Hebrew Characters Research Articles

On Three Extant Sources of the Qur'an Transcribed in Hebrew

AbstractThis paper focuses on three extant sources of transcriptions of the Qur'an into Hebrew characters: manuscript Arab N. 5 found in the library of the Morgenländische Gesellschaft, the fragments of the Qur'an from the Cairo Genizah kept in the Cambridge University Library, and manuscript Vat. Ebr. 357 from the Vatican Library in Rome. The article focuses in particular on the Halle manuscript, a transcription of which is given in the appendix. The transcriptions of the Qur'an examined here show how each one was produced in a different milieu and served specific purposes. The fragments from the Cairo Genizah and the Halle manuscript served similar polemical purposes and were written in countries under Muslim rule, where knowledge of Arabic was important for the relations with the authorities and, certainly in Egypt, was a part of everyday life. By contrast, the Vatican manuscript places itself in a very different context, that of the cultural milieu of Jewish and Christian philosophers and scholars in the period of the Italian Renaissance.

Creating a National Bibliographic Past: The Institute for Hebrew Bibliography

The mission of the Institute for Hebrew Bibliography (IHB), located at the Jewish and National University Library (JNUL) in Jerusalem from the early 1960s to the present, is to describe all of the books printed in Hebrew characters since the invention of printing to 1960. The ambitious scope of the project was set only after discussions between historians and catalogers. The IHB created two card catalogs, one for bibliographic descriptions, and a second for biographies of Hebrew authors. The release, in 1994, of The Bibliography of the Hebrew Book CD-ROM, followed in 2002 by an Internet-accessible database (updated in 2004), are benchmarks that allow the public to assess the work of the IHB. Technological advances can be used to deliver a clean and easily searchable database only when basic concepts of cataloging/database retrieval have been fully addressed.

From the "Jerusalem of the Balkans" to the Goldene Medina : Jewish Immigration from Salonika to the United States

From the "Jerusalem of the Balkans" to the Goldene Medina:Jewish Immigration from Salonika to the United States* Devin E. Naar (bio) Who are these strangers who can be seen in the ghetto of the East Side, sitting outside of coffee-houses smoking strange-looking waterpipes, sipping a dark liquid from tiny cups and playing a game of checkers and dice, a game that we are not familiar with? See the signs on these institutions. They read: "Café Constantinople," "Café Oriental," Café Smyrna," and there are other signs in Hebrew characters that you perhaps cannot read. Are they Jews? No it cannot be; they do not look like Jews; they do not speak Yiddish. Listen; what is that strange tongue they are using? It sounds like Spanish or Mexican. Are they Spaniards or Mexicans? If so, where did they get the coffee-houses, an importation from Greece and Turkey? -Samuel M. Auerbach, "The Levantine Jew" (1916)1 Writing in The Immigrants in America Review, Auerbach offered an image of "Levantine Jews" as "strangers" within the context of a predominantly Yiddish-speaking, eastern European Jewish culture on the Lower East Side of Manhattan during the first decades of the twentieth century. Auerbach, like his contemporaries writing in English or Yiddish, provided a perspective that he felt would resonate with his readership.2 Subsequent accounts of American Jewry have echoed descriptions [End Page 435] such as Auerbach's insofar as they have treated Jews from the eastern Mediterranean-described alternatively as "Levantine," "Oriental" or "Sephardi"-as marginal figures in their narratives. Others have omitted completely from their accounts the experiences of these Jews, who stray far from the mold of "normative" American Jewry. In addition to differences in language, culture, geographic origin, and religious traditions (minhagim), the relatively small demographic weight of Jews from the eastern Mediterranean also has contributed to their marginalization in American Jewish historiography. Perhaps as many as sixty thousand Jews from the eastern Mediterranean arrived in the United States between 1880 and 1924, whereas over two million largely Yiddish-speaking Jews from eastern Europe arrived during the same period.3 As a result, Jews from eastern Europe often have stood symbolically for American Jewry of the early twentieth century.4 Recent works, such as those issued in conjunction with the 350th anniversary of Jews in America, pay scant attention to Jews from the eastern Mediterranean. They do begin their narratives of American Jewish history with the tale of the twenty-three refugees who fled from the Inquisition in Recife, Brazil, and settled in New Amsterdam in 1654.5 These "Old Sephardim," however, constituted a group distinct from those Jews who arrived from the eastern Mediterranean during the early twentieth century, and whom scholars have labeled the "New Sephardim." Some members of Shearith Israel, the Spanish and Portuguese synagogue of the "Old Sephardim" in New York, initially argued in the 1910s that [End Page 436] the newcomers should not be categorized as "Sephardim" at all. Rather, they advocated labels such as "Levantine" or "Oriental," both terms with derogatory connotations, so as not to muddy their own reputation as the "noble," well-established "Sephardim," the true heirs to the legacy of the Spanish golden age.6 Contributors to the Ladino and Anglo-Jewish press in America debated and polemicized over the terms "Levantine," "Oriental," and "Sephardi," some distinguishing among the Jews from the eastern Mediterranean according to linguistic community-Ladino, Greek, and Arabic-and viewing only Ladino-speakers, the perceived descendants of medieval Iberian Jewry, as "Sephardim" in a strict sense.7 The only terms of identification not contested during the early twentieth century were those based on city or town of origin that the newcomers gave themselves and utilized internally. A few scholars have succeeded in giving voice to the Jews from the eastern Mediterranean who lived in early twentieth-century America. They have filled important lacunae by focusing on the efforts of these [End Page 437] immigrants at communal organization, their interactions with the "Old Sephardim" and "Ashkenazim," and their creation of a Ladino press in New York.8 Such scholars point out city-based identity but often represent it as a source of conflict and an obstacle...

