LibGuides: Jewish Folklore from an Anthropological and Historical Perspective: Home

Jewish Magic Bowl

Jewish Magic Bowl from Ancient Mesopotamia

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/Magical_bowl_with_inscriptions_in_Mandaic%2C_Mesopotamia._Wellcome_M0003378.jpg

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ProQuest Research Companion This link opens in a new window
An intuitive, self-guided product that supports information literacy, writing, and research skills instruction occurring in today's libraries, classrooms, and online learning environments.

Journal Articles on Jewish Folklore

Jewish Folklore Peer Reviewed articles

Jewish Folk Medicine

Jewish Folk Medicine

Dream Interpretation Bibliography

Dream Interpretation Bibliography: Mah HaPirush?

Article Databases

Bar Ilan Responsa This link opens in a new window
Search the Bible & principle commentaries, Talmud & principal commentaries; works about Jewish law & customs; major codes of Jewish law, midrashim, Zohar, rabbinical responsa, and Encyclopedia Talmudit.
Jewish Life in America c1654-1954 This link opens in a new window
Provides some of the American Jewish Historical Society's most important and valuable archival collections.
Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2nd ed. (Gale) This link opens in a new window
Search 21,000 articles on Jewish life, culture, history, religion by Israeli, American, European subject specialists.
RAMBI This link opens in a new window
A selective bibliography of articles in the various fields of Jewish studies and in the study of Eretz Israel. Compiled from thousands of periodicals and from collections of articles in Hebrew, Yiddish, and European languages mainly from the holdings of the Jewish National and University Library.

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Use the advanced search to limit your results by year, campus location, or search just e-books by selecting "TC E-Books" under Location. If a print book you'd like is at a different campus, learn how to request it.

Books on Jewish Folklore

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To find additional quality information online, try using Google Scholar, which searches an academically-oriented subset of online materials:

Rabbi Yaakov Trump on the Malakh in Halakhah

Additional Resources

Folklore, Superstition, and Kabbalah in the EJ absent from the JE
The Jewish Encyclopedia of 1904-1908 devoted little space to Jewish folklore and superstition as opposed to the 1972 edition of the Encyclopedia Judaica whereby this field was founded on solid anthropological grounds by Raphael Patai, So too the JE (1904) devoted little attention to the academic field of Kabbalah and Jewish Mysticism while by the time of the EJ Gershon Scholem had pioneered this field. Such areas were considered by the Enlightened Wissenschaft des Judtentums perspective of the JE as worthy of little attention while by the time of the JE these subjects had become legitimate fields of academic study.. Thus every encyclopedia is not only a record of knowledge but an expression of the spirit of its times.

Rabbinic Censorship of Dualism by dbl

Dualism and Rabbinic texts
This paper first exams the Dualism of the Dead Sea Scroll sect that saw the romans and the sons of darkness and the mahadren le mehadrin of the Jewish elite the Essenes as the sons of Light. Then we see how the Rabbis of the mishnah censored Zorastrianism in mishnayot such as "Modim Modim shetiko oto". We then investigate the gemarah for the amoraim's views of dualsim as a form of heresy as well as look at halakhic midrashim including: Mekilta, Pesikta Rabbati, Sirei to the Gaonic era of Rav Saadia Gaon's Sefer Emunot ve-deot. We then turn to liturgical examples fo rabbinic censorship of dualism. The text is peppered with academic scholarly work of the Orthodox practiioners of the Wissenshaft des Judentums Beweigung including Rabbi Isaac Heinemann's Der Juedische Gottesdienst in der Talmud (later trans. to hebrew as tefillah bi ha talmudim), and Elbogen's 1913 Der jueidsche Gottesdienst in seiner geschichtenlichen Entwicklung (trans later into hebrew as Hatefilah beyisrael behitpathutah hahisorit (1972). This paper was originally written by DBL ca 1988 unter der Einleitung fuen der Fuhrer Professor Rabbi Dr. Joseph M. Baumgarten, orginally from Austria.