Jewish Studies Publishing News

Ephraim Deinard (1846-1930) Online
Advisor: Brad Sabin Hill

The Hebrew publications of Ephraim Deinard comprise a treasure-trove of historical and bibliographic material relating to Russian, Palestinian, and American Jewish history, Crimean and Karaite studies, anti-Hasidic polemic, modern Hebrew literature, and antiquarian Hebrew booklore.

Scattered in libraries around the world, these works - some of which are excessively rare - are all made accessible in this unique collection. The Deinard collection reproduced here, drawn from one of the oldest and largest Hebrew academic libraries in the world the Library of the Hebrew Union College- Jewish Institute of Religion (with a few additional rarities from the Seminary, YIVO, and the private Valmadonna Trust), includes books, pamphlets, journalistic pieces, and other ephemera from his press. To these have been added the detailed biographical dissertation by S. Berkowitz and some other studies on this unique literary figure - one of the most colorful characters in the history of Hebrew scholarship in America.

For a free 30-day institutional trial, please contact sales-nl [at] brill [dot] com for customers
outside the Americas, or sales-us [at] brill [dot] com for customers in the Americas.

Featured Series

Subseries Karaite Text and Studies in the News
Daniel Lasker recently published a review highlighting the growth in Karaite studies in the Journal of Jewish Studies (login required). Find out more about Brill's publications on Karaism below and join us at our booth at the AJS conference in Chicago to browse the books.

Considered for centuries a revisionist faith, Karaite Judaism emerged in the 9th century challenging the traditions of oral rabbinic law and prioritizing the text of the Hebrew Bible as the exclusive source of Jewish Religion.  Largely neglected in scholarship, in part because of its dissident tenets, emerging Karaism scholarship, draws from newly available testimony of its extensive written remains. Brill’s series Karaite Texts and Studies, edited by Meira Polliack and Michael G. Wechsler, presents prominent scholarship in this field including the seminal Bibliographia Karaitica by Barry Dov Walfish with Mikhail Kizilov. In a review of recent Karaite scholarship in the Journal of Jewish Studies, Daniel Lasker, has noted that the Bibliographia is “a major catalyst for the future growth of Karaite Studies” and “a monumental work”. If you have access to the Journal of Jewish Studies you may find the review here.

Walfish’s volumes is accompanied in Karaite Texts and Studies by James T. Robinson’s Asceticism, Eschatology, Opposition to Philosophy,  Joachim J.M.S. Yeshaya’s Medieval Hebrew Poetry in Muslim Egypt, Marzena Zawanowska’s The Arabic Translation and Commentary of Yefet ben ‘Eli the Karaite on the Abraham Narratives (Genesis 11:10-25:18) and Michael Wechsler’s The Arabic Translation and Commentary of Yefet ben 'Eli the Karaite on the Book of Esther. Brill has also published works in other series including Nadia Vidro’s Verbal Morphology in the Karaite Treatise on Hebrew Grammar Kitāb al-‘uqūd fī tașārīf al-luġa al-‘ ibrāniyya and Daniel Lasker’s volume From Judah Hadassi to Elijah Bashyatchi: Studies in Late Medieval Karaite Philosophy found in the Supplements to the Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy series. Please visit our booth at the upcoming American Jewish Society conference to learn more about these and other titles. All of these volumes will be offered at a 25% discount until the end of 2012.

The latest title in Brill's Karaite Text and Studies Series :
Asceticism, Eschatology, Opposition to Philosophy
The Arabic Translation and Commentary of Salmon ben Yeroham on Qohelet (Ecclesiastes). Karaite Texts and Studies Volume 5

James T. Robinson, The University of Chicago, The Divinity School

•  August 2012
• ISBN 978 90 04 19134 1
• Hardback (vi, 648 pp.)
• List price EUR 215.- / US$ 299.-

Salmon b. Yeroham (fl. 930-960) – foundational figure in the Jerusalem school of Karaite exegesis – produced a substantial and influential corpus of polemical writing and biblical interpretation, including commentaries on Psalms, Proverbs, Job, Song of Songs, Lamentations, Qohelet, Esther, Ruth, and Daniel. Asceticism, Eschatology, Opposition to Philosophy: The Arabic Translation and Commentary of Salmon ben Yeroham on Qohelet (Ecclesiastes) presents a first critical edition of the Judaeo-Arabic Qohelet commentary together with an annotated English translation. The introduction situates … read moreSalmon’s work in the history of Jewish Qohelet exegesis, explains Salmon’s method of translating Qohelet into Arabic, identifies his sources and discusses his method of interpretation. The main themes Salmon finds in “Solomon’s” book of wisdom – central themes in the early Karaite movement in general – will be explored at length, especially asceticism, eschatology, and an uncompromising opposition to reading “foreign books.”