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99-656: According to the elaborate menu, which has been reproduced several times, it was "in honor of the Delegates to the Council of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations". Although not stated in the menu, the banquet was also honoring the first four graduates of the Hebrew Union College , whose ordination was being held at the same time as the convention. There were about 215 attendees, who were greeted by "a dinner orchestra". According to

198-511: A compilation by Zechariah Aghmati called Sefer ha-Ner . The Tosafot are collected commentaries by various medieval Ashkenazic rabbis on the Talmud (known as Tosafists or Ba'alei Tosafot ). One of the main goals of the Tosafot is to explain and interpret contradictory statements in the Talmud. Unlike Rashi, the Tosafot is not a running commentary, but rather comments on selected matters. Often

297-567: A consensus view. The rabbis recorded in the Mishnah are known as the Tannaim (literally, "repeaters", or "teachers"). These tannaim—rabbis of the second century CE--"who produced the Mishnah and other tannaic works, must be distinguished from the rabbis of the third to fifth centuries, known as amoraim (literally, "speakers"), who produced the two Talmudim and other amoraic works". Since it sequences its laws by subject matter instead of by biblical context,

396-634: A daughter of Jacob Ezekiel , who was Secretary of the Board of Hebrew Union College. The Highland House was Cincinnati's leading venue, a "brilliantly lighted showplace where even political meetings and conventions could be held". At the top of Mt. Adams (today's Eden Park), and served by funicular , it had a commanding view of the city, with upper and lower esplanades, on which concerts, parades, and picnics were held. The building no longer exists, having been razed in 1895. The meal, while eschewing pork , did not conform to Jewish dietary laws ( kashrut ). It included

495-588: A dinner recently given by Cincinnati Israelites to visiting rabbis and laymen. The trouble is, it appears, that it included clams, frogs' legs and crabs. The American Hebrew speaks of these dishes as "the abomination of Talmud and Poskim ", and wants to know whether the eleventh chapter of Leviticus is omitted from the edition of the Pentateuch in use in Cincinnati. The Jewish Record, Jewish Herald, Jewish Tribune , and Hebrew Standard are equally indignant. But, on

594-558: A five-year graduate program, conferring the degree of Master of Sacred Music in the fourth year and ordination as cantor in the fifth year. Cantorial School at HUC-JIR begins in Jerusalem and continues for the next four years in New York. While in Israel, students study Hebrew, and Jewish music, and get to know Israel. Cantorial students study alongside Rabbinical and Education students. In New York,

693-597: A letter to the editor of the American Hebrew dated July 16, he complains: The outrage perpetrated at last week's banquet was not an unheard of occurrence among the Hebrew clergy of America. On several occasions of a public character, men notably supposed to champion the Revealed Law, sat at tables laden with the flesh of animals whose vital blood remained therein, and with that of loathsome things which creep in ponds and on

792-582: A lower boundary on the dating of the Babylonian Talmud, it must post-date the early 5th century given its reliance on the Jerusalem Talmud . From the time of its completion, the Talmud became integral to Jewish scholarship. A maxim in Pirkei Avot advocates its study from the age of 15. This section outlines some of the major areas of Talmudic study. One area of Talmudic scholarship developed out of

891-492: A self-contained, edited passage known as a sugya . Much of the Gemara is legal in nature. Each analysis begins with a Mishnaic legal statement. With each sugya, the statement may be analyzed and compared with other statements. This process can be framed as an exchange between two (often anonymous, possibly metaphorical) disputants, termed the makshan (questioner) and tartzan (answerer). Gemara also commonly tries to find

990-640: A sole for one's foot. Despite its incomplete state, the Jerusalem Talmud remains an indispensable source of knowledge of the development of the Jewish Law in the Holy Land. It was also an important primary source for the study of the Babylonian Talmud by the Kairouan school of Chananel ben Chushiel and Nissim ben Jacob , with the result that opinions ultimately based on the Jerusalem Talmud found their way into both

