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Israelite festival calendar texts (Exod 23; 34; Lev 23; Num 28–29; Deut 16; and Ezek 45) share many features; however, there are also differences. Some of the most-often-cited differences are the following: festival dates, festival locations, date of the New Year, festival timing, and festival names. Scholars have explored these distinctions, and many have concluded that different sources (authors/redactors) wrote the various calendars at different times in Israelite history. Scholars use these dissimilarities to argue that Lev 23 was written in the exilic or postexilic era. Babcock offers a new translation and analysis of a second-millennium B.C. multimonth ritual calendar text from Emar (Emar 446) to challenge the late dating of Lev 23. Babcock argues that Lev 23 preserves an early (2nd-millennium) West Semitic ritual tradition. Building on the recent work of Klingbeil and Sparks, this book presents a new comparative methodology for exploring potential textual relationships. Babcock investigates the attributes of sacred ritual through the lens of sacred time, sacred space and movement, sacred objects, ritual participants, and ritual sound. The author begins with a study of ancient Near Eastern festival texts from the 3rd millennium through the 1st millennium. This analysis focuses on festival cycles, common festival attributes, and the role of time and space in ritual. Babcock then moves on to an intertextual study of biblical festival texts before completing a thorough investigation of both Lev 23 and Emar 446. The result is a compelling argument that Lev 23 preserves an early West Semitic festival tradition and does not date to the exilic era—refuting the scholarly consensus. This illuminating reading stands as a model for future research in the field of ritual and comparative textual studies.

The food that Jewish people eat is part of our connection to our faith, culture, and history. Not only is Jewish food comforting and delicious, it’s also a link to every facet of Judaism. By learning about and cooking traditional Jewish dishes, we can understand fundamentals such as kashrut, community, and diversity. And Jewish history is so connected to food that one comedian said that the story of Judaism can be condensed into nine words: They tried to kill us. We survived. Let’s eat. Let’s Eat follows the calendar of Jewish holidays to include food from the many different Jewish communities around the world; in doing so, it brings the values that are the foundation of Judaism into focus. It also covers the way these foods have ended up on the Jewish menu and how Jews, as they wandered through the world, have influenced and been influenced by other nations and cuisines. Including over 40 recipes, this delicious review of the role of food in Jewish life offers a lively history alongside the traditions of one of the world’s oldest faiths.

On 7 October 2023, Palestinian militants led by Harnas launched a complex coordinated attack on Israel from the Gaza Strip, triggering an Israeli ground invasion combined with an aerial bombing campaign. The Harnas fighters killed around 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostages, while the death toll from Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip exceeded 31,600 in mid-March 2024. The Harnas attack not only shocked the whole world but also caught most people by surprise. Probably only a few could have imagined that the Palestinian organisation that controls the Gaza Strip could carry out such an attack on Israel. Following 7 October, several questions arose. Why Israeli intelligence could not predict the attack, and why did security and defence forces not react in time? The Israeli Government promised a full investigation once the Gaza ground offensive launched in response to the attack was over. But even without knowing more details of the events, we might still be able to provide a preliminary assessment of the surrounding Israeli intelligence failures based on the reports and accounts made public in the international media. Three months after the attack, the publicly available Information showed that the Israel Defense Forces were unprepared and there was no battle plan in place in case Harnas militants broke out of the Gaza Strip with large forces. Clarifying what happened will be crucial not only to learn from the mistakes, but also because other actors or adversaries can learn from Harnas and copy its tactics.

Emergency department (ED) visits can be divided into urgent and non-urgent. A delay in seeking medical help, especially in urgent cases, can lead to fatal consequences, along with a higher rate of complications and morbidity. Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic spread led to restrictions and eventually quarantines. We investigated the impact of the COVID-19 spread and quarantine on ED visits rates comparing to parallel periods in preceding years (2013–2019). In addition, we compared this decrease to holidays and weekends, times in which a decrease in ED visits is seen. This was a descriptive retrospective study. Causes of ED referrals were divided into urgent and non-urgent, then into different subcategories including infectious, cardiac, etc. For the spring COVID-192020 quarantine period, a 56.3% decrease of mean ED visits per day was seen, as compared to preceding years (55.7% and 98.9% respectively). This decrease was also statistically evident when comparing the urgent and non-urgent causes separately and for all sub-categories. This pattern of decrease also showed statistical evidence of fewer ED visits during holidays for most comparisons, in which lower ED visit rates are expected. Significantly lower rates of ED visits were demonstrated during the COVID-19 quarantine period, as compared to preceding years and main holidays and weekends, a decrease that was also demonstrated for urgent life-threatening causes. Our findings can be used to inform a wide range of stakeholders, including regional planners, historians, sociologists, and international healthcare organizations. Healthcare providers should understand the reasons for this ED visit decline pattern, attempt to address patients' concerns, and increase awareness regarding alarming symptoms in urgent medical situations. •We investigated the impact of the COVID-19 spread and quarantine on emergency department (ED) visits rates.•For the COVID-19 quarantine period, a 56.3% decrease of mean ED visits per day was seen, as compared to preceding years.•This decrease was also evident when comparing the urgent and non-urgent causes separately and for all sub-categories.•Our findings can be used to inform a wide range of stakeholders, including international healthcare organizations.•Healthcare providers should understand the reasons for this ED visit decline and attempt to address patients concerns.

The \"Day of Atonement\" in Leviticus 16 had a formative influence on Judaism and Christianity. The essays in this volume form a representative cross section of the history of reception of Leviticus 16 and the tradition of the Yom ha-Kippurim.

In Dinner at Dan, Jonathan S. Greer provides biblical and archaeological evidence for sacred feasting at the Levantine site of Tel Dan from the late 10th century - mid-8th century BCE. Biblical texts are argued to reflect a Yahwistic and traditional religious context for these feasts and a fresh analysis of previously unpublished animal bone, ceramic, and material remains from the temple complex at Tel Dan sheds light on sacrificial prescriptions, cultic realia, and movements within this sacred space. Greer concludes that feasts at Dan were utilized by the kings of Northern Israel initially to unify tribal factions and later to reinforce distinct social structures as a society strove to incorporate its tribal past within a monarchic framework.

Every year, diverse Jewish communities around the world observe Tashlich (casting off), a customary atonement ritual performed the day after Rosh Hashanah. This performative ritual is conducted next to a body of water to symbolize atonement and purification of one’s sins. Based on multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork in two egalitarian Jewish congregations in Tel Aviv and in New York City, I show how Tashlich performance is constructed as a political act to empower gender and sexual identities and experiences, as well as the socio-political positionality of LGBTQ Jews in various sites. By including new blessings, the blowing of the shofar by gay female participants, and by conducting the ritual in historical and contemporary queer urban spaces, the rabbis and congregants created new interpretations of the traditional customs. They exposed their feelings toward themselves, their community, and its visibility and presence in the city. The fact that the ritual is conducted in an open urban public space creates not only differing meanings and perceptions than from the synagogue, but also exposes queer politics in the context of national and religious identities. Furthermore, this comparative analysis illuminates tensions and trajectories of Jewishness and queerness in Israel and in the US, and sheds light on postmodern tendencies in contemporary urban religious communities as a result of the inclusion of the LGBTQ community.

This volume brings together the work of scholars using various methodologies to investigate the prevalence, importance, and meanings of feasting and foodways in the texts and cultural-material environments of the Hebrew Bible and the ancient Near East. Thus, it serves as both an introduction to and explication of this emerging field. The offerings range from the third-millennium Early Dynastic period in Mesopotamia to the rise of a new cuisine in the Islamic period and transverse geographical locations such as southern Iraq, Syria, the Aegean, and especially the southern Levant. The strength of this collection lies in the many disciplines and methodologies that come together. Texts, pottery, faunal studies, iconography, and anthropological theory are all accorded a place at the table in locating the importance of feasting as a symbolic, social, and political practice. Various essays showcase both new archaeological methodologies-zooarchaeological bone analysis and spatial analysis-and classical methods such as iconographic studies, ceramic chronology, cultural anthropology, and composition-critical textual analysis.

The ritual feast known as the Seder on the eve of Passover is one of the most family-oriented Jewish holidays observed in Israel. Rich in symbolism and narrative, it invites a wide variety of discussions, study, and intergenerational mentoring and supervision. In this article I demonstrate how the Seder can serve as a representational performance that includes gender and sexual identities normally omitted from Jewish liturgy and society at large. A Reform community workshop in preparation for the Seder Night, exposes congregants to alternative versions of the traditional Haggadah text and introduces new ritual gestures that allow for the \"presencing\" of gay and heterosexual life-stories. Old patterns and family traditions are undermined; special additions are added to the Passover plate and the Haggadah itself. Thus, the narrative of national redemption is reconstructed as gender redemption, marking the Israeli Reform Jewish community as an egalitarian agency of contemporary conflict for gender equality.

One of the enduring themes in German Jewish history has been the deep-seated desire of Jews to be fully accepted as equals by other Germans, including the right to worship freely. Their conscription and voluntary service in the military during both the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871) and World War I (1914–1918), provided an opportunity for Jews to demonstrate their fealty to the nation. Moreover, their requests for Jewish military chaplains were granted, enabling them to celebrate their traditional High Holy Days services. This article tells the story of Jewish religious worship on Yom Kippur during both wars as depicted by German artists. We examine contemporaneous accounts of the scenes depicted, and find that while some were accurate with respect to venue and mood, the most popular images of throngs of Jewish soldiers worshiping on open-air battlefields were fictionalized images of events that never took place. These pictorial images, exaggerated, romanticized, and idealized, portrayed Jews as patriotic Germans, fully engaged with the wartime goals of the German government while practicing their unique forms of worship. German Jews and Jews throughout the diaspora clung to these images which became widely available on postcards, lithographs, and cloth wall hangings. They continued to be proudly displayed in Jewish homes as symbols of Jewish patriotism, until the end of World War I when blatant antisemitism falsely blamed the Jews for Germany’s defeat.