Lexical and Exegetical Similarities and Differences in North African Judaeo-Arabic Suruh on Genesis

At the end of the nineteenth century, Rabbi Mordekhay Hay Diyyan of Tunis translated the Bible into Arabic in Hebrew characters. In 1937 he published only the translation of Genesis. In his introduction, the author notes the urgent need for this type of translation, as the language customarily used over the centuries for translation of the Bible in Tunisia changed and is no longer understood by most. This article examines typical features in the fields of lexicography and exegesis with reference to medieval Judaeo-Arabic and modern dialects. Words and phrases from Diyyan's translation are compared to their equivalents in other sūruh - Judaeo-Arabic translations of the Bible in North Africa - between the fourteenth and the twentieth centuries (several of them evidently current in the Maghreb prior to the expulsion from Spain). This is an attempt to investigate old sources and traditions, linguistic lines and directions of development in the translations discussed.

The Yahwist: The Earliest Editor in the Pentateuch

(ProQuest-CSA LLC: ... denotes Hebrew characters omitted) (ProQuest-CSA LLC: ... denotes Greek characters omitted (or Cyrillic characters omitted.)) I Recent Pentateuch research has again come to center on the long-familiar fact that the Pentateuch narrative rests on a sequence of individual narrative compositions. In the non-Priestly text, six separate narrative groups can be distinguished: (1) the primeval history (Genesis 2-11), which has to do with the origin of the world and humankind; (2) the history of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Genesis 12-36); (3) the story of Joseph and his brothers (Genesis 37-50); (4) the narrative about Moses (Exodus 2-4); (5) the history of the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and their wanderings through the desert (Exodus 12 through Numbers 20), to which the death of Moses may also have belonged (Deuteronomy 34*); and (6) the story about the seer Balaam (Numbers 22-24). The diversity of the material indicates that it was only at a later stage that these groups were linked to form the continuous narrative we have today. At present the view is gaining ground that the compositions were joined together not in a single literary step but in several stages, and that this fusion took place at a late period. One reason is that, according to ancient Israelite tradition, the history of God's people began with the exodus from Egypt. Consequently it is assumed that the great OT history also originally began with the book of Exodus. According to this view, the stories of the patriarchs and the primeval history were put in front of the account of the exodus only later.1 The Documentary Hypothesis, which assumes that there are sources that run right through the Pentateuch, is incompatible with a solution of this kind. Not a few of today's scholars consider that this hypothesis is now superseded.2 Instead, Deuteronomistic3 or late wisdom writers4 are made responsible for fusing the different blocks of tradition. This view can claim support inasmuch as explicit cross-references in the Pentateuch have clearly been introduced subsequently, and at a late date;5 one example is the explicit references to the tradition of the patriarchs in the books of Exodus to Deuteronomy.6 Another solution sees the Priestly source as providing the historiographical scaffolding into which the non-Priestly narratives have been inserted at a later point, not having formed a separate source of its own before that.7 This revival of the supplementary hypothesis once more attributes to the source P the position of the basic document that nineteenth-century research rightly denied to it. Until a short time ago, however, the Documentary Hypothesis was also called into question because of the Priestly source, since the literary coherence in the patriarchal narratives is so weak as to suggest that there was no independent written source here, but that the P material represents a reworking of the older text.8 The Priestly source alone is not suited to serve as the basis for the narrative of the whole Pentateuch, even if there are still good reasons for the assumption of an originally independent literary thread. The composition of the Pentateuch hangs not on a single thread but on a cord plaited together from two strands, the Priestly source and the Yahwists history. This cord makes it possible for the work as a whole to avoid falling apart when one of the two threads is torn or missing, which is the case several times. It is certainly true that the material in the books of Genesis to Numbers that does not derive from the Priestly source provides us with a more or less coherent narrative. Even if this coherence cannot have existed when the transmission began because of the disparity of the material, it will not have been produced merely through the late cross-references. There are good reasons why earlier scholars read the non-Priestly Pentateuch as a literary unity. …

Did David Overinterpret Nathan's Parable in 2 Samuel 12:1-6?

