YU News

Books and manuscripts in the library hide images of Purim, the holiday of Queen Esther, who had to mask her identity. In honor of Purim, the library reveals buried pictures to the reveler. Happy Purim! Posted by Shulamith Z. Berger

Financial problems at the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (RIETS)? Conflict at the Rabbi Jacob Joseph School? Hillul Shabbat in the kosher chicken slaughter houses? These issues come to life in the Mendel Gottesman Library’s recent acquisition, a ledger of the Vaad HaRabanim of New York,…

Jewish Ethics in a Post-Madoff World: a Case for Optimism, by Moses Pava. Palgrave, Macmillan, 2011. Prof. Moses Pava's latest book brings a new, sophisticated perspective to the problem of ethical living. Recent headlines about misdeeds within the Jewish community have brought this critical issue…

Spies and Holy Wars: The Middle East in 20th Century Crime Fiction, by Reeva Spector Simon. University of Texas Press, 2010. Terrorist or sheik? In her new book, Reeva Spector Simon—Professor of History, Yeshiva University--shows how the Middle Eastern villain evolved from malleable victim before…

War No More: The Antiwar Impulse in American Literature, 1861-1914, by Cynthia Wachtell. Louisiana State University Press, 2010 Long before the twentieth century, the meaning of the battlefield was questioned. Exploring the span of American literature between the Civil War and World War I, Cynthia…

Two new research guides that focus on Jewish Studies were recently published by YU librarians. In “Finding an article for Jewish Studies,” Moshe Schapiro explains how to use the catalog and databases to identify articles on a Jewish Studies topic and how to find the texts of the articles. Zvi…

Opening the Gates of Interpretation: Maimonides’ Biblical Hermeneutics in Light of His Geonic-Andlusian Heritage and Muslim Milieu, by Mordechai Z. Cohen. Brill, 2011. Prof. Mordechai Cohen's study of Maimonides' method of biblical interpretation has at its heart an exacting analysis of each…

Beyond Expulsion : Jews, Christians, and Reformation Strasbourg, by Debra Kaplan. Stanford University Press, 2011. This book represents a study of the Jewish influence in Strasbourg in the Middle Ages and the early modern era. All Jews were expelled from Strasbourg in 1390, and were only readmitted…

The marriage of twenty-first century technology, the Israel Museum, Google, and philanthropist George Blumenthal has enabled access to the two thousand year old Dead Sea Scrolls to anyone with an internet connection. Five of the scrolls are currently available at http://dss.collections.imj.org.il…

From Aharon Appelfeld to Natan Zach, Jewish Fiction.Net , the latest addition to YU’s e-journal collections, offers an A to Z of contemporary Jewish writers. Now in its fifth issue, this quarterly is dedicated to Jewish fiction published in the English language. Novel, short story, poem, novella ...