Project MUSE®: AJS Review: The Journal of the Association for Jewish Studies - Latest Articles
https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/844
Project MUSE®: Latest articles in AJS Review: The Journal of the Association for Jewish Studies.daily12026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00text/htmlen-USVol. 42 (2018) through current issueLatest Articles: AJS Review: The Journal of the Association for Jewish StudiesTWOProject MUSE®AJS Review: The Journal of the Association for Jewish Studies1475-45410364-0094Latest articles in AJS Review: The Journal of the Association for Jewish Studies. Feed provided by Project MUSE®Sephardim versus Ashkenazim in Byzantine-Ottoman and Eastern European Karaite Sources: An Interconfessional Perspective
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974635
<p></p>
The relationship between Karaite and Rabbanite Jews has varied from fierce theological rivalry to collaboration in various spheres of life since the emergence of Karaism in the late ninth century.1 The Rabbanites mostly saw Karaites as a homogeneous group of heretics, and when they studied their literature it was usually with a polemical purpose. We rarely find Rabbanite scholars delving deeply into Karaite literature and comparing its authors' views, whereas Karaites did just that with Rabbanite sources.2 The Karaites selectively adopted several approaches found in Rabbanite texts. They also distinguished between Sephardim and Ashkenazim in terms of theological outlooks, external appearances, habits, and
... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974813">Read More</a>
Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/844/image/coversmallSephardim versus Ashkenazim in Byzantine-Ottoman and Eastern European Karaite Sources: An Interconfessional Perspective2025-11-22text/htmlen-USSephardim versus Ashkenazim in Byzantine-Ottoman and Eastern European Karaite Sources: An Interconfessional Perspective2025-11-222025TWOProject MUSE®1427772026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002025-11-22The Metaphoric Land of Jewish Art and the Imagined History of Israeli Art
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974636
<p></p>
The National Library of Israel in Jerusalem holds an ex-libris label designed for Martin Buber by the artist Ephraim Moses Lilien (1874–1925). The label depicts a brick wall reminiscent of those of the biblical temple, built in the shape of a Star of David and surrounding an island. This is obviously a "Jewish" island, if one can attribute "Jewishness" to an island. The walls enclose a European garden city whose architecture, public institutions of sorts, evokes a neoclassical style. A main road shaped like an arrow crosses the garden city. While the bookplate is graphic and in a two-dimensional medium, the image's composition creates depth and the compound is visually illustrated as to point to somewhere in the
... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974813">Read More</a>
Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/844/image/coversmallThe Metaphoric Land of Jewish Art and the Imagined History of Israeli Art2025-11-22text/htmlen-USThe Metaphoric Land of Jewish Art and the Imagined History of Israeli Art2025-11-222025TWOProject MUSE®868892026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002025-11-22Exploring Order and Meaning in the Structure of Isaac of Corbeil’s Semak
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974637
<p></p>
In the year 1276–1277, Rabbi Isaac of Corbeil produced a unique work of accessible Halakhah, Sefer ʿamudei golah, Pillars of Exile, also known as Sefer miẓvot katan, or Semak.1 Divided into seven “pillars,” the book deals exclusively with mitzvot and laws relevant to Jews living in the diaspora. The work started out as a list of commandments and circulated as such. Later, possibly in response to his students’ request, the author added a commentary to the commandments, which became the legal handbook, the Semak. The original list was then placed at the beginning of the Semak.2 Isaac expected all Jews to recite a pillar of mitzvot from this list every day as a devotional act and to complete the entire list every
... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974813">Read More</a>
Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/844/image/coversmallExploring Order and Meaning in the Structure of Isaac of Corbeil’s Semak2025-11-22text/htmlen-USExploring Order and Meaning in the Structure of Isaac of Corbeil’s Semak2025-11-222025TWOProject MUSE®1108472026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002025-11-22The Trajectories of Separation: Transatlantic Networks, Disciplinary Boundaries, and the Isolated Histories of Mizrahim
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974638
<p></p>
