Date: Wed, 1 Mar, 1989 19:30 IST From: Yechiel Greenbaum Subject: Sixth issue of newsletter To: 8 Mar 89 JUDAIC STUDIES #6 1 AdarII 49 BS"D Connecting geographically & otherwise disparate groups with a common interest in the study of Judaica. Edited by Y. Greenbaum CONTENTS 1) Events 2) New Publication 3) Compact Disk 4) More on Hebrew 1) Events 12-18 Mar The 14th Jerusalem International Book Fair For the sum of 10 NIS (if memory serves), anyone in the vicinity of the Binyanei HaUma can take advantage of a high concentration of publishers (including many Israeli academic ones) offering their latest lists of publications and prices (sometimes also planned items) and displaying samples. The hours are: Sunday 19:00-22:30 Mon-Thurs 9:00-22:30 Friday 9:00-14:00 Saturday 19:30-23:00 If, for some reason, you can't get here, perhaps you can obtain the special section of today's Ha'Aretz which is devoted to books, and in which many of the participants advertise (I'll try to watch for similar manifestations in other places). 28 Mar Clive & Anthony Bak Auditorium, in the Boruch & Ruth Rappaport JS Faculty Buiding Jewish History Dept/Faculty of JS/Fund for the Study of Berlin Jewry Annual Congress of the Jewish History Dept Bar Ilan University German Jewry in the Middle Ages and the Modern Era This congress is held in honor of Prof. Mordechai Breuer upon his retirement from teaching Program: 9:30 Greetings Session 1 Chair: Prof. Eric Zimmer Opening Address: Mordechai Breuer's Contribution to Scholarship 10:00-12:00 Prof. Avraham Grossman (Hebrew U) The Relationship between the Character of German Yeshivos and Spiritual Creativity in the 11-12 Centuries Prof. Simon Shwarzfuchs (Bar Ilan U) Chief Rabbi in France and in Germany: R. Yohanan Treves Dr. Schlomo Spitzer (Bar Ilan U) Sefer HaMinhagim shel HaMaharI"L 13:30-15:30 Session 2 Chair: Prof. (Walter) Zwi Bacharach (Chairman, General Hist Dept, BIU) Dr. Israel Yuval (Hebrew U) The Jewish Stance wrt the Hussite Rebellion in Bohemia Mrs. Chava Fraenkel (Jerusalem) German Jews in the 16th Century in the Face of the Controversy concerning the Problem of Interest Dr. Meir Hildesheimer (Bar Ilan U) "...and do not involve yourselves in the writings of Moses [Mendelssohn] of Dessau"- Indeed? (The Image of the Ch'sam [Moses] Sofer in the Eyes of R. Akiva Yosef Schlesinger) Dr. Yaakov Tsur (Bar Ilan U) The Adath Jeshurun Congregation in Frankfort and the Adath Israel Congregation in Berlin- the Similarities and the Differences 16:00-17:15 Orthodoxy in Various European Countries in the Era of Emancipation Symposium Moderator: Prof. Jacob Katz (Hebrew U) Participants: Prof. Joseph Salmon (Ben Gurion U) Dr. Michael Silver (Hebrew U) Dr. Chaim (Jay) Berkovitz (U of Mass) Closing Address: Prof Mordechai Breuer 2) New Publication From: F68399@BARILAN.BITNET Date: Sun, 5 Mar 89 10:49 Your readers may be interested in knowing that the first issue of HIGAYON: Studies in Rabbinic Logic is set to appear. The articles deal with logical and probabilistic issues in the talmud. But beware! All but one of the articles are in Hebrew and the style is definitely more lomdish (if you can translate that, be my guest) than academic. It can be gotten straight from the editors (ie ely merzbach and me) at a discount- 10 bucks outside Israel, 10 shekalim in Israel. (There's got to be some advantage to living here.) Add appropriate postage if you want it sent air-mail. [Checks should be made to the Dept of Mathematics, Bar Ilan University, and sent to me at that address, Ramat Gan 52100 Israel.] -Moish Koppel Yechiel attempts- The word "lomdish" has reference to a system of thought based on talmudic logical terminology as elaborated by East European Talmudists during the last few centuries. The present work, as I understand it, is an attempt to both elucidate its current structure and continue the process in the modern idiom. (I might point out here that I have been long threatening to send Moish a list of useful sources which have bearing on the field, and continually failing to do so. This he has overlooked, and instead sent me notice of the present publication, part of which originated as a series of lectures begun a while ago here in Jerusalem.) 3) Compact Disk Moving right along, we turn our attention from new hardcopy to a new cdrom. Date: Sun, 5 Mar 89 16:20:50 PST From: well!ari@lll-winken.llnl.gov (Ari Davidow) ELLIS ENTERPRISES, inc proudly announces The Bible Library (tm). EEI, publishers in CDROM Desktop Databases is currently offering The Bible Library (tm). The Bible Library (tm) is a collection of 31 books (10 Bibles & 21 reference books fully integrated with the equivalent of 60 word and phrase concordances.) The Bible Library (tm) contains the only "Romanized Bible", a Bible where the English letters are substituted for Hebrew and Greek letters. Thus, making the study of the original Bible languages easy for anyone. The New Morris Literal Translation provides quick and simple understanding of Bible Words. Now you can pronounce those words from the original Hebrew and Greek language, without taking a course in either language. The Bible Library (tm) is the most important breakthrough in Bible study since the first Bible came off the Gutenberg press. Now time can be utilized in Bible study, instead of wasted in manually searching for verses and references. The Bible Library (tm) does it for you! The Bible Library (tm) contains: 10 Bibles The American Standard Version The Living Bible The Literal English Translation * The King James Version The New International Version The New King James Version The Original Hebrew and Greek Bible * The Revised Standard Version The Romanized Hebrew and Greek Bible * The Simple English New Testament * Not in print, only available on The Bible Library (tm) Also interfaced into all of the above Bibles, is the following: Bible Language Dictionaries Strong's Greek Dictionary Strong's Hebrew Dictionary Word Studies Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words (1) see Vine's Expository Dictionary of Old Testament Words (1) notes Harris's Theological wordbook of the Old Testament (1) (2 Volumes) Commentaries Open Bible Commentaries (1) Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1) Gray's Home Bible Study Commentary (1) Dictionaries and References Elwell, Envagelical Dictionary of Thelogy (1) Easton, Bible Dictionary (1) Edersheim, Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah (2 Volumes) (1) Scripture & Topic References Open Cyclopedia Index (1) Open Bible Cross Reference (1) Strong's Numbers tied to Bible Words (1) Sermon Outlines and Illustrations 3,000 sermon outlines. 