(ProQuest-CSA LLC: ... denotes Hebrew characters omitted) A general consensus among scholars holds that David misunderstands Nathans parable in 2 Sam 12:lb-4. Most scholars assume that this misunderstanding results from David's treatment of it as an actual legal case rather than as a parable.1 This article argues that David does in fact recognize Nathan's story as a parable but that he does not interpret it as Nathan intends. Rather, David overinterprets the parable and then tries to condemn Joab for the murder of Uriah in vv. 5-6. First, I will provide evidence to refute the position that David does not recognize the story as a parable. Second, I will examine how David may understand the story if he hears it as a parable. Third, I will illustrate how David attempts to condemn Joab for Uriah's murder in w. 5-6 based on his overinterpretation of the parable. I. DID DAVID HEAR A PARABLE OR A LEGAL CASE? The notion that David interprets Nathan's story as an actual legal case has enjoyed popularity since Uriel Simon suggested that Nathan's story belongs to the genre of parables.2 According to Simon, a juridical parable contains a realistic story about a legal violation that is told to someone who has committed a similar offense in hopes that the person will unsuspectingly pass judgment on himself or herself. The offender will be caught in the trap only if he or she does not detect prematurely that the parable condemns him or her. Thus, the speaker disguises the parable as a legal case and creates some discrepancy between the parable and the offender s situation in order to trap the offender.3 Although some scholars question whether Simon has identified an actual genre of parables,4 his notion that the juridical setting of Nathans story conceals its parabolic quality remains influential.5 Yet, as Hugh Pyper observes, only the surrounding narrative provides the juridical setting for the parable. If one brackets David's reaction to the parable in w. 5-6, nothing in the parable itself (w. lb-4) suggests that it is a legal case.6 The parable does not have any of the typical features of a legal proceeding, such as specific details, witnesses, or testimony (cf. 1 Kgs 3:16-30)7 In addition, important differences exist between Nathan's story and the two most convincing parallels that Simon cites. In the case of the wise woman of Tekoa (2 Sam 14:124) and the unnamed prophet disguised as a wounded soldier (1 Kgs 20:35-43), the one who relates the veiled parable comes to the king disguised as an injured party seeking mercy from the king.8 The wise woman of Tekoa, disguised as a bereaved mother, presents her case as a dispute among her family members.9 Disguised as a wounded solider, the prophet presents his case as an incident that happened to him in war. Yet, in 2 Sam 12:1b-4, Nathan, who is not disguised, tells a story about two men who have no apparent relation to him. Since no other biblical prophet presents another person's legal case to a king, one has little reason to believe that Nathan provides an exception. In other words, compared to other examples of a parable disguised as a legal case, Nathan does a very job of disguising his parable. Nathan may intend to present not a disguised parable but rather a typical prophetic parable with the aim of confronting David directly. The poetic style and vocabulary in vv. 1b-4 link the story more closely with proverbs and parables than with legal petitions. For instance, outside of Nathans story, the book of Proverbs contains the only other occurrences of the words rich (...) and poor (...) in the same biblical verse (cf. Prov 10:4; 13:7, 8; 14:20; 18:23; 22:2; 28:6). As many scholars note, the literary character of Nathan's story breaks from the surrounding narrative. While arguing that David takes the story as a historical event and not a parable, J. P. Fokkelman still draws the reader's attention to its unified rhythm and cluster of phonetic devices such as rhyme and consonantal alliteration. …

German in Hebrew Characters

German in Hebrew Characters

German in Hebrew Characters

German in Hebrew Characters

Stability and instability among Jewish languages and alphabets

Jewish languages, except for Hebrew, are varieties of other languages but have independent standard versions and independent dialect systems. They are typically written in the Hebrew alphabet. I would like to suggest that when the official language of a country is the same as the coterritorial spoken language, Jewish language shift takes place.There was a shift from Aramaic to Greek or Judeo-Greek in the eastern Mediterranean in the early days of the Roman Empire, followed by a switch to Latin in the western half of the Roman Empire. Jews speaking Judeo-French lost their language after Jews were expelled from France in 1394.Ashkenazic Jews did not lose their language when they left German-speaking areas but continued to speak Yiddish in the kingdom of Poland-Lithuania. Similarly, Sephardic Jews continued to use Ladino in the Ottoman Empire, but when Turkish switched to the Latin alphabet, Ladino did as well. After 500 years of being written in Hebrew (Aramaic) characters, Ladino today is written in the Latin alphabet, even in Israel.Such a shift also occurred after the destruction of the First Temple, when Jews switched from Hebrew to Aramaic. Alphabet switch took place as well. What we now call the Hebrew alphabet is actually the Aramaic alphabet. The original Hebrew alphabet is used today only by the Samaritans, who at this time in history are not considered Jewish

