The Woman Who Corrected A Sukkos Piyut
Rebbetzin Chava Bacharach was an extraordinary woman. A granddaughter of the Maharal of Prague, a daughter of Rabbi Yitzchak Kohen, the famous son-in-law of the Maharal, and the wife of […]
New Piyutim by Rav Hai Gaon
A new collection of religious poems by Rav Hai Gaon was published recently in Israel by Yisrael Yitzhak Hasida. Rav Hai was the last of the Babylonian Gaonim, who for […]
Rosh Hashana with the Army of Israel (In the War of Liberation)
In the beginning of the autumn of 1948, much of the land which constituted the pre-Six Day War Jewish State was still in Arab hands. Part of Upper Galilee was […]
Different Versions of the Avodah
New Volume by Lev Sameah Institute The latest publication of the Lev Sameah Institute of Jerusalem – in time for the High Holidays – is a volume featuring a new […]
R. Moshe Chayim Luzatto’s Machzor
Passover was only a few weeks away. Jerusalemites were cleaning their homes for the festival. outside the houses, books which the owners wanted to dispose of, were piling up to […]
English Translation of Maimonides ‘Hilkhot Shabbat’
Moznaim Publishers of Jerusalem which, in the last few years, published various parts of Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah in English translation recently published an additional volume – the 16th in the […]
The Custom of Eating Latkes on Hanukkah
Rabbi Moshe Isserles mentions in the Shulhan Arukh, Orah Hayyim (670/2) the custom of eating cheese on Hanukkah and states the reason. This custom is already mentioned — as indicated […]
The Story of a Good Vort
Several years ago, on the occasion of Purim, I cited in this column a story from Rabbi Paysach J. Krohn’s , The Maggid Speaks, that is often related by Rabbi […]
A. Surasky’s New Book on “Pirkei Avot”
The reading of Pirkei Avot on Sabbath is an old custom. It goes back to the period of the Geonim and may even predate it. The custom varies in different […]
A Reproduction of a Rare Warsaw Haggadah
For years now, the New York Office of the Diskin Orphan Home of Israel- the country’s best known educational institution for orphans, children from broken homes and poor families, as […]