At the turn of the millennium, about a third of the 3.4 million Jews of Sephardic and MENA (Middle East and North African) origin worldwide were scattered across the Americas, Europe, and Oceania, with the remaining two-thirds based in Israel.1 At that time, people of Sephardic and MENA origin numbered approximately 2.3 million out of a total of 4.8 million Jews living in Israel. By the late 1960s, due to their mass immigration to Israel, Jews from MENA countries and their descendants in Israel already constituted more than half of Israel's Jewish population, even as they accounted for only about a tenth of world Jewry. Based on official records, this demographic balance between Ashkenazic Jews and those from MENA
... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974813">Read More</a>
Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/844/image/coversmallThe Trajectories of Separation: Transatlantic Networks, Disciplinary Boundaries, and the Isolated Histories of Mizrahim2025-11-22text/htmlen-USThe Trajectories of Separation: Transatlantic Networks, Disciplinary Boundaries, and the Isolated Histories of Mizrahim2025-11-222025TWOProject MUSE®2193132026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002025-11-22Hebrew Spaces in Morocco during the First Half of the Twentieth Century
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974639
<p></p>
The town saw a general surge in its overall cultural standards. The construction fashion changed. Floor tiles in apartments had become the trend. In the new homes and renovated buildings, many windows were opened, large and wide, which let in light, sun, and air. Any construction required a municipal architect's permission, while the latter would only approve plans by certified French architects. The ghetto's walls had been broken, with Jews buying lots around the new city, where they built modern abodes.1Rabbi David Ovadia, the last rabbi of the town of Sefrou, in the third volume of his series Kehilat ẓefru (The Community of Sefrou), thus describes the spatial changes experienced by his town as the French
... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974813">Read More</a>
Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/844/image/coversmallHebrew Spaces in Morocco during the First Half of the Twentieth Century2025-11-22text/htmlen-USHebrew Spaces in Morocco during the First Half of the Twentieth Century2025-11-222025TWOProject MUSE®1320732026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002025-11-22Hurling Spears of Blasphemy: Constructing Jewish Violence in Sixth-Century Gaul
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974640
<p></p>
In the first book of his collected verses (carmina), sixth-century Italian émigré to Gaul Venantius Fortunatus included a short verse written in conjunction with the establishment of a new basilica in Saintes dedicated to the protomartyr Stephen.1 After noting the flourishing of Stephen's cult in the West as well as in the East, Fortunatus directly addressed the Jews—that fierce people (gens ferox)—who according to Acts 7:54–60 had stoned Stephen to death: "The Stephen you believe you are killing, though he is dead in the flesh, yet in glory he cannot die. He earns the palm for his merits, you earn punishment for your crime; he wins residence in heaven, but you rather are bound for the depths."2 While intended to
... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974813">Read More</a>
Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/844/image/coversmallHurling Spears of Blasphemy: Constructing Jewish Violence in Sixth-Century Gaul2025-11-22text/htmlen-USHurling Spears of Blasphemy: Constructing Jewish Violence in Sixth-Century Gaul2025-11-222025TWOProject MUSE®1280102026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002025-11-22"The Youngest Flower in the Garden of Homiletics": Jewish Youth Sermons in Galicia and Other Parts of the Habsburg Monarchy
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974641
<p></p>
In the Habsburg Monarchy in the second half of the nineteenth century, special sermons were organized for Jewish youth who attended public schools, as part of the religious instruction offered at school. Such sermons (called "exhortations")1 were an imperium-wide phenomenon, present at least in Hungary and in the Cisleithanian (non-Hungarian) parts of the empire of Lower Austria, Bohemia, Moravia, and Galicia. Delivered in local languages by Jewish teachers of religion, many of whom had no homiletical training, they were vernacular in character and shaped by local legal and cultural contexts. Depending on the circumstances, these sermons were held either in a schoolhouse or a synagogue. They were often accompanied
... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974813">Read More</a>
Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/844/image/coversmall"The Youngest Flower in the Garden of Homiletics": Jewish Youth Sermons in Galicia and Other Parts of the Habsburg Monarchy2025-11-22text/htmlen-US"The Youngest Flower in the Garden of Homiletics": Jewish Youth Sermons in Galicia and Other Parts of the Habsburg Monarchy2025-11-222025TWOProject MUSE®1341972026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002025-11-22Emotional Responses to Suffering in the Testament of Job