1089-771: Is a Jewish seminary with three locations in the United States and one location in Jerusalem . It is the oldest extant Jewish seminary in the Americas and the main seminary for training rabbis , cantors , educators and communal workers in Reform Judaism . HUC-JIR has campuses in Cincinnati, Ohio , New York City , Los Angeles , and Jerusalem . The Jerusalem campus is the only seminary in Israel for training Reform Jewish clergy. HUC

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1188-876: Is assigned practica (mini-recitals) during the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th year of school culminating with a Senior Recital (based on a thesis) during the 5th year. Rabbi David Ellenson, then president of Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion, announced on January 27, 2011, that the School of Sacred Music would be renamed the Debbie Friedman School of Sacred Music in honor of Debbie Friedman . The renaming officially occurred on December 7, 2011. HUC has both male and female students in all its programs, including rabbinic and cantorial studies. Julia Ettlinger (1863-1890) became its first female student in 1875. As of January 2022, it has 839 women rabbinical graduates. (See Women rabbis ). The first female rabbi to be ordained by HUC

1287-558: Is during this period that rabbinic discourse began to be recorded in writing. In antiquity, the two major centres of Jewish scholarship were located in Galilee and Babylonia . A Talmud was compiled in each of these regional centres. The earlier of the two compilations took place in Galilee, either in the late fourth or early fifth century, and it came to be known as the Jerusalem Talmud (or Talmud Yerushalmi ). Later on, and likely some time in

1386-696: Is independent of HUC, however, both organizations continue to collaborate on select programs and exhibitions. The Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion also manages the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles and Skirball Museum in Jerusalem. The Jewish Language Project (JLP), run by Professor Sarah Bunin Benor at HUC–JIR, is a research program dedicated to the preservation of Jewish diasporic languages. The project also seeks to raise awareness among Jewish communities about Jewish languages around

1485-762: Is largely in Jewish Babylonian Aramaic , although quotations in the Gemara of the Mishnah, the Baraitas and Tanakh appear in Mishnaic or Biblical Hebrew. Some other dialects of Aramaic occur in quotations of other older works, like the Megillat Taanit . The reason why earlier texts occur in Hebrew, and later texts in Aramaic, is because of the adoption of the latter (which was the spoken vernacular) by rabbinic circles during

1584-456: Is often criticized as being a modern-day version of pilpul . Nevertheless, the influence of the Brisker method is great. Most modern-day Yeshivot study the Talmud using the Brisker method in some form. One feature of this method is the use of Maimonides ' Mishneh Torah as a guide to Talmudic interpretation, as distinct from its use as a source of practical halakha . Rival methods were those of

1683-609: Is primarily because the prestige of the Jewish community of Israel steadily declined in contrast with the Babylonian community in the years after the redaction of the Talmud and continuing until the Gaonic era. Maimonides claims that all Jewish communities in the Gaonic period formally accepted the Babylonian Talmud as binding, and that in any areas where the two Talmuds conflict, deference is given to

1782-443: Is regarded as more comprehensive. The structure of the Talmud follows that of the Mishnah, in which six orders ( sedarim ; singular: seder ) of general subject matter are divided into 60 or 63 tractates ( masekhtot ; singular: masekhet ) of more focused subject compilations, though not all tractates have Gemara. Each tractate is divided into chapters ( perakim ; singular: perek ), 517 in total, that are both numbered according to

1881-471: Is separately cataloged. Hebrew Union College operates Hebrew Union College Press , a university press , through which it releases Jewish Studies-related publications. The Dr. Bernard Heller Museum at Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion in New York presents exhibitions highlighting Jewish history , culture, and contemporary creativity. Since its founding in 1983 as the Joseph Gallery,