500 of each in the following areas: Basic Bible Truths Children's Sermons Gospen Sermons Evangelistic Sermons Scripture Outlines Gospel Illustrations Hymn Stories Osbek, 101 Hymn Stories ...and you don't even have to "wet your finger" to turn the page. For more information: Ellis Enterprises, inc. 225 N.W. 13th Oklahoma City, Oklahoma - 73103 1-405-235-7660 or Contact the OKC CDROM BBS: Host for the National CDROM ECHO 1-405-236-3750 1200 8,N,1 - OPUS Based or 147/23 in the network node. Thanks for your time and consider, and May God Bless! R E Q U E S T F O R M O R E I N F O R M A T I O N ============= ===== ======= ===================== Name:_____________________________________________________________ Address:__________________________________________________________ Address:__________________________________________________________ City:________________________________State:_______________________ Zip:__________________Telephone:__________________________________ Other telephone number to contact you:____________________________ (_)Individual (_)Church (_)Non Profit Organization (_)Library (_)Computer Consultant (_)Retail Computer Store (_)Other:______ _________________________________________________________________ Do you have a CDROM Player: (_)Yes (_)No Would you like more information on CDROM Players and pricing information?:___________ Do you access the OKC CDROM BBS (405-236-3750) (_)Yes (_)No Are you a participant in the National CDROM Echo (_)Yes (_)No If so, what BBS do you access for your information:____________ _________________________________________________________________ Other comments:__________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________ Thanks for your time and consideration. Mail to: ELLIS ENTERPRISES, inc 225 N.W. 13th Oklahoma City, 73103 405-235-7660 Or.....edit this file with your Word Processor, and send it to us at the OKC CDROM BBS (405-236-3750) or contact your local BBS and see if they can send NetMail, and send it to us..... Again, super thanks! Yechiel adds- Thanks to Ari at HUG for keeping us informed. This is the sort of item that might provide a JS person with a few hebrew texts. The bonus is a small, readily accessible collection of biblical and theological explanations, whose intrinsic merit he might otherwise have neither the time nor the inclination to explore. 4) More on Hebrew Date: Fri, 3 Mar 89 21:25:04 PST From: well!ari@lll-winken.llnl.gov (Ari Davidow) The quick and dirty answer is that there is no standard way to incorporate Hebrew into English documents (or the reverse). Here on the WELL there are two competing standards, each vigorously pushed by its author, and neither acceptable to anyone else. In one case, Amnon Katz has even written a program that will convert something from his mnemonic scheme into the IBM ASCII for Hebrew (128-154 decimal), or do the reverse, but this won't work if the document contains both languages. The program is available on the WELL, or from Amnon, and I would be glad to uuencode it and send it to you. We are up against two problems. One is that there are several competing standards for the placement of Hebrew characters: two from IBM, one for the Apple II, one for the Apple Macintosh, others used by other manufacturers, etc. In no case has anyone put a system into play which will allow for the coding of anything but the basic 27 characters. And, in addition, most e-mail systems still demand that only 7-bit ASCII be used--severely inhibiting the use of any standard, all of which (with the exception of the original "old" IBM standard) use 8-bit codes. A partial solution is provided by Kivun Computing, which recently released a proposed inclusive standard for Hebrew that follows the international one (also used by the Mac). Copies of the report, which also covers some background and other "standards" are available for $15 from: Kivun Ltd., 38 Jaffa Road, Jerusalem, Israel. Having a single standard would solve many problems. As an interim solution, it would also be neat to have something that would read a Hebrew/English document, convert it to some acceptable 7-bit form, and be decoded upon receipt. In such a system, some agreed-upon code such as @H@ might be used to represent the start of Hebrew, and @E@ might be used to represent the start of English, with the confusion caused by the languages reading in different directions kludged by having a hard line ending at the end of each screen (80 characters or less) line. The codes would only be present in the encoded document being sent, not in the initial or final forms, and should, in themselves, also be roughly mnemonic, enabling a quick comprehension of the document without de-encoding, and the code/decode program would have to run on several machines for it to be useful (at a minimum, IBM and Mac). I am considering working on something along these lines, myself, but haven't had the time yet. So I throw the challenge back to readers of your newsletter. P.S. Ron Kiener's suggestion in Judaica.5 is also good, except that it requires that both the people on the sending and receiving ends be using the same word processing program. I'm not sure that I see in it a means to provide a relatively universally acceptable standard that will work across machine/program boundaries. NEXT WEEK- You're not still taking this seriously, are you? I am, believe it or not, but, as I said last week, first I'll need to have a chance to catch up.