This may seem odd, but a surprisingly large chunk of the Western World believed we wouldn’t get to see 2013, purely because that’s what the Mayans thought. Most of these people never did anything else that Mayans did — never ate human flesh, for example, or at least never offered to pay for it. So…
● Charity: The Place of the Poor in the Biblical Tradition by Gary A. Anderson Yale University Press, 232 pages, $30 Charity, as an old joke puts it, sometimes does begin at home, but it always begins with an annoying phone call. But Jews, with their high rates of charitable giving, have often been eager…
● A Guide for the Perplexed By Dara Horn W. W. Norton & Company, 352 pages, $25.95 In Dara Horn’s first novel, “In the Image,” published in 2002, Rosenthal, an elderly Jewish immigrant, tells young Jason about crossing the Atlantic in steerage. When the ship finally approached the Statue of Liberty, passengers were so eager…
John Zorn’s East Village apartment is like his music: an exceptionally-concentrated, perfectl- composed space celebrating the artistic experience. Thousands of records and tapes and CDs and books, well-ordered, each tug at the visitor’s elbow for attention. For many years, John Zorn — composer, performer, arranger, independent music distributor — has been a major voice in…
Under Jewish law one must protect oneself by injuring, instead of killing, a potential assailant, unless killing is the only option. One is also required to avoid any situation in which one’s life may be placed in danger. If George Zimmerman had abided by these simple principles, he should have chosen to avoid conflict and…
In last week’s column, I argued, in discussing the Hebrew word sefirah, that the kabbalistic doctrine of the 10 sefirot or emanations of the divinity was not a result of Christian influence. This week, going from the cosmic to the strictly linguistic, I’ve been led to the conclusion that a well-known rabbinical expression definitely was…
What is being described as the oldest Torah scroll known to exist has been discovered in the library of the University of Bologna. The parchment scroll, 36 meters long and 64 cm high, previously had been wrongly catalogued as dating from the 17th century, a university statement said. “Instead, ‘Roll 2′ was copied in a…
A rare handwritten copy of the Mishneh Torah by Maimonides has been jointly acquired by the Israel Museum, Jerusalem and the Metropolitan Museum in New York. The manuscript was purchased from the collection of Judy and Michael Steinhardt, according to a statement put out by both parties. “The Mishneh Torah is a rare treasure that…
