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Showing posts from May, 2009

Of Making Many Books

And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end (Ecclesiastes 12:12) A pdf version of this essay  can be downloaded here [*] Years in brackets refer to an individual’s or book author’s year of birth Thought experiment for the day: Anyone born 1945 would be pushing towards 80 and mostly past their prime. So name any Charedi sefer written by someone born post war that has or is likely to enter the canon, be it haloche, lomdus, al hatorah or mussar. Single one will do for now — IfYouTickleUs (@ifyoutickleus) July 27, 2022 A tweet in the summer which gained some traction asked for a book by an author born from 1945 onwards that has entered the Torah and rabbinic canon or is heading in that direction. I didn't exactly phrase it this way and some quibbled about 'canonisation'. The word does indeed have a precise meaning though in its popular use it has no narrow definition. Canonisation, or ‘entering the canon’ is generally understood to

Pepys in Hackney

"Going out towards Hackney by coach for the ayre, the silly coachman carries us to Shoreditch, which was so pleasant a piece of simplicity in him and us, that made us mighty merry." Samuel Pepys's diary entry for 10 May 1666. Silly indeed!

Press roundup

It's about time we holies of holy start holding an 'Idiot of the Week' competition. The contenders would be many and the competition strong. It could go under the name of Stamford Hill's Got Little Talent, though some may object on the grounds that buffoon yitzchok's weekly 'Overheard' epigram counts as originality of the first order. Anyhow, were such a contest to be held no doubt this week's prize would go to the one and only Judith Weil. While she has deserved an accolade many a time for her insightful reports into the even holier and thus madder in Israel, this week she has outshone even herself which is no mean feat. In a headline piece on 'flu, apostrophe compliment of Ms Weil being as she must a kvetch in grammar as in chareidi mores and madness, Weil and her esteemed blockheads at the Jewish Tribune dedicated a significant part of the article on the 'flu (aka s*** flu) to why its proper description is verbum non grata in chareidi circles