1980-589: Is the Jewish English Lexicon , an online dictionary of words derived from various Jewish languages that Jews use when they are speaking English. Other initiatives concern endangered Jewish languages and feature documentation to preserve terms and phrases. A related project is the Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon , an online dictionary and text database of different Aramaic varieties. Notable faculty members have included Judah Magnes , who

2079-553: Is written largely in Jewish Palestinian Aramaic , a Western Aramaic language that differs from its Babylonian counterpart . The eye and the heart are two abettors to the crime. The final redaction of the text was in the late fourth or early fifth century, once Christianity had become the state religion of the Roman Empire and Jerusalem. Just as wisdom has made a crown for one's head, so, too, humility has made

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2178-669: The Talmuda de-Eretz Yisrael ("Talmud of the Land of Israel"). Prior to being written down, it was transmitted orally for centuries and represents a compilation of scholastic teachings and analyses on the Mishnah (especially those concerning agricultural laws) found across regional centres of the Land of Israel now known as the Academies in Galilee (principally those of Tiberias , Sepphoris , and Caesarea ). It

2277-453: The Aggadic material from the Talmud. It was intended to familiarize the public with the ethical parts of the Talmud and to dispute many of the accusations surrounding its contents. Geonic -era (6th-11th centuries) commentaries have largely been lost, but are known to exist from partial quotations in later medieval and early modern texts. Because of this, it is known that now-lost commentaries on

2376-555: The Gemara ( גמרא , c. 500 CE), a commentary of the Mishnah and related Tannaitic writings whose greater goal is to systematically understand the Hebrew Bible . Sometimes, the term "Talmud" is only used for the Gemara. As a whole, the traditions of the Talmud emerged in a literary tradition that occurred between the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE and the Arab conquest in

2475-401: The Hebrew Bible , the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law ( halakha ) and Jewish theology . Until the advent of modernity , in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the centerpiece of Jewish cultural life and was foundational to "all Jewish thought and aspirations", serving also as "the guide for the daily life" of Jews. Above all,

2574-494: The Hebrew alphabet and given names, usually using the first one or two words in the first Mishnah. A perek may continue over several (up to tens of) pages . Each perek will contain several mishnayot . The Mishnah is a compilation of legal opinions and debates. Statements in the Mishnah are typically terse, recording brief opinions of the rabbis debating a subject; or recording only an unattributed ruling, apparently representing

2673-503: The Mir and Telz yeshivas . See Chaim Rabinowitz § Telshe and Yeshiva Ohel Torah-Baranovich § Style of learning . The text of the Talmud has been subject to some level of critical scrutiny throughout its history. Rabbinic tradition holds that the people cited in both Talmuds did not have a hand in its writings; rather, their teachings were edited into a rough form around 450 CE (Talmud Yerushalmi) and 550 CE (Talmud Bavli.) The text of

2772-598: The Mishnah and the Babylonian Gemara, the latter representing the culmination of more than 300 years of analysis of the Mishnah in the Talmudic Academies in Babylonia. The foundations of this process of analysis were laid by Abba Arika (175–247), a disciple of Judah ha-Nasi . Tradition ascribes the compilation of the Babylonian Talmud in its present form to two Babylonian sages, Rav Ashi and Ravina II . Rav Ashi

2871-458: The Tosafot and the Mishneh Torah of Maimonides . Ethical maxims contained in the Jerusalem Talmud are scattered and interspersed in the legal discussions throughout the several treatises, many of which differ from those in the Babylonian Talmud. The Babylonian Talmud ( Talmud Bavli ) consists of documents compiled over the period of late antiquity (3rd to 6th centuries). During this time,

2970-467: The 15th and 16th centuries, a new intensive form of Talmud study arose. Complicated logical arguments were used to explain minor points of contradiction within the Talmud. The term pilpul was applied to this type of study. Usage of pilpul in this sense (that of "sharp analysis") harks back to the Talmudic era and refers to the intellectual sharpness this method demanded. Pilpul practitioners posited that

