Philologos
By Philologos
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News Upping Yor Ante
This being the week of Rosh Hashana, I took advantage of the occasion to ask the Israeli scholar Shmuel Gelbart, an expert on Jewish custom and Yiddish usage, a question that has been bothering me. Why is Yiddish the only language in the world whose speakers make a practice of wishing each other a good…
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News Rav, Rebbe, Rabbi
M r. Rosenberg writes from Kansas City: “A group of us were discussing the derivation of the word ‘rabbi.’ We know what it means, obviously, and are aware of its various permutations — rov, reb, rebbe, rebenyu. But what is the root meaning of the word?” The root meaning of the Hebrew word rav, “rabbi,”…
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News The Buzaglo Test
As scandal swirls around the office of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, and some political commentators wonder why he isn’t held more strictly to accounts while others protest that he has been tarnished unfairly, almost everyone in Israel agrees that he should be subject to the Buzaglo Test. The Buzaglo Test, the conventional wisdom holds, needs…
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News Also Known As…
‘Bombay — Forty-five people were killed and at least 135 were wounded Monday by the explosion of two bombs placed in a pair of taxis in the heart of India’s commercial capital, the police said.” That’s from a front-page New York Times report on August 26. Further on we are told: “At the scene of…
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News What Would Jesus Speak?
Probably no film in history has been written about as much before its public debut as Mel Gibson’s new movie about the last days of Jesus. Many of the critics and scholars who have seen it screened in advance have accused it of both antisemitism and historical ignorance — an ignorance all the more appalling…
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News Feminine Fasting
The story is told of the newly religious Israeli who informs his boss that he isn’t coming to work the next day because it’s “Tesha be’Av.” The correct Hebrew name of the fast day, commemorating the destruction of the First and Second Temples, that was observed by many Jews this week is of course Tish’a…
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News A Nude Who Inspired Modesty
‘Adam Abu-Diyab is breathing hard through his mouth as he wheels his adult-size tricycle up Me’ah She’arim’s main drag,” writes correspondent Mitchell Ginsburg in the July 14 Jerusalem Report. “His bike is ancient and his trailer is weighted with the tools of his trade. There’s a broom, a roller, a bucket of glue and a…
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News Fish on…Thursday?
Merle Spiegel writes: I have been wondering about the custom in traditional Jewish homes of having dairy dinners or suppers on Mondays and Thursdays. Other things have to do with Mondays and Thursdays too, such as the weekly reading of the Torah in the synagogue on those days, the Yiddish phrase yeder montik un donershtik…
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