The Seforim Blog – All about Seforim – New and Old, and Jewish Bibliography

Lecture at Young Israel Beth El of Borough Park featuring Rabbi Dr. Eliezer Brodt

February 3, 2026 admin Comments 2 comments

Lecture at Young Israel Beth El of Borough Park featuring Rabbi Dr. Eliezer Brodt The event details are: Topic: “The Vilna Gaon in Fact and Fiction: Kol HaTor and Beyond.” Date: Wednesday, February 4. Time: 8:00 PM (doors open at 7:30 PM). Location: Downstairs in the social hall, 4802 15th Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11219. Entry: Men use the front door; women use the rear door. Program: Lecture followed by Maariv. Contact: 718-435-9020 | yibethel.org. (sign up for future events)

Saul Lieberman and his Ketubah, Driving on Shabbat, an Unusual Marriage Practice, Girls born on Friday, and More

January 28, 2026 admin Comments 30 comments

Saul Lieberman and his Ketubah, Driving on Shabbat, an Unusual Marriage Practice, Girls born on Friday, and More Marc B. Shapiro For a long time, I have had an interest in Saul Lieberman. It has been almost twenty years since my book Saul Lieberman and the Orthodox appeared.[1] I have also dealt with Lieberman in many Seforim Blog posts. A few years ago, I did a series of eighteen classes on Lieberman on Torah in Motion. You can watch the classes on…

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Tracing the “Footsteps of the Messiah”: From Li-Nevukhei ha-Dor to Maamrei ha-Rayah

January 25, 2026 admin Comments 3 comments

Tracing the “Footsteps of the Messiah”: From Li-Nevukhei ha-Dor to Maamrei ha-Rayah Aryeh Sklar Longtime readers of Seforim Blog probably remember the leak in 2010 of Rav Kook’s Li-Nevukhei ha-Dor (“For the Perplexed of the Generation”) onto the internet,[1] and the publication of a censored version by Makhon ha-Rav Zvi Yehuda shortly thereafter.[2] This was a previously unseen work of Rav Kook, written during his time as a communal rabbi in Boisk, Latvia, around 1903-1904. It contains a fairly clear…

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A New Halakhic Compendium of Jewish Belief

January 23, 2026 admin Comments 10 comments

A New Halakhic Compendium of Jewish Belief Y. Tzvi Langermann Professor Y. Tzvi Langermann is Professor Emeritus of Arabic at Bar Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel. He has published widely on science, religion, and philosophy in medieval Jewish and Islamic cultures. Over the past thirty-plus years Rabbi Eliezer Melammed (b. 1961) has been issuing volumes of up-to-date rulings on halakhah. The series, called Peninei Halakha (“Pearls of Halakhah”) is very popular; on sale in most Israeli bookstores, it is…

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Sixty Years Since Rabbi Dr. Yechiel Yacov Weinberg, the Seridei Eish: A Fire the World Still Needs

January 21, 2026 admin Comments 8 comments

Sixty Years Since Rabbi Dr. Yechiel Yacov Weinberg, the Seridei Eish: A Fire the World Still Needs By Jacques (Yacov) R. Rothschild This week marks sixty years since the passing of Rabbi Dr. Yechiel Yacov Weinberg, the Seridei Eish. He left this world on the 4th of Shevat in 1966, well before I was born, yet his presence has never felt distant to me – because it lived, vividly and lovingly, in my mother’s voice. “Shema b’ni musar avicha, v’al…

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Book Review: ‘After Revelation: The Rabbinic Past in the Medieval Islamic World’, by Marc D. Herman

January 13, 2026 admin Comments 1 comment

Review of ‘After Revelation: The Rabbinic Past in the Medieval Islamic World’, by Marc D. Herman Reviewed by Eliyahu Krakowski Dr. Marc Herman’s After Revelation: The Rabbinic Past in the Medieval Islamic World (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2025) examines shifting conceptions of Torah she-beʿal peh within the Judeo-Islamic world from the geonic period through the time of Maimonides.[1] Beginning with Rav Saadya Gaon and concluding with the Rambam, Herman traces a gradual reorientation away from the geonic understanding of…

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