3069-498: The 15th century on, some authorities sought to apply the methods of Aristotelian logic , as reformulated by Averroes . This method was first recorded, though without explicit reference to Aristotle, by Isaac Campanton (d. Spain, 1463) in his Darkhei ha-Talmud ("The Ways of the Talmud"), and is also found in the works of Moses Chaim Luzzatto . According to the present-day Sephardi scholar José Faur , traditional Sephardic Talmud study could take place on any of three levels. In

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3168-467: The 18th century, pilpul study waned. Other styles of learning such as that of the school of Elijah b. Solomon, the Vilna Gaon , became popular. The term "pilpul" was increasingly applied derogatorily to novellae deemed casuistic and hairsplitting. Authors referred to their own commentaries as "al derekh ha-peshat" (by the simple method) to contrast them with pilpul. Among Sephardi and Italian Jews from

3267-456: The 5th century by Rav Ashi and Ravina II . There is also an earlier collection known as the Jerusalem Talmud ( Talmud Yerushalmi ). It may also traditionally be called Shas ( ש״ס ), a Hebrew abbreviation of shisha sedarim , or the "six orders" of the Mishnah . The Talmud has two components: the Mishnah ( משנה , c. 200 CE), a written compendium of the Oral Torah ; and

3366-581: The Babylonian Talmud may draw upon the Mishnah, the Jerusalem Talmud, midrash, and other sources. The traditions that the Gemara comments on are not limited to what is found in the Mishnah, but the Baraita as well (a term that broadly designates Oral Torah traditions that did not end up in the Mishnah). The baraitot cited in the Gemara are often quotations from the Tosefta (a tannaitic compendium of halakha parallel to

3465-585: The Babylonian opinion. Neither covers the entire Mishnah. For example, the Babylonian commentary only covers 37 of 63 Mishnaic tractates. In particular: The Babylonian Talmud records the opinions of the rabbis of the Ma'arava (the West, meaning Israel) as well as of those of Babylonia, while the Jerusalem Talmud seldom cites the Babylonian rabbis. The Babylonian version also contains the opinions of more generations because of its later date of completion. For both these reasons, it

3564-518: The Board of Governors at HUC voted to shutter the residential rabbinical program in Cincinnati by 2026 due to financial troubles and falling enrollment. Also in 2022, HUC for the first time granted a certificate of ordination to a nonbinary candidate. The cantorial school of the Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion was founded in 1947. The school is located on the New York campus of HUC-JIR at One West Fourth Street. It offers

3663-462: The College-Institute includes Schools of Graduate Studies, Education, Jewish Non-Profit Management, sacred music , Biblical archaeology and an Israeli rabbinical program . The Los Angeles campus operates many of its programs and degrees in cooperation with the neighboring University of Southern California , a partnership that has lasted over 35 years. Their productive relationship includes

3762-496: The Eastern Orthodox congregations from the Union of American Hebrew Congregations is without any foundation in fact. They had become members of the Union most unwillingly, and the association with the congregations that held more modern views being most distasteful to them, they were looking almost from the very start for some pretext to at least excuse, if not justify, their withdrawal. This the 'trefa' banquet offered them, and it

3861-556: The HUC was uncomfortable with giving women the same title as men. In 2012 she wrote to Rabbi David Ellenson, HUC's then president, requesting that he address the discrepancy, which she said was "smacking of gender inequality." In 2021, following new reports about sexual abuse by former HUC president Sheldon Zimmerman and recently-deceased professor Michael Cook, three separate Reform organizations began internal investigations of sexual harassment and other forms of discrimination . HUC retained

3960-531: The Mishnah discusses individual subjects more thoroughly than the Midrash , and it includes a much broader selection of halakhic subjects than the Midrash. The Mishnah's topical organization thus became the framework of the Talmud as a whole. But not every tractate in the Mishnah has a corresponding Gemara. Also, the order of the tractates in the Talmud differs in some cases from that in the Mishnah . The Gemara constitutes

