Project MUSE®: Prooftexts - Latest Articles
https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/167
Project MUSE®: Latest articles in Prooftexts.daily12026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00text/htmlen-USVol. 18 (1998) through current issueLatest Articles: ProoftextsTWOProject MUSE®Prooftexts1086-33110272-9601Latest articles in Prooftexts. Feed provided by Project MUSE®The General and the Particular: Epidemics and the Medical Orientation in the Babylonian Talmud
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/987471
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Roughly five months into the COVID-19 pandemic, I finished a postdoctoral research stay in the United States and moved back to Switzerland with my family. Although we had not been ignorant of the Swiss measures to contain the spread of the virus, we were not aware of the extent to which our pandemic socialization differed from that of our Swiss compatriots. To name just the most obvious, while we were used to always wearing colorful cloth masks that had become platforms for all sorts of statements, the Swiss exclusively wore blue surgical masks, and they wore them only in public transportation, hospitals, nursing homes, and the like. Schools had been open again for weeks before the summer holidays, while our kids
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/167/image/coversmallThe General and the Particular: Epidemics and the Medical Orientation in the Babylonian Talmud2026-04-06text/htmlen-USThe General and the Particular: Epidemics and the Medical Orientation in the Babylonian Talmud2026-04-062026TWOProject MUSE®975322026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002026-04-06Ascetic Perceptions in the Babylonian Talmud: Rava, Rav Judah, and the Drought
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/987472
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Studies of late antique Judaism examine the cultural and historical representation of the holy man in rabbinic literature from two pivotal but separate points of view. The first explores the holy man with the intention of delineating the scope of rabbinic asceticism. The other engages with the literary representation of the charismatic figure and the magical abilities he boasts in aggadic accounts. This study seeks to shed new light on the crucial link between austerity and magical powers as reflected in the role of the zealous holy sage in the Babylonian Talmud (Bavli). The third chapter of b. Taʿanit outlines a rich story sequence concerning various types of miracle workers and charismatic sages who invoke God to
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/167/image/coversmallAscetic Perceptions in the Babylonian Talmud: Rava, Rav Judah, and the Drought2026-04-06text/htmlen-USAscetic Perceptions in the Babylonian Talmud: Rava, Rav Judah, and the Drought2026-04-062026TWOProject MUSE®1795082026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002026-04-06Auerbach’s Abraham(s): Biblical Narrative and the Genesis of Critical Reading
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/987473
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Readers of Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, the 1946 masterpiece by the German Jewish romance philologist Erich Auerbach, remember the sharp contrast drawn in the first chapter, “Odysseus’ Scar,” between the “mode of perception and representation [Auffassungs- und Darstellungsweise]” of “the Jews [die Juden]” and that of the ancient Greeks (Auerbach, M, 10; ME, 8).1 The reception of Mimesis has disfigured this sentence, however, with Auffassung all but disappearing as critics attend to Auerbach’s theory of Darstellung. Auerbach judges favorably those representations of reality which are “historically conscious”; as James I. Porter, perhaps Auerbach’s most astute contemporary reader
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/167/image/coversmallAuerbach’s Abraham(s): Biblical Narrative and the Genesis of Critical Reading2026-04-06text/htmlen-USAuerbach’s Abraham(s): Biblical Narrative and the Genesis of Critical Reading2026-04-062026TWOProject MUSE®1340202026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002026-04-06Inventing the Kibbutz Haggadah: How a Ritual Text Evolved in the Secular Yishuv
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/987474
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During the early decades of the twentieth century, intellectuals in the secular Yishuv felt an urgent need to “create a tradition”1 that would fill the void left by their rejection of traditional Judaism. Could secularists adopt the signifiers of “religiosity” to assign new meaning and purpose to Jewish national existence?2 What was Shabbat to be? What were the holidays to be when the old observances no longer suited the emerging forms of secular life? How to ease the pangs of emptiness and disillusionment felt especially on Jewish holidays?3 With children to raise and educate, the Yishuv community could not wait for secular traditions to emerge as an alternative to the religious culture of the past. So it
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/167/image/coversmallInventing the Kibbutz Haggadah: How a Ritual Text Evolved in the Secular Yishuv2026-04-06text/htmlen-USInventing the Kibbutz Haggadah: How a Ritual Text Evolved in the Secular Yishuv2026-04-062026TWOProject MUSE®1037732026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002026-04-06“I’m the One He’s Looking For”: Responsiveness to the Other in David Grossman’s A Horse Walks into a Bar
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/987475
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David Grossman’s novel, A Horse Walks into a Bar, was published in Hebrew in 2014, and its surprising style stood out compared to the author’s previous writing. The story focuses on a single evening and one location, with no plot developments other than the real-time description of a stand-up comedy performance. Unlike Grossman’s previous works, A Horse Walks into a Bar is rich with contemporary Hebrew, slang expressions, coarse jokes, and descriptions of violent physical gestures. The protagonist of the novel is fifty-seven-year-old stand-up comedian Dov Greenstein, who presents himself as “Dovaleh G.” The events are narrated from the perspective of his former friend, Avishai Lazar, who is present in the
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/167/image/coversmall“I’m the One He’s Looking For”: Responsiveness to the Other in David Grossman’s A Horse Walks into a Bar2026-04-06text/htmlen-US“I’m the One He’s Looking For”: Responsiveness to the Other in David Grossman’s A Horse Walks into a Bar2026-04-062026TWOProject MUSE®867502026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002026-04-06Rabbinics Beyond the Binary
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/987476
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Just before the introduction of Rafael Rachel Neis’s recent monograph, When A Human Gives Birth to a Raven: Rabbis and the Reproduction of Species (University of California Press, 2023), the reader encounters a striking image labeled “Figure 3. Rafael Rachel Neis, Personage.” The image is a watercolor of a standing orange and green figure wearing only red underwear and bright red heeled boots. The figure gazes at the reader directly with large round eyes set in a round head featuring a snout and high pointed ears like those of a fox or a cat. It stands upright, with well-muscled legs and arms akimbo, welcoming or perhaps daring the reader to enter the text. The personage clearly and strikingly represents the theme
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Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/167/image/coversmallRabbinics Beyond the Binary2026-04-06text/htmlen-USRabbinics Beyond the Binary2026-04-062026TWOProject MUSE®397842026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002026-04-06