The Rendering of Qur'anic Quotations in Hebrew Translations of Islamic Texts

Beginning in thelate twelfth century, a Jewish intellectual revolution took place in Christian Iberia and in Provence that centered on the translation of Arabic and Judeo-Arabic texts into Hebrew. In the Arabic-speaking world, Jews had been avid readers of Arabic literature and Islamic disciplines and composed works on philosophy, science, grammar, and biblical exegesis in Arabic, usually in Hebrew characters. Outside of the Arabic-speaking environment, Jews made Hebrew translations of texts by Jewish and Muslim authors from philosophical, theological, scientific, ethical, lexicographic, and literary genres.1 Studies by numerous scholars have focused on the development of a Hebrew philosophical and scientific vocabulary by translators such as Judah, Samuel, and Moses Ibn Tibbon, Judah al-Harizi, and Shem Tov Ibn Falaquera, and the merits, from the perspective of accuracy, of the various methods used by these translators.2 Others have noted renderings by Judah al-Harizi [End Page 336] and Jacob Ben El'azar of Arabic belletristic texts in the clear diction of biblical Hebrew and argued that Jews composed these translations in order to establish Hebrew's versatility, eloquence, and superiority over Arabic.3 The complex dynamics of translation have been a central subject of inquiry for literary theorists for over a century.4 These dynamics often involve cultural as well as literary issues and can vary depending on the relationship translators maintain with the cultural group from which the parent text originates. Medieval translations from Arabic into Hebrew provide an interesting case study in that the act of translation posed complex issues on literary and ideological grounds. On a literary level, Hebrew did not possess the vocabulary for capturing Islamic technical terms or Arabic philosophical and scientific concepts; new terminology had to be invented even when rendering an Arabic text by a Jewish author for a non-Arabic-speaking Jewish audience. Belletristic texts also contained culturally specific allusions that were difficult to recreate in a Hebrew version. On an ideological level, translation brought to the fore tensions inherent in the relationship between Judaism and Islam, especially when it came to the revelatory status of the Bible and the Qur'an. The rewriting of classic texts by Muslim authors in Hebrew garb was an enterprise riddled with ambivalences. Because Jews saw their Muslim predecessors simultaneously as intellectual and literary guides and also as religious competitors, Hebrew translations exhibit great tension when rendering statements suggestive of Islamic particularism. When translators [End Page 337] encountered references from Islamic holy books, they had to make choices between translating texts literally and distorting them for the sake of de-Islamicization (and its complement, Judaization). This article focuses on the rendering of quotations from the Qur'an (and to a lesser extent the h adīth) in Hebrew translations of Arabic texts by Muslim authors within the context of the polemical atmosphere of Christian Iberia and Provence. Numerous methods of rendering qur'anic verses—from simple omission, to literal and paraphrastic translation, to the substitution of biblical verses—are observed in ethical, philosophical, and belletristic texts. Translators of belletristic works often replace qur'anic quotations with biblical allusions in order to Judaize texts and to showcase Hebrew's eloquence and capacity. However, qur'anic quotations are also left intact for specific literary effects (such as irony) and for less apparent reasons. In translating philosophical and ethical literatures, in which qur'anic verses are introduced as prooftexts for arguments, translators make efforts to de-Islamicize texts lest the Qur'an appear as a valid source of truth. Even still, qur'anic verses are often preserved in Hebrew garb, though usually with an omission of attribution. Translators sometimes explain their translation choices (especially verse substitution) in polemical terms and even devalue the status of the Qur'an and the prophecy of Muhammad explicitly. However, translations are generally inconsistent in that Islamic materials are downplayed but not completely discarded. Polemical Contexts Jewish polemical writings against Islam during the...

Medical Israiliyyat ? Ancient Islamic Medical Traditions Transcribed into the Hebrew Alphabet

Medical Isrā⊃īliyyāt?Ancient Islamic Medical Traditions Transcribed into the Hebrew Alphabet* Y. Tzvi Langermann (bio) MS Vatican, Ebr. 397, ff. 126r-131v, contains medical texts in Arabic, written in Hebrew characters. The texts preserved in these fragments are closely related to a compilation of very early Islamic medical traditions preserved uniquely (or so it appears at the present state of our knowledge) in a manuscript kept in Rabat, Morocco, which carries the title Mukhtaṣar fī 'l-ṭibb (Epitome of Medicine) and is ascribed to an Andalusian, ⊂Abd al-Malik ibn Ḥabīb (d. 853).1 However, the Vatican text is not a transcription of the Mukhtaṣar. It is, as we shall see, either a transcription made from ⊂Abd al-Malik's complete book, of which the epitome alone survives, or, as I tend to think, of a different, though closely related compilation, which very likely served as one of ⊂Abd al-Malik's [End Page 373] sources.2 Thus in the Vatican manuscript we have a transcription of some of the earliest Arabic medical lore. The texts are rare; in some cases the transcribed version is the only copy identified so far. Though this is reason enough to publish a description of these materials (and, eventually, the texts in their entirety), there are additional reasons for doing so. Several of the passages are ascribed to well-known transmitters of Israā⊃īliyyāt, ancient Islamic traditions that are said to derive from Jewish sources. As far as I know, no one has called attention to medical Isrā⊃īliyyāt. Moreover, the science (including those passages that are not Isrā⊃īliyyāf) is clearly Hellenistic and some of the doctrines are unusual and noteworthy. We may mention the division of the body into four quarters, each with a pair of organs, one hot and one cold; and a theory of four basic constituents—earth, water, soul, and spirit—that match the four humors. (Fuller discussions of these and other theories will be presented below.) Finally, we have found closely related texts, ascribed in part to transmitters of Isrā⊃īliyyāt, in the Risāla of Masīḥ bin Ḥakam. In a note published in an earlier volume of Aleph, I argued that MasīḤ was a member of the Isawiyya, a Jewish-Christian sect, and noted the transmission of his writings to al-Andalus.3 Thus there is some frail link between portions of these fragments and ancient Jewish lore, which may have been preserved by sectarians. We must hasten to add that these connections would not necessarily have been known to the copyist of the Vatican manuscript. This note will comprise two sections, an introduction and a conspectus. In the introduction we present the Vatican manuscript and sketch out the salient historical contexts. Then we present a detailed conspectus of the transcribed texts, juxtaposing them at times with closely related texts and noting specific issues related to each section. [End Page 374] Introduction The texts in MS Vatican 397 were copied in a cursive script by David b. Solomon ibn ⊃Aqosh in Murcia in 1384. They are collected under two titles. The first, the longer and historically more interesting, begins al-Kalām fī khilqat 'l-insān wa-tarkībihi ("Discourse upon the creation [or: constitution] of man and his composition"). As we shall see, there exists a substantial, variegated, and largely unstudied batch of texts, most of them early, carrying variations of the title khalq (or khilqat) 'l-insān. Khilqah bears the double meaning of "creation" and "constitution"; khalq and khulq (which look alike in an unvocalized Arabic text) carry the first and second of these meanings, respectively. However, judging from the contents of the texts that go under these titles, and especially the texts that we propose to examine here, it seems that both meanings are intended: man's basic physical, psychic, emotional, and moral characteristics are described in part by means of narratives of the creation of Adam. Our text differs significantly from all the other specimens that I have been able to examine, save one: the corresponding chapter in Masīḥ's book. On f. 130r there begins a new topic, bāb f...

