Tag Archives: talmud-midrash

(Doubts) Ashkenaz & Philosophy

Posted on March 25, 2019 by

Continuing to go out on a limb and meant to pick up a challenge posed by colleague-friends about the need for Modern Jewish Studies and Jewish Philosophy and Thought to take into account the life and thought world of Eastern … Continue reading →

Posted in uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

(Rabbinic Fantasy & The Land of Israel) Tractate Ketubot Is More Complex Than Zionism or Anti-Zionism

Posted on February 4, 2019 by

The concluding mishna and gemara of tractate Ketubot is a locus classicus of Haredi anti-Zionism and an even more interesting textual unit in its own right. It is most famous for the almost mythic posing of three primary vows in … Continue reading →

Posted in uncategorized | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Virtual Judaism of the Mishnah (Jacob Neusner & Gilles Deleuze)

Posted on July 13, 2018 by

Reading Neusner’s classic Judaism: The Evidence of the Mishnah at long last and past midcareer. I am unsure if earlier I would have ever appreciated the book enough or at all or I would have been able to conceive the … Continue reading →

Posted in uncategorized | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Deleuze Talmud Notes

Posted on July 12, 2018 by

  I think it holds up, this little exercise in transposing Deleuzian concepts into a theory of philosophical Talmud: Talmud of Difference and Repetition Talmud would constitute repetition of Torah, and like repetition assumes the status of echo, doubles, or … Continue reading →

Posted in uncategorized | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Embryos & Animals in the Mishnah (Rachel Neis)

Posted on May 9, 2018 by

(R. R. Neis, Embryotics for Beginners, 2015, mixed media on paper, 12″x18″) Jewish Studies can use a lot more theory, but theories, especially new ones, are only as good as they work. They need to be tested on stuff. Do theories … Continue reading →

Posted in uncategorized | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Narrative Powers of Women & Failure of Cultural Translations (Galit Hasan-Rokem at Syracuse) (April 11)

Posted on April 4, 2018 by

Honored to announce this year’s annual B.G. Rudolph Lecture sponsored by the Jewish Studies Program at Syracuse University.

Posted in uncategorized | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Affect, Sentiment & Other Aspects of Rabbinic Theology (Solomon Schechter)

Posted on December 27, 2017 by

Somewhere in the San Francisco Bay Area, I must have bought the handsome 1961 paperback edition of Solomon Schechter’s 1909 Aspects of Rabbinic Theology from a used book shop when I was in graduate school. It then sat on my … Continue reading →

Posted in uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments