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Our Horizontal Society

Ruth Declares her Loyalty to Naomi
Culture, Philosophy, Tora

Border Crossings: A Tale of Two Converts

The Tora enjoins the Israelites upon their entrance into the Land of Israel to love the stranger—36 times. Moses gives the people a historical context to this commandment, he reminds them to love or in some instances to not oppress the stranger “for you were a stranger in the land of Egypt.” This thread of…

May 25, 2020Continue to read
Books & Media, Culture, Ḥakhamim, World

Maimonides and the Merchants

The advent of Islam in the seventh century brought profound changes to the Middle East and to the Jews living there. The unification through Islamic conquest of the formerly warring great empires of Christian Byzantium and Zoroastrian Persia opened up vast territories for long-distance exchange of goods within a single realm. For Jews, the predominantly…

March 3, 2019Continue to read
Culture, Halakha

Two Shamoshim: The Spanish Personalization of Ḥanukka in Post-Expulsion Aleppo

For many Jews across the world, a central element of Ḥanukka is the kindling of fire throughout the eight nights of the holiday. While many of us—Sephardic and Ashkenazic alike—are familiar with the method of lighting taught by Hillel, one Sephardic community explicitly deviates from this widespread custom. For Spanish Jews who arrived in Aleppo…

December 2, 2018Continue to read
Ḥakhamim

The Rabbi and the Sheikh

Within Jewish tradition there are sources that express not just tolerance toward aspects of Muslim religiosity, but intellectual and religious respect and admiration. It is important to become acquainted with these sources, and to consider their implications. Here I consider one such source, found in the writings of R. Yiṣḥaq Farḥi of Jerusalem (1782-1853). R….

May 6, 2018Continue to read
Tora

Home is Where the Heart is

There is an interesting relationship between the Qorban Pesaḥ (pascal sacrifice) and the Bayiṯ (house) in the Tora. Among the laws regarding qorban pesaḥ, we find that there must be one lamb per bayiṯ, the Israelites must mark their battim (houses) with the lamb’s blood, the lamb must be eaten in the bayiṯ, and it…

March 29, 2018Continue to read
Perasha

Peacefood for Thought

Pesaḥ is around the corner and one of the sections of the Haggaḏa is ‘Moṣi Maṣa’ (lit. taking out [the] maṣa [to be eaten]). The great Moroccan ḥakham Yoseph Messas homiletically interprets this phrase by playing on the double meaning of maṣa. Maṣa, to most people, means the unleavened bread normally eaten on Pesaḥ, but maṣa…

March 23, 2018Continue to read

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Recent Posts

Ruth Declares her Loyalty to Naomi

Border Crossings: A Tale of Two Converts

May 25, 2020

Pissarro two women chatting

Sephardism in Caribbean Literature

March 29, 2020

The Alliance Israélite Universelle School in Tangier, Morocco, Diarna Geo-Museum/ Alliance Israélite Universelle archives

A View From Tangier: Inner Dynamics of Moroccan Jewish Modernity

February 16, 2020

The Centrality of Slavery: Jews in the Atlantic World

November 17, 2019

Embracing Rather Than Erasing: Shifting Attitudes of European Jewry

November 9, 2019

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