eli’s Commentary on Hosea: Annotated Edition, Hebrew Translation and Introduction; Verbal Morphology in the Karaite Treatise on Hebrew Grammar Kitāb al-̔uqūd fī taṣārīf al-luġa al-̔ibrāniyya; Bibliographia Karaitica: An Annotated Bibliography of Karaites and Karaism; Medieval Hebrew Poetry in Muslim Egypt: The

Karaite Exegesis in Medieval Jerusalem: The Judeo-Arabic Pentateuch Commentary of Yūsuf ibn Nūḥ and Abū al-Faraj Hārūn; Yefet ben ‘Eli’s Commentary on Hosea: Annotated Edition, Hebrew Translation and Introduction; Verbal Morphology in the Karaite Treatise on Hebrew Grammar Kitāb al-̔uqūd fī taṣārīf al-luġa al-̔ibrāniyya; Bibliographia Karaitica: An Annotated Bibliography of Karaites and Karaism; Medieval Hebrew Poetry in Muslim Egypt: The

Lonely Man of Peshat

Lonely Man of Peshat Martin I. Lockshin Keywords Martin I. Lockshin, Joseph Cohen, Uriel Simon, The Foundation of Reverence and the Secret of the Torah by Abraham ibn Ezra: An Annotated Critical Edition. (Hebrew), Shlomo Sela, The Book of Reasons by Abraham ibn Ezra: A Parallel Hebrew-English Critical Edition of the Two Versions of the Text, Abraham ibn Ezra, Middle Ages, Torah Commentary, Rabbinic Bibles Joseph Cohen and Uriel Simon. The Foundation of Reverence and the Secret of the Torah by Abraham ibn Ezra: An Annotated Critical Edition. (Hebrew). Second revised and enlarged version. Mekorot u-Meḥkharim 11. Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan University Press, 2007. Pp. 272. Shlomo Sela . The Book of Reasons by Abraham ibn Ezra: A Parallel Hebrew-English Critical Edition of the Two Versions of the Text. Etudes sur le judaïsme médiéval 35. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2007. Pp. viii + 398. One of the most prolific Jewish writers of the Middle Ages was Abraham ibn Ezra (1089–1164),1 a man who produced works of biblical exegesis, poetry, philosophy (or perhaps theology), astronomy, and astrology. While scholars have long been interested in all his works, his exegetical writings have been surprisingly popular with Jewish readers even beyond the confines of academia, despite a whiff of heterodoxy in some of his commentaries. One reason for their popularity might be that Moses Nahmanides, a widely venerated rabbi of impeccable credentials, devoted so much attention in his own Torah commentary to ibn Ezra's earlier work that it is hard to read and understand Nahmanides' commentary without first reading ibn Ezra's. Or perhaps the popularity of ibn Ezra's commentaries was a result in part of the whim of the printers of the earliest rabbinic Bibles, who included ibn Ezra's commentary on the page of the biblical text, right opposite that of Rashi, the venerated exegete par excellence. Ibn Ezra's nonexegetical works have never really been read much by educated Jews outside academia. Hardly anyone studies his works of philosophy. Contrast this with the fate of Moses Maimonides, whose [End Page 91] works of halakhah and of philosophy (very different from each other) are both generally recognized as part of the canon of the educated Jew. In the seventeenth century, the great philosopher Baruch (Benedict) Spinoza wrote glowingly about ibn Ezra's writings, but Spinoza, too, was interested exclusively in ibn Ezra's exegetical works, not in his works of philosophy. When Spinoza promoted a new understanding of the Bible as part of his vision of a world where organized religion would play a smaller role and human reason a larger one, he portrayed himself as a follower of ibn Ezra. Spinoza is often perceived as having "outed" ibn Ezra, writing openly what ibn Ezra only hinted at: that, contrary to the mainstream traditional view, Moses could not logically be the author of the entirety of the "Five Books of Moses."2 Four centuries earlier, a less famous but more orthodox Jew, Joseph ben Eliezer Bonfils (or Tov Elem), had already spelled out ibn Ezra's allegedly heterodox approach. Bonfils's obscure and rather understudied text, Tsofnat pa'aneaḥ, was a supercommentary on ibn Ezra's Torah commentary. In the late twentieth century, the relevant passage in Tsofnat pa'aneaḥ was disseminated to a wider audience when Nehama Leibowitz, an Orthodox Bible teacher with a very large following, reprinted it, essentially without comment, in one of her books about how to teach the Bible.3 Unlike ibn Ezra, Bonfils, or Leibowitz, Spinoza wrote openly that he did not see Moses as the author of the entire Pentateuch. Despite the extremely strong evidence that such a view was held by a number of "kosher" Jews and was not universally considered Jewish heresy,4 it is interesting to note just how hesitant Jews were—in the twelfth, fourteenth, and twentieth centuries—to say so openly. Ibn Ezra hinted at the idea; Bonfils wrote openly that that was what ibn Ezra believed but said nothing about his own opinion; Leibowitz simply recorded that Bonfils thought that ibn Ezra thought that Moses did not write the whole Pentateuch. Nowhere did she write (or teach orally, to...

Rashbam Scholarship in Perpetual Motion

Rashbam Scholarship in Perpetual Motion MORDECHAI Z. COHEN Elazar Touitou. Exegesis in Perpetuai Motion: Studied m the Pentateuchal Commentary of Rabbi Samuel ben Mew [Hebrew]. Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2003. Pp. 283.OVER THE PAST QUARTER CENTURY, Elazar Touitou has substantially enhanced our understanding of the hermeneutics of Rabbi Samuel ben Meir (Rashbam; c. 1080-1160), one of the greatest proponents of the peshal method in the Jewish tradition of biblical interpretation. Touitou's writing have opened bold new directions in evaluating Rashbam within the context of Jewish learning and his surrounding Christian intellectual milieu. His many studies, augmented by new ones, have been brought together here by the author in an integrated and updated form that reflects the changing landscape of modern research of the northern French peshat school founded by Rashbam's grandfather, Rashi (1040-1105). While the form and substance of the essays dominate this book, Touitou also addresses new matters raised by scholars of biblical interpretation such as G. Dahan, S. Japhet, JV1. Lockshm, A. Mondschein, R. Salters, and M. Sokolow, as well as historians such as A. Grossman and I. M. Ta-Shma, thereby creating an academic dialogue that paints a multifaceted intellectual portrait of Rashbam enriched by a variety of perspectives. The result is an insightful analysis of this great French exegete and his role in developing the peshat method, making Exegesis in Perpetual Motion required reading for anyone interested in Jewish biblical interpretation m its cultural context.The primary challenge for a reader of Rashbam - like other northern French pes hat exegetes - stems from his lack of clear statements of interpretive theory and principles, which has contributed to the mystification of the very definition of peshat, rendered variously as Scripture's literal meaning, plain meaning, original meaning, contextual meaning, and more.1 A second, related challenge is to account for the origins of the French peshat method, which emerged suddenly as a departure from the older type of rabbinic exegesis. After its seemingly spontaneous generation in Rashi's work, this new mode of reading appears as a full-blown exegetical system in the writings of his two great students, Joseph Kara (c. 1050-1130) and Rashbam. Exegesis in Perpetual Motion, divided into three major sections, illuminates these issues with sensitivity to their historical and cultural implications. Section one is a dedicated, three-chapter study of the origins of the northern French peshat method. Section two describes Rashbam 's relation to his predecessors: his complex attitude toward rabbinic exegesis (chapter 4) and debt to Rashi (chapter 5). Section three, the largest part of the book, with seven chapters, analyzes Rashbam's peshat method itself as applied in his Pentateuch commentary. After discussing the problematic state of the text of this commentary (chapter G), Touitou pieces together Rashbam's hermeneutical theory based on his sporadic statements regarding the relation between peshat and midrash (chapter 7). The author then defines Rashbam's interpretive methods as reflected in his analysis of the Pentateuch's literary structure (chapter 8), its narratives (chapter 9), and halakhic sections (chapter 10). The final two chapters contain additional glosses by Rashbam on selected biblical verses: from the Pentateuch, heretofore unpublished, culled from the margins of an early Rashi manuscript (chapter 11), and from the Prophets and Writings, appearing as citations m the medieval work 'Arugat ha-Bosem (chapter 12). The two appendices address related subjects: traces of Rashbam in the printed text of Rashi's Pentateuch commentary; and a contemporary evaluation of Rashbam's idiosyncratic peshat readings in light of Nehama Leibowitz's critiques. The bibliography is current2 and the indices are helpful, as is the list of Touitou s earlier studies incorporated in the current book. …

A Dictionary of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic of the Talmudic and Geonic Periods. By Michael Sokoloff. Dictionaries of Talmud, Midrash and Targum III and Publications of the Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon Project. Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan University Press; Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002. Pp. 1,582. $160.A Dictionary of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic of the Byzantine Period. 2d ed. By

Previous articleNext article No AccessBook ReviewA Dictionary of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic of the Talmudic and Geonic Periods. By Michael Sokoloff. Dictionaries of Talmud, Midrash and Targum III and Publications of the Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon Project. Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan University Press; Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002. Pp. 1,582. $160. A Dictionary of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic of the Byzantine Period. 2d ed. By Michael Sokoloff. Dictionaries of Talmud, Midrash and Targum II and Publications of the Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon Project. Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan University Press; Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002. Pp. 847. $109. A Dictionary of Judean Aramaic. By Michael Sokoloff. Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan University Press, 2003. Pp. 88.Dennis PardeeDennis PardeeThe University of Chicago Search for more articles by this author The University of ChicagoPDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Journal of Near Eastern Studies Volume 66, Number 3July 2007 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/521758 Views: 18Total views on this site * Permission to reprint a book review in this section may be obtained only from the author.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Michael sokoloff: a dictionary of jewish babylonian aramaic of the talmudic and geonic periods. (dictionaries of talmud, midrash and targum, iii.) 1582 pp. ramat-gan, israel: bar ilan university press; baltimore and london: the johns hopkins university press, 2002. michael sokoloff: a dictionary of judean aramaic. (dictionaries of talmud, midrash and targum, iii.) 88 pp. ramat-gan, israel: bar ilan university press,

michael sokoloff: a dictionary of jewish babylonian aramaic of the talmudic and geonic periods. (dictionaries of talmud, midrash and targum, iii.) 1582 pp. ramat-gan, israel: bar ilan university press; baltimore and london: the johns hopkins university press, 2002. michael sokoloff: a dictionary of judean aramaic. (dictionaries of talmud, midrash and targum, iii.) 88 pp. ramat-gan, israel: bar ilan university press, 2003. - Volume 68 Issue 2

A Dictionary of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic of the Talmudic and Geonic Periods; A Dictionary of Judean AramaicMichael Sokoloff, A Dictionary of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic of the Talmudic and Geonic Periods . Bar Ilan University Press, Ramat-Gan, Israel and The Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore / London, 2002. 1582 pp. $144.70. ISBN 965-226-260-9.Michael Sokoloff, A Dictionary of Judean Aramaic . Bar Ilan

A Dictionary of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic of the Talmudic and Geonic Periods; A Dictionary of Judean AramaicMichael Sokoloff, <i>A Dictionary of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic of the Talmudic and Geonic Periods</i> . Bar Ilan University Press, Ramat-Gan, Israel and The Johns Hopkins Press, Baltimore / London, 2002. 1582 pp. $144.70. ISBN 965-226-260-9.Michael Sokoloff, <i>A Dictionary of Judean Aramaic</i> . Bar Ilan

Abraham Tal. A Dictionary of Samaritan Aramaic. Handbuch der Orientalistik. Leiden: Brill, 2000. 2 vols. xxxiv, , 967 pp.

The field of Aramaic studies has witnessed a steady stream of major developments in recent years. Important new volumes include M. Sokoloff, A Dictionary of Palestinian Jewish Aramaic (Ramat-Gan: Bar Ilan University Press, 1990); J. Hoftijzer and K. Jongeling, Dictionary of the North-West Semitic Inscriptions, 2 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 1995); and T. Muraoka and B. Porten, A Grammar of Egyptian Aramaic (Leiden: Brill, 1998).1 Two classics have been reprinted by Eisenbrauns: J. Payne Smith, A Compendious Syriac Dictionary (Oxford, 1903; repr. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1998); and T. Nöldeke, Compendious Syriac Grammar (London, 1904; repr. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2001). In addition, the Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon web site has been launched (http://cal1.cn.huc.edu/index.html), with various databases currently available and with the promise for more online resources.