Partial amino acid sequence and physiological effects of a 27 kDa parasitism-specific protein present in the plasma of parasitized Lacanobia oleracea (Noctuidae)

Abstract. Parasitization of larvae of the tomato moth, Lacanonbia oleracea, by the ectoparasitic wasp, Eulophus pennicornis, results in the appearance of a 27 kDa parasitism-specific protein (PSP) in the plasma of the host. After isolation of this protein by native discontinuous polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, whole gel elution and electroblotting, the N-terminal sequence of the 27 kDa PSP is determined by Edman degradation. The 20 amino acid residues obtained reveal 70% identity with a female-specific fat body protein from the moths Antheraea pernyi and Antheraea yamamai, 60% identity with a glutathione S-transferase (GST) isolated from Orthosia gothica, and a low level of identity with the N-termini of proteins belonging to the GST superfamily. Injection of the 27 kDa PSP into L. oleracea larvae has no significant effect on their ability to gain weight or the time at which they pupate. Furthermore, assays performed in vitro demonstrate that the 27 kDa PSP does not affect the ability of L. oleracea haemocytes to form aggregates. The precise source of the 27 kDa PSP remains unclear, although the current results suggest that it is most likely synthesized by host larvae in response to parasitism. The possible role(s) of the 27 kDa PSP are discussed with regard to the physiological effects of parasitism on the host.

Colors of Eclipses in Medieval Hebrew Astronomical Tables

Medieval interest in physical astronomy has been relatively neglected compared to positional astronomy. In this paper tables for colors of solar and lunar eclipses in Hebrew manuscripts are examined, and it is argued that they all depend on a tradition which came to the Islamic world from India. Some of these tables are in Arabic written in Hebrew characters. This tradition continued in the Latin West and is represented in the editio princeps of the Alfonsine Tables, published in 1483.

Colors of Eclipses in Medieval Hebrew Astronomical Tables

Medieval interest in physical astronomy has been relatively neglected compared to positional astronomy. In this paper tables for colors of solar and lunar eclipses in Hebrew manuscripts are examined, and it is argued that they all depend on a tradition which came to the Islamic world from India. Some of these tables are in Arabic written in Hebrew characters. This tradition continued in the Latin West and is represented in the editio princeps of the Alfonsine Tables, published in 1483.

A Catalog of Biblical Passages in the Dead Sea Scrolls (review)

