Constitutio in actu? Eliezer Dileon’s Letter to the Minsk Kahal, 1817

A letter by the army contractor Eliezer Dileon to the community board of Minsk relating his audience with Tsar Alexander I of Russia in January 1817 sheds light on the significance of the performative dimension of Jewish intercession. In the perception of the intercessor, due to the personal encounter between the sovereign ruler and himself, the Jews in Russia constitute part of the political and societal fabric of the Empire, it sees them as ‘a people.’ The letter is one of the very few documents describing and confirming the symbolic meaning of an encounter between a monarch and a Jewish intercessor. It reflects on the reciprocal nature of negotiations between the state and the Jewish minority, the limitations in concrete outcomes notwithstanding.

Making a Maskil Mainstream: Adapting Haskalah Scholarship for a 19th-Century Rabbinic Audience

The Passover Cup of Elijah is often explained as an expression of rabbinic uncertainty regarding a fifth cup mandated by some opinions in the Babylonian Talmud. The explanation is based upon other talmudic passages which mention halakhic uncertainties that will be resolved by Elijah when he eventually comes to herald the long anticipated redemption. The explanation is commonly attributed to the Gaon of Vilna; however, no historically reliable source supports this attribution. This explanation was first published by the great maskil, Isaac Ber Levinsohn, and was attributed to the Gaon of Vilna by Eliezer Zweifel. An alternate shift of attribution was to R. Ephraim Zalman Margolioth. Attribution to a great rabbinic authority helped the explanation gain circulation and approval among the general rabbinic audience to the present day.

‘The Palestinian Talmud Was Not Tampered with by the Pens of Emenders’: Clarifying a Textual Version Rule

This article will demonstrate that Nahmanides’s statement regarding the unamended Palestinian Talmud relates to the sources cited in that work. The advantage of the Palestinian Talmud stemmed from the neglect suffered by that work which enabled it to escape the hegemony of the Babylonian Talmud whose textual versions were imposed on all other Oral Torah works. Of course, it also stemmed from the proximity of the Palestinian Talmud in both time and place to the Mishnah and Tosefta. This advantage lent great significance to the exegesis of these sources in the Palestinian Talmud.

‘Jugendbewegung’: Gerhard Scholem as a Figure of the German Avant-Garde

The purpose of this essay is to examine one of Gershom Scholem’s most obscure undertakings, a proto-Dadaist and antiwar text that he published, together with a few friends, during the first year of World War One. As is shown, this project has drawn heavily from the work of one of the leading avant-garde poets, later among the founding members of the Dada movement in Zurich, Hugo Ball. Discussed side by side, the works of Gershom Scholem and Hugo Ball offer a unique view onto the anti-war sentiment and the need for experimental language in an attempt to express a disdain so profound and fundamental that words and sentences seem unable to capture.

Canonization, Satire, and Criticism of Avot in Midrash Yelammedenu from the Genizah

In this article, I present a midrashic reference to one mishnah of tractate Avot that would appear to undermine its canonical status. A close reading of the midrash, will show that it makes use of various satirical tools, including exaggeration and ridicule, which appear to be aimed at a mocking of the mishnah. However, further reading of the midrash in light of a more comprehensive look at tractate Avot will show that contrary to this initial impression, the use of satire may not be directed at undermining the canonical status of Avot but rather at strengthening it. According to this reading, the satire is directed at internal criticism that the midrash identifies in the heart of the mishnaic text, with the result that Avot’s status is restored.

Between Two Poles: Barukh Mitrani between Moderate Haskalah and Jewish Nationalism

Barukh Mitrani was an Ottoman maskil who wandered between the Balkans, Istanbul and Palestine. While living in Edirne, Mitrani established his first periodical, Carmi (Pressburg 1881). Carmi’s issues were an ongoing maskilic sermon, drawing on a deep acquaintance with the Jewish bookshelf. This paper examines selections from the fifth article in Carmi, ‘Our Nationhood.’ Influenced by the moderate Haskalah, Mitrani idealized a ‘Golden Mean,’ which sought to balance the agendas of ‘the two poles’: insular Ultra-Orthodox Jews on the one hand, and secularized ‘Westernizers’ on the other. Mitrani also espoused a Jewish nationalism which had affinities with the Hebrew ‘republic of letters’ and the national resurgence in the Balkans. He perceived every Jew as part of three circles: the individual, the family, and the nation. Yet his nationalism was not separatist; he obliged Jews to remain loyal Ottoman citizens and promote the Sultanate while also settling in Palestine.

The Tabula in the Collège de Sorbonne and the Discovery of the 1529 Bomberg Siddur

Interest was aroused recently concerning a booklet of 28 folios entitled Tabula in universum indicans libros singularum disciplinarum. Formerly considered a 17th-century catalogue, it actually reflects the contents of the library of the Collège de Sorbonne in the mid-16th century. A project, directed by Gilbert Fournier, will identify the authors and works mentioned in the document and localize the books in Parisian and French libraries. Entrusted with the rubric Rabbini Hebraeorum, I quickly realized that I needed to work simultaneously on the catalogue and the dispersion of the library of the Collège. This back and forth process led to the discovery of the 1529 Bomberg Ashkenazic Siddur.

‘Goat Beautiful of Voice’: A Piyyut of Abraham ibn Ezra from Medinet el-Fayyūm, Egypt

This zuta provides an edition of a new copy of a known piyyut by Abraham ibn Ezra, ‘Goat beautiful of voice’ (יַעְלָה יְפַת קוֹל), with translation, full collation, and commentary. This copy, now in the collection of the University of Michigan (P.Mich. inv. 531), offers some valuable new readings as well as evidence for the readership of Ibn Ezra in a provincial setting in medieval Egypt, as its provenance can be traced to the city of Medinet el-Fayyūm; the text can be added to evidence for a Jewish presence there, of which an overview is also given.

אצחצח דבר גבורות: The Discovery of the Opening Section of Shelomo Suleiman al-Sinjari’s Seder ha-ʿAvodah

This is the first publication of the beginning of one of the sidrei ʿavodah for the Day of Atonement by Shelomo Suleiman al-Sinjari, a prolific Palestinian paytan who lived in the second half of the 9th century. Although well known to researchers, this piyyut was incorrectly attributed to the greatest Palestinian poet: Eleazar b. Qallir. My consultation of a copy of the seder ʿavodah in a Cairo Geniza manuscript and the database of the Ezra Fleischer Geniza Research Project for Hebrew Poetry led to the correct identification of the author of אצחצח דבר גבורות as Shelomo Suleiman. The article contains a critical edition of the beginning of this seder ʿavodah with annotations and variants.