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974642
<p></p>
Job's reputation as a patient sufferer figures prominently in literary references to this biblical character in late antiquity.1 This tradition first appears as a central theme of the ancient Jewish work known as the Testament of Job, a composition that purports to represent Job's deathbed reflections for the edification of his children.2 The first forty-four chapters of this work recount Job's piety, Satan's attack against him, the endurance he exhibits throughout his travails, and finally, his interactions with his royal colleagues. This narrative, likely composed sometime between 100 BCE and 150 CE, fundamentally transforms Job's state of mind as described in the biblical book of Job: Job is no longer a tortured
... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974813">Read More</a>
Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/844/image/coversmallEmotional Responses to Suffering in the Testament of Job2025-11-22text/htmlen-USEmotional Responses to Suffering in the Testament of Job2025-11-222025TWOProject MUSE®1666582026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002025-11-22Modernity's Demons: Joseph Soloveitchik's Critique of Instrumental Reason
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974643
<p></p>
"Yet the wholly enlightened earth is radiant with triumphant calamity."1"Majestic Adam has developed a demonic quality: laying claim to unlimited power—alas, to infinity itself."2Joseph Soloveitchik (1903–1993) was the scion of an eastern European rabbinic dynasty and one of the premier Orthodox theologians of the twentieth century.3 Having fled Germany for the United States in 1933, Soloveitchik witnessed the horrors of death and war from afar—from Stalinist Russia to Nazi Fascism and beyond—and was deeply shaped by this experience. He is often studied in the context of his theological and religious teachings.4 However, his theological works must be read with an eye toward his critical sensibilities regarding
... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974813">Read More</a>
Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/844/image/coversmallModernity's Demons: Joseph Soloveitchik's Critique of Instrumental Reason2025-11-22text/htmlen-USModernity's Demons: Joseph Soloveitchik's Critique of Instrumental Reason2025-11-222025TWOProject MUSE®1539752026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002025-11-22Between Symbolism and Practice: Hebrew in the National Jewish Discourse, 1875–1914
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974644
<p></p>
The Hebrew language, particularly its position among the various streams of Jewish nationalism, played a crucial role in modern Jewish history. The ancient origin of the language, the Jewish historical canon, and its ongoing presence in the life of Jews across the world made Hebrew, seemingly, an elementary companion to the Jewish national movement. Yet, for hundreds of years, Hebrew was primarily a written language, largely limited to the religious and scholarly spheres, and taught almost exclusively to men; it figured only minimally in daily use. How can a language that struggles to express modern notions and cannot reach the entirety of its designated speech community be crowned as the language of a national
... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974813">Read More</a>
Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/844/image/coversmallBetween Symbolism and Practice: Hebrew in the National Jewish Discourse, 1875–19142025-11-22text/htmlen-USBetween Symbolism and Practice: Hebrew in the National Jewish Discourse, 1875–19142025-11-222025TWOProject MUSE®1755782026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002025-11-22Sharing the Burden: Jewish Soldiers in the Roman Army in the Second and Third Centuries CE
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974645
<p></p>
A passage from Cassius Dio attests to the renewed presence of Jewish soldiers in the Roman army in the late second century CE. Why would Rome decide to compel Jews to serve in the army only fifty years after the end of the Bar Kokhba revolt? By the late second half of the second century, the legal situation of the Jews had improved. Antoninus Pius repealed Hadrian's ban on circumcision and restored most of the Jews' rights, while a passage of the Exemptions states that Jews were required by Marcus Aurelius and Commodus to serve in liturgies on the condition that they would not transgress their religious obligations.1 Moreover, in the wake of the Antonine Plague, the Roman Empire suffered from a significant manpower
... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974813">Read More</a>
Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/844/image/coversmallSharing the Burden: Jewish Soldiers in the Roman Army in the Second and Third Centuries CE2025-11-22text/htmlen-USSharing the Burden: Jewish Soldiers in the Roman Army in the Second and Third Centuries CE2025-11-222025TWOProject MUSE®1725872026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002025-11-22An Impostor's Diary: Sipur David Ha-Reuveni's Novel Literary Genre and Complex Relationship with Truth
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974646
<p></p>
The man known to history as David Ha-Reuveni was a mysterious character who appeared in Italy in 1524 claiming to be a prince of the tribe of Reuven from a fantastical Jewish kingdom in the Arabian Peninsula. Under this pretense, he commenced on a well-documented diplomatic tour of Europe in an attempt to forge military alliances and procure armed warships in preparation for war with the Muslims. He managed to get an audience with the most prominent of Europe's leaders, but ultimately fell from grace, and was eventually banished, imprisoned, and finally executed.One of the most extraordinary aspects of this affair is a long and detailed egodocument created by David Ha-Reuveni himself. This is a singular document in
... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974813">Read More</a>
Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/844/image/coversmallAn Impostor's Diary: Sipur David Ha-Reuveni's Novel Literary Genre and Complex Relationship with Truth2025-11-22text/htmlen-USAn Impostor's Diary: Sipur David Ha-Reuveni's Novel Literary Genre and Complex Relationship with Truth2025-11-222025TWOProject MUSE®1746602026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002025-11-22Ally against Ally: The Zionist-Genevese Front against British Policy in Palestine, 1929–1931
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974647
<p></p>
The August 1929 riots in Palestine are widely considered a watershed moment in British Palestine's history and the Jewish-Arab conflict. According to a report by the British police in Palestine, the riots, known in Hebrew as Meʾoraʿot Tarpat and in Arabic as the al-Buraq Uprising, resulted in 133 Jewish and 116 Arab deaths, the latter primarily at the hands of British security forces and Jewish defenders. This was the fiercest attack on the Jewish community since the British occupation and establishment of the mandate.1After order was restored, the British government appointed a commission of inquiry headed by Sir Walter Shaw, formerly chief justice in various territories in the British Empire. Its instructions
... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974813">Read More</a>
Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/844/image/coversmallAlly against Ally: The Zionist-Genevese Front against British Policy in Palestine, 1929–19312025-11-22text/htmlen-USAlly against Ally: The Zionist-Genevese Front against British Policy in Palestine, 1929–19312025-11-222025TWOProject MUSE®1416132026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002025-11-22Religionsbüchlein versus Torah: Samson Raphael Hirsch's Critique of Reform Textbooks
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974648
<p></p>
The Jews may have catechisms, but no Catechism.(Die Juden können Katechismen haben, aber—keinen Katechismus.)"The Jew's catechism is his calendar."1 With this succinct formulation, Samson Raphael Hirsch, regarded by many as the founding father of the neo-Orthodoxy movement, commences his monthly Jeschurun. Hirsch's opening sentence reveals his polemical attitude toward religious catechisms employed to convey Judaism's fundamental teachings to Jewish youth, which became exceedingly prevalent among Reform pedagogues in the second half of the nineteenth century.2 In stark contrast to this approach, Hirsch conceives Judaism's substance, the Torah, as comprising unlimited practice-oriented teachings, a distinct modus
... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974813">Read More</a>
Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/844/image/coversmallReligionsbüchlein versus Torah: Samson Raphael Hirsch's Critique of Reform Textbooks2025-11-22text/htmlen-USReligionsbüchlein versus Torah: Samson Raphael Hirsch's Critique of Reform Textbooks2025-11-222025TWOProject MUSE®2752022026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002025-11-22When a Human Gives Birth to a Raven: Rabbis and the Reproduction of Species by Rafael Rachel Neis (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974649
<p></p>
Rafe Neis, professor of history and Jewish studies at the University of Michigan, has already made a name for themselves as a scholar of ancient science and rabbinics with their first monograph, The Sense of Sight in Rabbinic Culture: Jewish Ways of Seeing in Late Antiquity (Cambridge University Press, 2013). Like the monograph under review, The Sense of Sight contextualizes rabbinic knowledge in an unprecedented way within the ancient intellectual landscape. Where others may occasionally use rabbinic literature to confirm "Roman" or "Greek science" based on the usual suspects, Neis is familiar with the full range of scientific ideas and approaches of the ancient Mediterranean and does not shy away from using
... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974813">Read More</a>
Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/844/image/coversmallWhen a Human Gives Birth to a Raven: Rabbis and the Reproduction of Species by Rafael Rachel Neis (review)2025-11-22text/htmlen-USWhen a Human Gives Birth to a Raven: Rabbis and the Reproduction of Species by Rafael Rachel Neis (review)2025-11-222025TWOProject MUSE®117802026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002025-11-22Ancient Synagogues in Palestine: A Re-Evaluation Nearly a Century after Sukenik's Schweich Lectures by Jodi Magness (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974650
<p></p>
In this volume, Jodi Magness publishes her 2022 Schweich lectures at the British Academy on the subject of the ancient synagogues of Palestine. After a brief overview of the various kinds of synagogues found in the region (chapter 1), she focuses on the so-called Galilean type, which is the main topic of the book. The type is marked by a richly adorned façade, a generous basilical hall, and a Torah shrine on the Jerusalem-facing wall. Magness situates interest in the type within the early Zionist movement and later the Israeli academy (chapter 2). She then turns her attention to two of the type's exemplars—the synagogues at Khirbet Wadi Hamam (chapter 3) and Capernaum (chapter 4)—harnessing her expertise in
... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974813">Read More</a>
Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/844/image/coversmallAncient Synagogues in Palestine: A Re-Evaluation Nearly a Century after Sukenik's Schweich Lectures by Jodi Magness (review)2025-11-22text/htmlen-USAncient Synagogues in Palestine: A Re-Evaluation Nearly a Century after Sukenik's Schweich Lectures by Jodi Magness (review)2025-11-222025TWOProject MUSE®95412026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002025-11-22Babylonian Jews and Sasanian Imperialism in Late Antiquity by Simcha Gross (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974651
<p></p>
Late antique Babylonian Jewry is one of the most important arenas of Jewish history, mainly on account of the Babylonian Talmud, which from the Middle Ages until the modern period has profoundly influenced Halakhah, Jewish thought, and other aspects of Jewish life. While scholarship on the Bavli has remained at the center of academic Jewish studies, the study of Babylonian Jewish history has been limited by the few and problematic sources available to reconstruct it, which consist almost entirely of the talmudic text.Late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century histories, such as Solomon Funk's Die Juden in Babylonien 200–500 (Berlin, 1902), collected and curated the relevant passages, making lasting contributions
... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974813">Read More</a>
Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/844/image/coversmallBabylonian Jews and Sasanian Imperialism in Late Antiquity by Simcha Gross (review)2025-11-22text/htmlen-USBabylonian Jews and Sasanian Imperialism in Late Antiquity by Simcha Gross (review)2025-11-222025TWOProject MUSE®111052026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002025-11-22Letters from Home: The Creation of Diaspora in Jewish Antiquity by Malka Z. Simkovich (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974652
<p></p>
Letters from Home sounds almost too casual for the subject Malka Simkovich is addressing. At the core of her book is the question of the Jewish diaspora in the Hellenistic period. The subtitle speaks of the creation of diaspora, which alerts readers from the outset that this will not be about diaspora as a historical fact but about its significance to, and perception by, different Jewish communities. Underlying her discussion of the evidence is the assumption that "the successful establishment of Jewish communities outside the land of Israel was the single biggest theological problem for Jews in the Hellenistic era" (172). A theological problem especially for those Jews not living in the diaspora themselves, one
... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974813">Read More</a>
Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/844/image/coversmallLetters from Home: The Creation of Diaspora in Jewish Antiquity by Malka Z. Simkovich (review)2025-11-22text/htmlen-USLetters from Home: The Creation of Diaspora in Jewish Antiquity by Malka Z. Simkovich (review)2025-11-222025TWOProject MUSE®88832026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002025-11-22The Authority of the Divine Law: A Study in Tannaitic Midrash by Yosef Bronstein (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974653
<p></p>