Hebrew Studies 46 (2005) 442 Reviews Part 2. Calendar, Cultic Festivals, and Other Concepts of Thought. Matthias Albani, “Zur Rekonstruktion eines verdrängten Konzepts: Der 364Tage -Kalendar in der gegenwärtigen Forschung,” Uwe Glessmer, “Explizite Aussagen über kalendarische Konflikte im Jubiläenbuch: Jub 6,22–32.33–38,” Werner Eiss, “Das Wochenfest im Jubiläenbuch und in antiken Judentum,” Lutz Doering, “The Concept of the Sabbath in the Book of Jubilees,” Beate Ego, “Heilige Zeit—heiliger Raum—heiliger Mensch. Beobachtungen zur Struktur des Gesetzebegründung in der Schöpfungs- und Paradiesgeschchte des Jubiläenbuchs,” Christfried Böttrich, “Gottesprädikatione im Jubiläenbuch,” Flortentino García Martínez, “The Heavenly Tablets in the Book of Jubilees,” Jörg Frey, “Zum Weltbild im Jubiläenbuch.” Part 3. Reception. James M. Scott, “The Division of the Earth in Jubilees 8:11–9:15 and Early Christian Chronography.” The volume also contains numerous useful indices. David B. Kudan Harvard University Cambridge, MA rabbidavidkudan@kudan.net A CATALOG OF BIBLICAL PASSAGES IN THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS. By David L. Washburn. SBL Text-Critical Studies. Pp. ix + 161. Atlanta, Ga.: Society of Biblical Literature, 2002. Paper, $29.95. This volume catalogs biblical passages from the Dead Sea Scrolls discovered at Nahal Hever, Wadi Murabbafiat, Khirbet Qumran, and other sites in the Judean Desert. The catalog’s coverage claims to be “comprehensive ,” embracing all texts published at press time (2002), with the exception of apocryphal and deuterocanonical compositions. The author also excludes purported references to New Testament passages owing to their nonacceptance by most scroll scholars. The catalog includes texts published in the Discoveries in the Judaean Desert (DJD) series 1–35, as well as texts published elsewhere (see below). Unfortunately, the 4QSama,b,c volume (DJD 17) was not available to Washburn when his catalog went to press, a fact noted by the author (p. 1). The opening statement of the book summarizes the author’s aims: “The material contained in this volume is intended to be a comprehensive listing of biblical passages contained in all the Dead Sea Scrolls that have been published to date. This list is accompanied by an identification of the scroll containing the passage, publication information on the scroll in question (with references to plates where possible), and a brief description and/or textual Hebrew Studies 46 (2005) 443 Reviews analysis” (p. 1). Washburn’s intended audience includes scholars, teachers, commentators, and students (p. 4). Washburn presents the following front matter: a preface (p. ix), an introduction (pp. 1–4), a directory of terms used in the catalog (pp. 5–6), and a list of abbreviations (pp. 7–9). The actual catalog of biblical passages makes up the majority of the volume (pp. 11–156) with a selected bibliography terminating it (pp. 157–161). The catalog itself comprises four columns, designated Reference, Scroll, Location, and Comments. The Reference column presents the biblical book’s name, chapter, and verse, for example, Gen 1:1–11; Gen 1:1–25; Gen 1:8–10; Gen 1:9; Gen 1:13–22; Gen 1:14–16 and so on through to references in Malachi. This column also indicates passages that are incomplete and contain only a few characters. For example, the reference to Exod 32:2–9 reads “Exod 32:2–9 (3 letters v 5),” indicating that only three Hebrew characters belonging to verse five remain on the scroll fragment. The scriptural books and references are ordered after the Protestant canon rather than the Hebrew Bible. The second column (Scroll) features the names of the scrolls together with the Qumran cave and manuscript number, for example, 4QGeng (4Q7), 4QGenb (4Q2), 4QGenhl (4Q8), 4QGenk (4Q10) and so on through to the final entry in the catalog, which is 4QCommentary on Malachi (4Q253a). On occasion the author omits naming the composition and presents only the Qumran cave and manuscript number. See, for example, the first entry in column 2 on page 12 (4Q483) and four entries in the same column on page 13 (8Q1 [twice], 2Q1, 4Q365). In this column Washburn cites both biblical (i.e., 2QExodb , 4QExodb , 4QExodc , 4QpaleoExodm , MurExod) and nonbiblical (i.e., 1QApGen, 2Q19, 4Q216, 4Q252, 4Q254) compositions that present biblical passages...

A Challenging Grittiness: Spirituality in Jewish Women's Art

There are many parallels between spiritual work and creative process. Hailing from a wide spectrum of artistic backgrounds and religious practice, each artist discussed here addresses spiritual themes that assume the existence of a divine presence accessible to human consciousness. For each, struggle with faith and desire for revelation intersect or collide with the challenges and enlightenment of creative work. Be cautioned: The challenging grittiness of many of these images is far from the soothing, faux-greeting-card holiness that one might expect of "religious art." The spiritual component inherent in certain types of creative enterprise is often generated by (or embedded in) the tension between the restraint of religious law and the freedom of creative expression. This is particularly evident in the work of Nechama Golan, an Israeli artist who was raised in a secular home and educated in theater, dance, and visual art. In the 1980s, she became religiously observant and moved with her husband and two daughters to the haredi (ultra-Orthodox) community of Bnei Brak. Like numerous feminist performance artists (Carolee Schneemann and Ana Mendieta come immediately to mind), Golan incorporates her own body into her installations and documents them photographically. Thus, she acts out her dialogue directly with Jewish texts. The resulting untitled images (the titles affixed here are my own) betray profound ambivalence and offer a sly suggestion of elegantly crafted violence.1 "Breathing" is a troubling image of the artist's face breathing (as in suffocating) in a text from Maimonides' Mishneh Torah: Sefer Nashim—"Hilkhot Ishut" (a codification of the laws governing sexual relations between spouses). Her face is pressed against the transparent page, once from the inside, showing the text reversed, and again with her face behind the readable text. [End Page 170] Click for larger view Figure 1 Nechama Golan, "Glass Letters" In "Red Thread," Golan wears a starched white dress and white stockings. This detail of the full-figure photograph reveals a frail red thread "leaking" from under the hem of her skirt. As if simulating the common but disturbing dream of a menstrual accident, the image, seen from both front and back, references a protective red bendle ("ribbon" in Yiddish)2 while also suggesting the more obvious association of shameful blood. Although her work appears to criticize the status of women in the Orthodox society in which she lives, Golan says she intends it to express the self that has chosen to be a part of "that world, that order." [End Page 171] Click for larger view Figure 2 Nechama Golan, Untitled photograph In "Glass Letters," transparent globes hang from a thread and cast a shadow. The black Hebrew characters suspended in the clear resin seem to embody the artist's fascination with and deep reverence for the letter of the Law. [End Page 172] Perhaps the most widely reproduced of Golan's works is an image of a high-heeled shoe, onto which she has glued the opening words of Mishnah Kiddushin 1:1—"The woman is acquired . . ."—along with a verse from "Eshet Hayil," the final chapter of the Book of Proverbs, sung as a paean to the "virtuous woman" in traditional Jewish homes on the eve of the Sabbath. Golan says, My work deals with the plight of women—not necessarily religious women. In the West, shoes for women are designed by men, who view women as sex objects. These shoes are terribly uncomfortable, but women just sit there and accept their fate. The text I've stuck on is a page from the Talmud on laws of conjugality—written by men, of course. The tension existing in the gap between the sacred texts and a low-level image, "the touch of a dirty foot," creates more than a single interpretation. A text from halakhah3 embodied in footwear is saying: Halakhah should be comfortable to walk in. Walking and... collapse You are not currently authenticated. If you would like to authenticate using a different subscribed institution or have your own login and password to Project MUSE Authenticate

