YU News

In 1905, the 250 th anniversary of Jewish settlement in New Amsterdam was commemorated on the Sabbath before Thanksgiving. A committee on “Form of Prayer,” led by Reverend Dr. Henry Pereira Mendes, was tasked with creating a service for the occasion. The choice of Mendes was appropriate, and…

Sefer Yismah Lev, by Shmuel Yosef Maybruch. Machon Be'er HaTorah, 2014. Sefer Yismah Lev on tractate Hulin and related issues in Shulhan Arukh Yoreh De'ah is the first published work by Rabbi Shmuel Maybruch, lecturer in the Stone Beit Midrash Program at Yeshiva University. Topics include ritual ...

For many decades prior to our digital era, printed bulletins were the key means used by synagogues to communicate with their memberships and through which these institutions represented themselves to their broader communities. The bulletins regularly featured minutes of synagogue meetings,…

Rabbi Dr. Chaim Heller As we begin a new cycle of Torah reading, discussion of various ways to study Tanakh is fitting. Rabbi Dr. Bernard Revel, the visionary Rosh Yeshiva of RIETS and President of Yeshiva College, expressed his views on Bible criticism in a letter dated April 10, 1929. Never one…

Blow the Shofars of Freedom SSSJ September 1980 In September 1980 the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry (SSSJ) called for a massive symbolic shofar blowing ceremony at the Soviet UN Mission. SSSJ sent letters to rabbis immediately before Rosh Hashanah, urging them to encourage congregants to join…

From Within the Tent : the Weekday Prayers (Mitokh Ha-Ohel: tefilot khol) : Essays by the Rabbis & Professors of Yeshiva University. The Michael Scharf Publication Trust of Yeshiva University Press; Maggid Books, 2014. Mitokh Ha-Ohel includes contributions from members of the faculty and ...

Commentator - September 22, 1954 We extend a warm welcome to all of our new and returning students. The library is here to help, so please don’t forget to Ask-the-Library. http://www.yu.edu/Libraries/Ask-the-Library/ In September 1954, sixty years ago, Stern College greeted its first freshman class…

This woodcut is from a Yiddish Minhagim book (book of customs) published in Amsterdam in 1723 by Herts Levi Rofe. It depicts prayers in the synagogue on the fast of Tish’ah be-Av (9 th day of Av), the day of mourning for the destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem. Note the flames…

The Tragedy of a Generation : the Rise and Fall of Jewish Nationalism in Eastern Europe, by Joshua M. Karlip. Harvard University Press, 2013. This book explores a serious attempt at an alternate, non-religious expression of Jewish identity that took place in the last 150 years. Today the chief…

May 1958 was a month of “firsts” at four-year-old Stern College. The inaugural issue of the First Step, the College’s fledgling journalistic endeavor, was published. The paper reported on Stern’s first graduating class of twenty-six students, Eleanor Roosevelt’s “Stern College Month” fireside chat…