In 1888, David Zvi Hoffmann published Zur Einleitung in die halachischen Midraschim, in which he argued that the tannaitic midrashic collections represent two distinct schools, those of Rabbi Akiva and of Rabbi Ishmael. According to Hoffmann, the schools could be differentiated by various criteria: the identity of the sages cited, terminology, interpretive methods, and more. Hoffmann's theory was widely hailed; its incorporation into J. N. Epstein's Prolegomena to Tannaitic Literature (Mevoʾot) made it a staple of Israeli rabbinics scholarship. Aside from its philological significance, Hoffmann's Rabbi Akiva / Rabbi Ishmael division was seminal for Abraham Joshua Heschel's Theology of Ancient Judaism, which
... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974813">Read More</a>
Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/844/image/coversmallThe Authority of the Divine Law: A Study in Tannaitic Midrash by Yosef Bronstein (review)2025-11-22text/htmlen-USThe Authority of the Divine Law: A Study in Tannaitic Midrash by Yosef Bronstein (review)2025-11-222025TWOProject MUSE®115362026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002025-11-22Hakham Tsevi Ashkenazi and the Battlegrounds of the Early Modern Rabbinate by Yosie Levine (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974654
<p></p>
Since Leopold Zunz's 1823 essay on Rashi, the project of rabbinic biography has maintained an enduring place within modern Jewish studies. Yosie Levine's biography of Ḥakham Ẓvi Ashkenazi (1658/9–1718) is an excellent new contribution to this tradition, focusing on Ashkenazi's responsa.Ḥakham Ẓvi was a rabbi in the Altona/Hamburg Jewish community for twenty years, beginning about 1689. His years in Hamburg overlapped those of the diarist Glikl bat Judah ("Glikl of Hameln"; 1646–1724), before her second marriage took her to Metz. From 1710 through the end of 1713, Ashkenazi served a brief tenure as rabbi of the Ashkenazic community of Amsterdam. In 1712, he published a volume of responsa, Sheʾelot u-teshuvot Ḥakham
... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974813">Read More</a>
Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/844/image/coversmallHakham Tsevi Ashkenazi and the Battlegrounds of the Early Modern Rabbinate by Yosie Levine (review)2025-11-22text/htmlen-USHakham Tsevi Ashkenazi and the Battlegrounds of the Early Modern Rabbinate by Yosie Levine (review)2025-11-222025TWOProject MUSE®85122026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002025-11-22The Jews of Provence and Languedoc by Ram Ben-Shalom (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974655
<p></p>
In this book, Ram Ben-Shalom (professor of Jewish history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem) recounts a history of Jews in southern France from late antiquity until the expulsion from the County of Provence in 1500. Part 1 follows a roughly chronological order and is devoted primarily to social and political history, describing the internal structure of the community and its treatment at the hands of bishops, kings, judges, and inquisitors. Chapter 3 is devoted to "Jewish Women" and chapter 5 describes Jewish responses to Christianity. The chapter on women is divided neatly between representations of women in Hebrew literature and philosophy, and information about actual women culled from notarial documents and
... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974813">Read More</a>
Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/844/image/coversmallThe Jews of Provence and Languedoc by Ram Ben-Shalom (review)2025-11-22text/htmlen-USThe Jews of Provence and Languedoc by Ram Ben-Shalom (review)2025-11-222025TWOProject MUSE®62352026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002025-11-22Bruno Schulz and Galician Jewish Modernity by Karen Underhill (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974656
<p></p>
The writer and artist Bruno Schulz (1892–1942) lived and created in a region subject to multiple cultural influences. He was born into a Jewish family in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, where he was educated in the Polish language in a town inhabited by Jews, Poles, and Ukrainians. His artistic and literary career flourished in the same multiethnic Galician region after it became part of the newly formed Second Polish Republic in 1918. His creative influences and contacts were diverse, including key figures associated with various Polish, Jewish, German, Austrian, and pan-European currents and movements. He wrote almost exclusively in Polish. He was murdered as a Jew in the Holocaust by a Gestapo officer during the
... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974813">Read More</a>
Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/844/image/coversmallBruno Schulz and Galician Jewish Modernity by Karen Underhill (review)2025-11-22text/htmlen-USBruno Schulz and Galician Jewish Modernity by Karen Underhill (review)2025-11-222025TWOProject MUSE®76492026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002025-11-22The 1840 Rhodes Blood Libel: Ottoman Jews at the Dawn of the Tanzimat Era by Olga Borovaya (review)
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974657
<p></p>