Reading habits, perceptual learning, and recognition of printed words

The present work aims at demonstrating that visual training associated with the act of reading modifies the way we perceive printed words. As reading does not train all parts of the retina in the same way but favors regions on the side in the direction of scanning, visual word recognition should be better at retinal locations that are frequently used during reading. In two studies that probed word and letter discriminations we provided evidence for a correlation between eye fixation pattern during reading and performance. We showed that effects of reading-related visual training were stimulus-specific in the sense that it affected the perception of words but not that of visually unfamiliar non-words. This stimulus specificity was also evident in the legibility of individual characters of the Roman and the Hebrew scripts—two scripts that are read in opposing directions. When displayed within a sequence of homogenous letters (e.g., xxexx) the legibility of a target character varied with the location of the sequence in the visual field and with the serial position of the target within the sequence. This retinal location- and context-dependency differed between Roman and Hebrew characters. These results seem to indicate that reading modifies the functional structure of early stages in the visual pathway. The cortical network that supports reading seems to comprise components of the visual cortex of both hemispheres before it lateralizes to the left hemisphere. Expanding the reading network to include these visual regions will shed a different light on the potential role of the visual word form area (e.g., Cohen et al., 2000) in word recognition and on the organization of the reading system in general.

אל-מסדה: פנקס בית הדין של קהילת יהודי צנעא במאה ה-18 [ Al-Misawwadeh: Bēth-Dīn (Court) Records of the Sanʿānī Jewish Community in the Eighteenth Century ] (review)

The Jewish Quarterly Review, XCIII, Nos. 3-4 (January-April, 2003) 593-596 Yehuda Nini, ed. 18-n tìhoi hvm >t??> rt»np pv ?t? n>3 s?3? :mit>n-i>N [Al-Misawwadeh: Bëth-Dîn (Court) Records ofthe San'âni Jewish Community in the Eighteenth Century], vol. 1. Translated into Hebrew by Nissim B. Gamlieli. Tel Aviv: The Diaspora Research Institute, Tel Aviv University, 2001. Pp. 89 + 469 + 2 (English abstract). The Arabic term musawwadah denotes "a draft," "notes," or "a daybook ." The volume under review, titled Al-Misawwadeh, reflects the pronunciation of the San(ânï Arabic dialect. This volume contains 1,372 of the misawwadeh documents, constituting records of judgments passed by the Beth Din ("rabbinical court") of the Jewish Community of Sancä', dating from the early 18th century to the 1860s. They are written in the JudeoArabic dialect that was prevalent among the Jews of Sancä\ Judeo-Arabic, as is well known, is written in the Arabic language using Hebrew characters , a fact which is also true of the misawwadeh texts. The documents are characterized by brevity, registering only the final judgment rendered by the court without any reference to the halakhic basis for these rulings. Despite their economy of expression, they are remarkably lucid. The records contained in this volume are provided both in the original Judeo-Arabic and in Hebrew translation. The arduous task of the translation was undertaken by Nissim B. Gamlieli, a Yemeni scholar well known for his expertise in Yemeni Arabic in general, and Yemeni Judeo-Arabic in particular. He is to be commended for his meticulously accurate translation , which reflects the felicity and beauty of diction of the original JudeoArabic texts. It should be noted that despite the fast growing body of scholarship relating to the history and other aspects of the Jews of Yemen, our knowledge of this community is still relatively sparse. The few chronicles written by the Yemeni Jews themselves cover only the past few hundred years, and even then they do not provide a systematic presentation of the historical events that befell the Jews of Yemen, nor of their customs and socioeconomic conditions. These chronicles are presented as snapshots of selected events that pass before us in a fragmented and incoherent procession, replete with gaps. Several factors account for the scarcity of records relating to the Jews of Yemen. One may be the high cost and rarity of writing materials and the total lack of printing facilities. As late as the beginning of the 20th century, as noted by Ameen Rihani, paper was a very rare commodity in Yemen. The scantiness of writing facilities in Yemen undoubtedly accounts for the marvelous ability of the Yemeni Jews to read a book sideways or upside down and from all possible corners. This ability was developed as a result of the necessity of the Yemeni Jewish children to study the Hebrew Scriptures and other sacred writings seated around one single copy of a book. 594THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW The scarcity of writing materials may also account for the selective attitude which the Yemeni Jews had developed toward their own writings. Manuscripts which had practical value were copied and preserved. Some were used as flyleaves for the binding of sacred books, while others were discarded and subsequently sank into oblivion. Thus, for example, only fragments of the work of Rabbi Yehia Salih (1715-1805), who is known to have written a history of the Jews of Yemen, are extant. Moreover, many of the written records must have been destroyed in the course of the frequent political upheavals that in many cases had a devastating impact upon Sanca\ the Yemeni capital, in general and the Jewish community in particular. Most destructive, however, was the expulsion of the Jews of Sanca' and other locales in Yemen to the remote region of Mawzac in 1679/80, an event which was preceded by the demolition of synagogues. Extant Yemeni Jewish documents relate that scrolls and writings housed in synagogues were torn and trampled upon by the mob, while others were burned; still others were abandoned by the Jews who would not carry them into exile. This state of affairs underscores the...

