While Eliezer is in the midst of preparing a comprehensive list of new seforim issued in the past months, I wanted to provide a shorter list of new seforim that I have recently received from Biegeleisen.  All of these are of course available at Biegeleisen in Boro Park (and I assume elsewhere as well) and some will be reviewed in greater detail in the coming months. 



Batim le-Vadim, Yaakov Mosowitz, Beni Brak, 2008, 663 pp. a collection of laws and customs relating to marriage as well as the laws relating to mahzir gerushato.  The book covers both first marriages as well as second.

Sodei Humash ve-sha'ar, Students of Rebbenu Yehuda ha-Hassid, ed. Yaakov Stal, Jerusalem, 2009, 228 pp.  This is another work from the school of Yehudah ha-Hassid edited by R. Stal.  R. Stal's prior works in this area are excellent.  Eliezer has reviewed two here and here.

Kitzur Nahlat Shivah, Shmuel ha-Levi Segal & Asher Anshel Greenwald, ed. Yehezkel Shraga Shwartz, Beni Brak, 2009, 2 vols., 315, 649 pp.  This reprint, done by Otzar ha-Poskim, follows Otzar ha-Poskim's reprint of the full Nahlat Shivah.   This contains a short introduction as well as notes on the text. 

Pirush ha-Melitz Bentotam, Tzvi Fishbein, [n.p.], 2009, 567 pp.  A commentary on the Targum Yohnathan ben Uzzeil for the parshiyot Shemot - Beshalach.  The commentary is divided into two parts, the first, beiurim is an straightforward explanation of the text, while the second, Iyunim, discusses the implications of the text in great detail providing both other rishonim's take as well as the relevant achronim.

Otzar Hemdat Yamim, David Shlomo Kosovitski-Schorr, Beni Brak, 2008, 885 pp. This work collects close to all the mentions of the controversial work Hemdat Yamim in other works.  Additionally, rather than just provide quotations, full pages are reproduced which is an added boon to the interested bibliographer.  Kosovitski-Schorr's stated purpose is to show that the author of Hemdat Yamim was active during the years 1599-1639.

Ve-Zarch ha-Shemesh, Shirah Devlisky, Beni Brak, 2008, 101 pp.  A collection of custom of R. Devlisky's congregation in Beni Brak with notes and sources for said customs.

Ma'aseh Rav, Jerusalem, 2009, 423, [102] pp.  This is a new edition of the Ma'aseh Rav which collects the customs of the Gra. This edition includes some additional notes and supposedly is a "critical edition."  They also include a photomechanical reproduction of the 1832 edition of the Ma'aseh Rav as well as the Tosefot Ma'aseh Rav.  Unfortunately, the editors seem to be unfamiliar with a few points about the 1832 edition.  First, they fail to include both title pages.  The 1832 edition contains two distinct title pages, only one is included. Second, and more importantly, Dr. Jordan Penkower has already suggested that the 1832 edition while the first edition chronologically in terms of publication date may not actually reflect the first edition of the Ma'aseh Rav.  Instead, according to Penkower as well as Yeshayahu Vinograd the bibliographer of all the Gra's works, the second edition, Lemberg, 1833 is actually the "mahdurah kama" of the Ma'aseh Rav .  See J. Penkower, "Minhag and Massorah: On the Recent Ashkenazic Custom of Double Vocalization of Zeikher Amalek," in Rimon Kasher, Moshe Zipor, Yitzhak Zafati, eds., Studies in Bible and Exegesis (Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1997; Hebrew), 82-85; Y. Vinograd, Thesaurus of the Books of the Vilna Gaon, Kerem Eliahu, Jerusalem, 2003, entry 809.

Sefer haKol Bo, the critical edition of the Kol Bo has been completed in eight volumes bound in four volumes.

She'elot u-Teshuvot Rebi Akiva Yosef, Akiva Yosef Schlesinger, Jerusalem, 2008, 2 vols., 403, 397 pp.  The responsa of the eclectic R. Akiva Yosef Schlesinger on Orah Hayyim and Yoreh Deah with notes and an introduction. 

Milah Manuals

Of course, the balance of Glick's article is very interesting and provides some lesser known examples of censorship in responsa literature.  Two technical notes.  First, in Glick's article he refers to non-existent page numbers.  That is, he references pages in his article (see, e.g.,  pp. 43, 65 n.56, 69 n.66) that are internally incorrect.  Second, although this journal is published digitally, the format is somewhat poor.  In particular, the lines are justified but, rather than get all the words on a single line, a considerable amount of words are broken up and hyphenated.  This makes for difficult to reading both digitally and in hard copy.    

[2]Teshuvot ha-Rama, Ziv. ed. no. 124, and pp. 66-67; D. Sperber, Minhagei Yisrael, (Jerusalem: Mossad ha-Rav Kook, 1991), vol. 2, p. 56 n.26; D. Sperber, Netivot Pesikah (Jerusalem: Reuven Mass, 2008), pp. 104-14; Y.S. Spiegel, Amudim be-Tolodot ha-Sefer ha-Ivri Ketivah ve-Hataka (Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan University Press, 2007), p. 273 and the notes therein.

  Solomon Ibn Aderet, Ma'amar al Yishma'el, Bezalel Naor ed., Spring Valley, NY, 2008, 178 pp.
Bezalel Naor, Mitsvat Hashem Barah, Spring Valley, NY, 2008, 220 pp.
    This work was printed from manuscript (which today is lost) for the first time in 1863 by Y. Perles. Most recently it was printed in the new Shut ha-Rashba by Machon Yerushalayim in their last volume (siman 367). At first it was not accepted that Rashba authored this work but today it is accepted that  he is indeed the author. Naor's edition begins with an excellent introduction dealing with amongst many things the authorship of this work, Naor raises the possibility that R. Dovid who was a talmid of the Ramban was the author. Throughout the text he brings various proofs about the authorship from other writings of the Rashba. As an appendix Naor printed a copy of a manuscript of Steinschneider where he deals with the authorship of this text.   The main topic of this work is about the Rashba defending the Torah from an Islamic attack. Although much has been written on Jewish Christian disputes, when it comes to Jewish Islamic disputes, much less is written or known. Indeed, most are probably unaware that the Rashba wrote this work defending Judaism against Islam. Naor's edition begins with an excellent introduction discussing the work generally and specifically providing background materials on exactly what the Rashba was responding to.  Naor discusses both the Jewish as well as Islamic sources in all languages. It is pretty incredible to see his command in both these groups of sources, it is clear that much time and hard work went into preparing this work.   The main topic which the Rashba deals with is defending that the Torah which we have is 100% accurate and was never tampered with. The Rashba deals with many specific examples in a very orderly fashion. Specifically, the Rashba elaborates why the torah publicized what seems to be sins of Reuven (p.74) and Yehudah (pp. 73-74). The Rashba also deals with why the torah had to include the story of Lot and his daughters (pp. 72-73). Another issue that the Rashba defends is proving that the numbers of the Jews given by the Torah was 100% accurate (pp. 63-71). Additionally, the Rashba deals with the famous incident of the finding of the Sefer torah in Yoshiayhu's time. There are also many Chidushim with regard to the seven Noachide commandments.