Olga Borovaya's most recent book, The 1840 Rhodes Blood Libel: Ottoman Jews at the Dawn of the Tanzimat Era, offers a nuanced and insightful account of the blood libel accusations brought against Jews on the Ottoman island of Rhodes in early 1840. Long overshadowed by the better-known Damascus affair—which occurred just two weeks earlier and drew considerable international attention—this incident has remained "barely familiar to students of Jewish history and unknown to Ottomanists" (13). Jonathan Frankel's seminal work The Damascus Affair: "Ritual Murder," Politics, and the Jews in 1840 (Cambridge University Press, 1997) touches only briefly on the Rhodes events, without offering a comparative or contextual
... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974813">Read More</a>
Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/844/image/coversmallThe 1840 Rhodes Blood Libel: Ottoman Jews at the Dawn of the Tanzimat Era by Olga Borovaya (review)2025-11-22text/htmlen-USThe 1840 Rhodes Blood Libel: Ottoman Jews at the Dawn of the Tanzimat Era by Olga Borovaya (review)2025-11-222025TWOProject MUSE®83382026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002025-11-22שורשי המצוות לרס"ג: בין השמעיות והשכליות לעשרת הדיברות
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974658
<p></p>
בכמה מכתביו של רב סעדיה גאון אנו מוצאים את ההבחנה שבין מצוות שכליות (שראיע עקליה') לשמעיות (שראיע סמעיה').1 בספר האמונות והדעות הבחנה זו מופיעה באופן מפותח במיוחד. שם, רס"ג מחלק את כל מצוות התורה לשני חלקים. החלק הראשון (אלקסם אלאול) הוא המצוות שהשכל מחייב (אלעקל יוג'ב)2 ואותן הוא מכנה "שכליות" (עקליה').3 והחלק השני (אלקסם אלת'אני) הוא המצוות שאין השכל מחייב אותן,4 אלא הן מותרות על פי השכל (מבאח פי אלעקל),5 ורס"ג מכנה אותן "שמעיות" (סמעיה').6 חלוקה זו ממצה והיא כוללת את המצוות כולן.בסידורו, בפיוט האזהרות, רס"ג טוען שכל המצוות כולן "כלולות" ו"ספונות" בתוך עשרת הדיברות:7אש אכלה ונוהרת מכל הנוהרותודברי כאש וניצוציה הרבה מצות בכל דבור זוהרותבחכמתי כללתי בעשרת הדברות שש מאות ושלש עשרה מצות להורותאמרות ה' אמרות
... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974813">Read More</a>
Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/844/image/coversmallשורשי המצוות לרס"ג: בין השמעיות והשכליות לעשרת הדיברות2025-11-22text/htmlen-USשורשי המצוות לרס"ג: בין השמעיות והשכליות לעשרת הדיברות2025-11-222025TWOProject MUSE®845062026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002025-11-22הולדתה של האתיקה המינית של חדר המיטות בספר בעלי הנפש לראב"ד
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974659
<p></p>
רבי אברהם בן דוד (להלן ראב"ד; 1120–1198) היה פרשן תלמוד, ראש ישיבה בעיר פּוֹסְקְיֶיר שבחבל פרובאנס שבצרפת, ונמנה עם ראשוני המקובלים.
1
בשנות השבעים וייתכן שבשנות השמונים של המאה השתים-עשרה כתב ראב"ד את ספרו בעלי הנפש,
2
חיבור שעיקרו הלכתי (הלכות נידה בשישה פרקים). ראב"ד הוסיף לו הקדמה בתחילתו ופרק שביעי בסופו שאופיים הגותי-מוסרי. בעלי הנפש הוא ספר ייחודי משלושה היבטים: ראשית, משום שהוקדש לנושא הלכתי אחד ולא לכמה נושאים, כפי שהיה מקובל בספרות הלכתית ופרשנית שנכתבה לפניו ובתקופתו.
3
שנית, בחלוקת הנושא ההלכתי המרכזי (נידה) לנושאי מִשנה (פרישה, וסתות, כתמים, ספירה ובדיקה, טבילה ומים) השונה מהחלוקה במשנה נידה ובספרות הלכתית שקדמה לו. ושלישית, וזה החידוש שבו אתמקד במאמר זה—בגיבוש אתיקה מינית לצד
... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974813">Read More</a>
Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/844/image/coversmallהולדתה של האתיקה המינית של חדר המיטות בספר בעלי הנפש לראב"ד2025-11-22text/htmlen-USהולדתה של האתיקה המינית של חדר המיטות בספר בעלי הנפש לראב"ד2025-11-222025TWOProject MUSE®695062026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002025-11-22"Only Wailing and Protesting"? Emotion Work and the Yishuv Controversy About the Anti-Nazi Boycott
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974813
<p></p>
Hitler's rise to power in Germany in 1933 triggered an international wave of boycotts and counterboycotts. On April 1 of that year, the new regime announced a boycott of the Jews of the Reich—the first step toward the reversal of emancipation.1 By then, Jews and others all over the world had already called for a boycott of German products. In eastern Europe, Jewish organizations established boycott committees to impose the policy on Jewish merchants and consumers.2 In North America, several Jewish organizations launched loud anti-Nazi campaigns, motivated by memories of the recent and (in their eyes) successful boycott of the Ford Motor Company.3 Many Jews in Britain, western Europe, and the Muslim world joined
... <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/974813">Read More</a>
Project MUSE®https://muse.jhu.edu/2026-05-12T00:00:00-05:00https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/844/image/coversmall"Only Wailing and Protesting"? Emotion Work and the Yishuv Controversy About the Anti-Nazi Boycott2025-11-22text/htmlen-US"Only Wailing and Protesting"? Emotion Work and the Yishuv Controversy About the Anti-Nazi Boycott2025-11-222025TWOProject MUSE®2058002026-05-12T00:00:00-05:002025-11-22