בבבל רבינא וחכמי דורו: עיונים בסדר הזמנים של אמוראים אחרונים [ Ravina and Contemporary Sages: Studies in the Chronology of Late Babylonian Amoraim ] (review)

The Jewish Quarterly Review, XCIII, Nos. 3-4 (January-April, 2003) 675-677 Avinoam Cohen, ??p?? cpntion pv mjmn rtto ???>>> :nn 'oani mm ïom [Ravina and Contemporary Sages: Studies in the Chronology of Late Babylonian Amoraim]. Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2001. Pp. 323. Under normal circumstances, the talmudic rabbis who bore the name Ravina would have elicited little interest from academic scholars. Like dozens of other rabbis whose opinions are scattered through the Babylonian Talmud without any distinctive biographical exploits or historical importance, the Ravinas would have been consigned to short entries in lexicons and handbooks. However, a cryptic tradition in the Talmud (bBM 86a) groups Ravina with Rav Ashi as sofhora'ah, the end of instruction, a status that is presented in the same talmudic passage as comparable to the roles of Rabbi [Judah the Prince] and Rabbi Nathan as the end of Mishnah, thereby seeming to imply that Rav Ashi and Ravina had roles in the redaction of the Babylonian Talmud that were equivalent to those of R. Judah and R. Nathan in the publication of the Mishnah. This equation cannot be taken at face value, since the Talmud cites teachings of scholars who lived several decades after Rav Ashi (who died, according to Sherira, in 427 ce). Sherira's solution to the conundrum was to identify the Ashi and Ravina of the talmudic tradition with obscure figures from the first generation of post-amoraic Saboraim: a Rabbah Joseph (or Yosé) and a later Ravina, both of whom lived into the early 6th century. The identification of the various Ravinas who spanned the last generations of Babylonian amoraim has therefore become closely intertwined with the questions of the redaction of the Talmud and the transition between the amoraic and saboraic eras. Underlying the endeavor is the frustrating fact that there seems to be at least one rabbi named Ravina active at any given point during this period. The modes of talmudic citation make no explicit distinctions between the respective figures of that name. Although academic talmudic scholarship learned long ago that legendary talmudic anecdotes like the one about sofhora'ah should be treated with great caution as sources of history or biography, in the present instance it has been hard to ignore the immense body of data collected by I. Hallevy to demonstrate that the discourse of Rav Ashi and his contemporaries differs substantially from that of previous generations in the way that it focuses much of its discussion on earlier talmudic discussions, a pattern that does indeed dovetail nicely with the claim that they were involved in redactional activity. It is in this context that we may appreciate the disproportionate energy that was invested by earlier scholars (including Hallevy, his disciple A. Heiman, and S. and H. Albeck) towards unraveling the confusing 676THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW chronologies of the Talmud's various Ravinas. In the present work, Cohen returns to this well-trodden territory and points out some fundamental weaknesses in previous solutions to the question. As Cohen notes in his introductory remarks, earlier studies, in spite of many disagreements on points of detail and formulation, operated for the most part within a commonly accepted set of parameters. The starting points include the following premises: A rabbi named Ravina was a student of the prominent teacher Rava (d. 352). A Ravina predeceased Rav Ashi by five years (i.e., 422). At the late end of our period is the Sabora Ravina who died in 507. Working within this basic framework, scholars attempted to fashion chronologies that would account for the relevant talmudic passages in the most economic manner, i.e., by applying Ockham's Razor so as not to posit a greater number of Ravinas than are necessary to explain the facts. The conventional wisdom had it that it was Rava's disciple Ravina who predeceased Rav Ashi, and the major question under dispute was how many Ravinas it would take to most plausibly fill in the seventy-five years between Rav Ashi's death and the close of the amoraic age. In reopening the investigation, Cohen discovers that there is virtually no element in the conventional discussions that does not require major rethinking . For...

Eliezer Bashan, The Anglican Mission and Moroccan Jewry in the Nineteenth Century. Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1999. 204 pp. (Hebrew).

Eliezer Bashan, The Anglican Mission and Moroccan Jewry in the Nineteenth Century. Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1999. 204 pp. (Hebrew).