Moses da Rieti and His Miqdash me'at

Moses da Rieti and His Miqdash meʿat Alessandro Guetta Born in Rieti, northeast of Rome, Moses ben Isaac da Rieti (in Italian, Moisè di Gaio; 1388-after 1460) occupies a unique place in the history of medieval Hebrew literature, as the author of one of the most ambitious literary undertakings of the age, the Hebrew poem Miqdash meʿat (The Little Temple). Composed beginning in 1415/16 and comprising about 4,800 lines, the poem is a sort of Hebrew response to Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy, borrowing the meter and the general format of the Italian poem, but it is nonetheless original in important respects.1 Rieti later became dissatisfied with the work ("I built stanzas on nothingness," he wrote), finding it not sufficiently "Jewish" in either its meter (which is imported from Italian, i.e., Christian, poetry) or in content (the amount of space given to "profane" science).2 He therefore forged a new, highly personal, and sometimes enigmatic rhymed-prose style in which he composed shorter texts, such as the philosophical and mystical dialogue Iggeret yaʿar halevanon and the elegy on the death of his wife.3 It should be noted, however, that this order of composition is only hypothetical, as, with the exception of Miqdash meʿat, his works are not dated. Rieti's poetry, like his prose, concentrates primarily on philosophical concerns. It could be said that for him the writing served the idea, or that the idea found its best expression in artistic endeavor. Rieti's originality as a philosopher is hard to assess, but as a writer he certainly displays an originality of tone that foreshadows changes in Jewish Italian culture on the cusp between the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, changes that parallel those of the Renaissance in general European literature. His writing emphasizes an intense desire for learning, accompanied by a degree of intellectual frustration. [End Page 4] The biographical information available for Moses ben Isaac da Rieti consists of personal references in Miqdash meʿat, in other Hebrew and Italian texts with Jewish content, and in Latin documents from his places of residence and the papal chancellery. A few sparse, cursory references by his students complete the current, incomplete picture we have of him.4 A teacher in the yeshivas of central Italy (Latium and Umbria), Rieti was held in high esteem by his contemporaries as well as by the generations that immediately followed. One student called him haʾeshel hagadol—"great oak"—meaning a strong, reliable intellectual point of reference. Copyists transcribed several copies of his works. A concern for pedagogy impelled him to publish Filosofia naturale e fatti di Dio, a popularizing treatise on physics and metaphysics written in Italian, with the Italian transliterated into Hebrew characters.5 Rieti was also highly respected by Christians, who appreciated his professional qualities and his dedication as a physician. In 1458, Pope Pius II conferred on him full authorization to treat Christian patients, who had reservations about being under the care of Jewish physicians. The document referred to him as a reliable man who had healed "almost innumerable quantities" of patients. Rieti left a medical work in Hebrew, Liqqutim merefuʾot (Collectae therapeuticae).6 The archives of Rieti's hometown also reveal another activity—that of banker, in which capacity he seems to have had exclusive rights among the Jewish population. Though it drew on the traditions of rabbinic literature about the fate of the righteous after death, Miqdash meʿat took Dante's Paradiso as its model. Yet Rieti's poem has less of the character of an initiatory journey than does Dante's. It is more like an encyclopedia in verse, in keeping with both Jewish and Christian medieval tradition, in which secular knowledge mingles with sacred knowledge in a narrative setting lacking any real continuity. The poem's structure reproduces that of the Temple in Jerusalem, with its three parts—the entrance hall (ulam), the hall (hekhal), and the Holy of Holies (devir)—and it carries the reader from the Temple's public space to the innermost sanctum, increasing in sacredness from the exterior toward the interior. The phrase miqdash meʿat originates in Ezek. 11:16...

Una edición crítica de la quiná sefardí de <i>La destrucción del Templo</i>

The aim of this article is to offer a critical and annotated edition of the Sephardic dirge La destruccion del Templo ('the destruction of Jerusalem Jewish Temple') based on three sources written in Hebrew characters: two chapbooks printed in 1753 and ca. 1900, and a manuscript dated to the nineteenth century.