“Also, one will beautify [Shabbat candle lighting] when the wick is made from cotton, flax or cannabis…” That’s right, cannabis. This dictate, found in the Shulchan Aruch (Code of Jewish Law), piqued the curiosity of Boston geriatrician Yosef Glassman when he was reading about Sabbath rituals on a religious quest nearly two decades ago. The…
It’s written in stone, but still not everyone believes it. There are still those who maintain that the Aramaic inscription on a First Century limestone ossuary that says, “James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus” is a forgery. Nonetheless, the Israeli courts determined that the inscription could very well be authentic, and that the bone…
Sometimes stories are so ingrained in us, so much a part of our culture, that we take them for granted. In these instances, artists become particularly valuable, revisiting and reinterpreting stories for us, giving them new life. In “As Subject and Object: Contemporary Book Artists Explore Sacred Hebrew Texts,” which runs through September 29 at…
I refuse to teach my 2-year-old daughter the story, in Genesis chapter 24-25, where the commentary Rashi describes 3-year-old Rivka marrying 40-year-old Yitzchak. The book “Kind Little Rivka,” which also chronicles the story of this underage marriage, is no longer on her bookshelf. I recently purchased the book on Amazon after a quick review of…
The relationship between dogs and Jews has been a fraught and complicated one. Though dogs fared poorly in the Hebrew Bible, of late, they have been honored as family pets and even granted “bark mitzvahs.” In order to better understand the history of the People of Canaan and their changing attitudes towards the Beasts of…
A Bible signed by Albert Einstein sold for $68,500 at an auction in New York City. The Bible was part of a fine books and manuscripts auction at Bonhams on Tuesday, the Associated Press reported. The Bible’s final price far exceeds its pre-sale estimate of between $1,500 and $2,500. The German-born, Nobel Prize-winning physicist and…
With the help of new technology, three experts in ancient Hebrew have been able to discern a different reading of the passage from a fragment of one of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Prof. Elisha Qimron had been working on the final stages of the second volume of the new edition of the Hebrew writings of…
The renowned Hungarian Jewish biblical scholar Geza Vermes, who died of cancer May 8 at age 88, disproved the old canard “You can’t go home again,” at least when it comes to Judaism. Born in the town of Makó in southeastern Hungary in 1924, Vermes was 7 when his family converted to Catholicism in what…
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