Aaron Skaist, The Old Babylonian Loan Contract. Its History and Geography , Bar-Ilan Studies in Near Eastern Languages and Culture, Bar-Ilan University Press, 1994

Aaron Skaist, The Old Babylonian Loan Contract. Its History and Geography , Bar-Ilan Studies in Near Eastern Languages and Culture, Bar-Ilan University Press, 1994

Dov Schwartz. Messianism in Medieval Jewish Thought. Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1997. 292 pp. (Hebrew)

Dov Schwartz. Messianism in Medieval Jewish Thought. Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1997. 292 pp. (Hebrew)

Yossi Katz, The “Business” of Settlement: Private Entrepreneurship in the Jewish Settlement of Palestine, 1900–1914 (Jerusalem and Ramat-Gan: Magnes and Bar-Ilan University Press, 1994). Pp. 367.

Yossi Katz, The “Business” of Settlement: Private Entrepreneurship in the Jewish Settlement of Palestine, 1900–1914 (Jerusalem and Ramat-Gan: Magnes and Bar-Ilan University Press, 1994). Pp. 367. - Volume 28 Issue 2

Menachem Cohen (ed.): Mikra'ot Gedolot ‘Haketer’: a revised and augmented scientific edition based on the Aleppo Codex and early medieval Mss. Joshua-Judges [in Hebrew]. Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University press, 1992.

Menachem Cohen (ed.): Mikra'ot Gedolot ‘Haketer’: a revised and augmented scientific edition based on the Aleppo Codex and early medieval Mss. Joshua-Judges [in Hebrew]. Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University press, 1992. - Volume 58 Issue 1

מחקרים בספרות עם ישראל ובתרבות תימן[Studies in Hebrew Literature and Yemenite Culture.] Jubilee Volume presented to Professor Yehuda Ratzaby (review)

Reviewed by: מחקרים בספרות עם ישראל ובתרבות תימן[Studies in Hebrew Literature and Yemenite Culture.] Jubilee Volume presented to Professor Yehuda Ratzaby Reuben Ahroni מחקרים בספרות עם ישראל ובתבות תימן [Studies in Hebrew Literature and Yemenite Culture.] Jubilee Volume presented to Professor Yehuda Ratzaby. Judith Dishon and Ephraim Hazan, eds. Pp. 480. Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1991. Cloth. Reuben Ahroni Ohio State University Columbus, OH 43210 Copyright © 1994 National Association of Professors of Hebrew

A dictionary of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic of the Byzantine period. By Michael Sokoloff. (Dictionaries of Talmud, Midrash and Targum II) pp. 823. Ramat Gan, Israel, Bar Ilan University Press, 1990.

A dictionary of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic of the Byzantine period. By Michael Sokoloff. (Dictionaries of Talmud, Midrash and Targum II) pp. 823. Ramat Gan, Israel, Bar Ilan University Press, 1990. - Volume 2 Issue 2

Menahem Zevi Kaddari and Shim'on Sharvit (ed.): Studies in the Hebrew language and the Talmudic literature. Dedicated to the Memory of Dr. Menahem Moreshet. [Hebrew]. Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1989.

Menahem Zevi Kaddari and Shim'on Sharvit (ed.): Studies in the Hebrew language and the Talmudic literature. Dedicated to the Memory of Dr. Menahem Moreshet. [Hebrew]. Ramat-Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1989. - Volume 53 Issue 3

SHORT NOTICES

SHORT NOTICES Get access Secundum Salomonem. A Thirteenth Century Latin Commentary on the Song of Songs. Edited with an Introduction by SARAH KAMIN AND AVROM SALTMAN. Pp. 200. 4 facsimilies. Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1989. N.p. JAMES BARR JAMES BARR Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Journal of Theological Studies, Volume 41, Issue 2, 1990, Pages 817-a–817, https://doi.org/10.1093/jts/41.2.817-a Published: 01 October 1990

REVIEWS

Journal Article REVIEWS Get access SHELDON R. BRUNSWICK (ed. ), Studies in Judaica, Karaitica and Islam Presented to Leon Nemoy on His Eightieth Birthday Bar-Ilan University Press 1982. Pp. 285 + 36 Hebrew + 1 portrait. No price indicated. HASKELL D. ISAACS HASKELL D. ISAACS UNIVERSITY LIBRARYCAMBRIDGE Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of Semitic Studies, Volume XXXI, Issue 2, AUTUMN 1986, Pages 290–292, https://doi.org/10.1093/jss/XXXI.2.290 Published: 01 October 1986

American Apathy: The Plight of Christian Refugees from Nazism. By Haim Genizi. Israel: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1983. 411 pp.

American Apathy: The Plight of Christian Refugees from Nazism. By Haim Genizi. Israel: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1983. 411 pp.