Issac Israeli, a medieval Jewish scholar of astronomy, completed his major work, Yesod 'Olam, in Toledo, 1309/10 ce. The work has survived in over 50 manuscripts, with great textual variety, including intentional change. I discern two types of intentional change: (1) 'proactive', in which the motive for change is to improve the text; and (2) 'reactive', in which the motive for change is to cope with textual variants (caused by proactive changes). Preliminary to a stemma, I posit the following versions produced by proactive change: Version 1 - Alternate, with select sections substantially rewritten and streamlined; Version 2, regularly substituting streamlined current expression for Version 1's more classical expression; Version 4, rephrasing to make the work more accessible to beginners, in addition to reactively mediating between Versions (1) and (2); and Version 3, attested in Ashkenaz, elucidating and intellectually contextualizing the received text.
This article revisits the appearance and architectural identity of the Temple of Onias, challenging the assumption that it replicated the Jerusalem Temple. The temple's history, preserved mainly in Josephus' contradictory accounts, is obscured by textual inconsistencies and the absence of archaeological evidence. While Josephus alternately claims the Oniad sanctuary resembled and diverged from Jerusalem's, this study argues that such contradictions reflect his reliance on multiple sources and his later ideological commitment to a 'one-Temple' theology privileging Jerusalem. Moving beyond the textual impasse, the article reconsiders Josephus' remark that Onias built on the ruins of an Egyptian shrine dedicated to the feline deity Bastet, proposing that the temple was a 'recycled' sacred space shaped by local architectural traditions, including so-called Egyptian tower houses. Comparative analysis with Ptolemaic temples, especially Hathor's sanctuary at Deir el-Medina, underscores parallels in layout and construction, situating Onias' temple within broader Ptolemaic religious and military strategies.
This article explores the possibility that Menelaus, the Jewish high priest, was not of Aaronic descent. While in 2 Macc. 3:4-6 Simon, Menelaus' brother, is described as being 'from the tribe of Benjamin', most scholars, relying on a few versions of the Old Latin, argue that it should instead be translated as 'from the priestly clan of Bilgah'. And yet a careful examination of the surviving versions of the Old Latin reveals that 'Bilgah' appears to be an interpretive modification aimed at justifying how a non-Aaronite could become high priest. Moreover, the Greek term phyl & ecirc; cannot denote a priestly division. Furthermore, the assumption that Simon was appointed as an overseer of the Temple does not necessarily indicate that he was a priest. Additional passages from 1 Maccabees and the Testament of Moses may also be interpreted as supporting the argument that Menelaus was not of Aaronic descent.
Known as the 'Kyivan letter', Cambridge University Library T-S 12.122 was first published more than 40 years ago by Norman Golb and Omeljan Pritsak, who identified it as a letter of introduction written by Jewish Khazars in tenth-century Kyiv. Their identification was based on the presence of Turkic runes at the base of the letter, Turkic names among the signatories, and their reconstruction of its historical background. In the decades since that publication, many of these details have been contested, but the document continues to be cited as a Khazarian artefact. The current article re-examines the original Hebrew text of the letter, offering a new edition and translation, and analyses the names of its signatories and its potential historical background. We demonstrate that, while a Khazarian connection is possible, the dominant landscape of the letter, and of the Jews whose names appear in it, is Slavic rather than Turkic.
This article presents a rare mukhtar (head of community) book written in Hebrew in the spring of 1917, preserved today in the Israel State Archives in Jerusalem. It was written most probably by the head or the managing committee of the colony of Rishon le-Zion near Jaffa in central Ottoman Palestine, anticipating possible evacuation orders by the Ottoman authorities. The circumstances and context prompting the writing of this register, its nature and rarity, colony demographics, and the gaps in the data are analysed and compared to other demographic sources dealing with Rishon le-Zion at the time, in particular a census carried out by the Palestine Office of the Zionist movement. The discussion centres on the overt and covert divisions among the colonists, as manifested in the population register, and points to the ways in which examining such registers can lead to broader conclusions about the Yishuv's characteristics at the time.
This article presents 15 passages from Hezekiah ben Manoah's Commentary on the Torah, arguing that they can be sourced to Joseph Kara's lost commentary on the Torah. The identification of their origin in Kara is based on their invocation of a literary principle common in Kara's commentary, the principle of anticipation, and on usages that are unique to Kara: (sic) and (sic). These glosses do not appear in extant northern French commentaries such as those of Rashbam, Joseph Bekhor Shor and others, leading to the conclusion that their source was Kara's lost commentary. The article's findings may serve as a basis for a broader study that will examine other literary principles and unique linguistic forms found in Kara, using them to identify additional sections of his lost commentary.
This article explores the depiction of Jews in the works of Yeva Biss, a Slovak-born writer of prose fiction who wrote in Ukrainian. Nearly half of her literary output addresses Jewish themes, reflecting the historical and cultural proximity between Ruthenian-Ukrainian and Jewish communities in ethnically diverse regions such as modern-day Ukraine and Eastern Slovakia. Drawing on imagology, the study examines how Biss portrays the Other within a shared geographical, linguistic and economic space. Biss's decision to write about Jews, despite their absence from her contemporary environment, is significant. Although she was not of Jewish descent, her empathy for persecuted groups likely stemmed from her own experiences of repression due to her ties with Ukrainian nationalism. Through nine selected texts, the article investigates how Biss critiques violence and inhumanity while contributing to the representation of the Shoah in Slovakia. Her work navigates the multifaceted roles of victims, perpetrators and bystanders in a culturally diverse and historically complex region.