4059-409: The Mishnah) and the Midrash halakha (specifically Mekhilta, Sifra and Sifre ). Some baraitot , however, are known only through traditions cited in the Gemara, and are not part of any other collection. In addition to the six Orders, the Talmud contains a series of short treatises of a later date, usually printed at the end of Seder Nezikin. These are not divided into Mishnah and Gemara. The work

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4158-492: The Reform movement's traditional "morenu harav," or "our teacher the rabbi," while female candidates' certificates only used the term "rav u’morah," or "rabbi and teacher." Sally Priesand herself was unaware that her certificate referred to her any differently than her male colleagues until it was brought to her attention years later. Rabbi Mary Zamore, executive director of the Reform movement's Women's Rabbinic Network , explained that

4257-504: The Roman destruction of the Jewish commonwealth and the Second Temple in the year 70 and the consequent upheaval of Jewish social and legal norms. As the rabbis were required to face a new reality—mainly Judaism without a Temple (to serve as the center of teaching and study) and total Roman control over Judaea , without at least partial autonomy—there was a flurry of legal discourse and the old system of oral scholarship could not be maintained. It

4356-746: The Talmud after the end of the Amoraic period, known as the Savoraim or Rabbanan Savora'e (meaning "reasoners" or "considerers"). Unlike the Western Aramaic dialect of the Jerusalm Talmud, the Babylonian Talmud has a Babylonian Aramaic dialect. The Jerusalem is also more fragmentary (and difficult to read) due to a less complete redactional process . Legally, the two differ minimally. The Babylonian Talmud has received significantly more interest and coverage from commentators. This significantly greater influence

4455-502: The Talmud could contain no redundancy or contradiction whatsoever. New categories and distinctions ( hillukim ) were therefore created, resolving seeming contradictions within the Talmud by novel logical means. In the Ashkenazi world the founders of pilpul are generally considered to be Jacob Pollak (1460–1541) and Shalom Shachna . This kind of study reached its height in the 16th and 17th centuries when expertise in pilpulistic analysis

4554-498: The Talmud is a commentary on the Mishnah , primarily written in Jewish Babylonian Aramaic . It contains the teachings and opinions of thousands of rabbis on a variety of subjects, including halakha , Jewish ethics , philosophy , customs , history , and folklore , and many other topics. The term Talmud normally refers to the collection of writings named specifically the Babylonian Talmud ( Talmud Bavli ), compiled in

4653-597: The Talmud was compiled appears to have been forgotten at least by the second half of the Middle Ages, when estimates between the 3rd century BCE to the 9th century CE are suggested in the Wikkuah , a text that records the debates that took place in the Disputation of Paris (also known as the "Trial of the Talmud") which took place in 1240. A wide range of dates have been proposed for the Babylonian Talmud by historians. The text

4752-402: The Talmud were written by Paltoi Gaon, Sherira , Hai Gaon , and Saadya (though in this case, Saadiya is not likely to be the true author). Of these, the commentary of Paltoi ben Abaye ( c. 840) is the earliest. His son, Zemah ben Paltoi paraphrased and explained the passages which he quoted; and he composed, as an aid to the study of the Talmud, a lexicon which Abraham Zacuto consulted in

4851-460: The Talmud, has become a classic. Sections in the commentary covering a few tractates (Pes, BB and Mak) were completed by his students, especially Judah ben Nathan , and a sections dealing with specific tractates (Ned, Naz, Hor and MQ) of the commentary that appear in some print editions of Rashi's commentary today were not composed by him. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, a genre of rabbinic literature emerged surrounding Rashi's commentary, with

4950-584: The Trefa Banquet, eventually became the foundation of the Conservative movement. " Kashrut was one of a cluster of interrelated issues that first caused a broad coalition of American Jewish traditionalists to withdraw from the Reform movement." After Wise's death the American Israelite said: The often-repeated claim that the so-called 'trefa' banquet at Cincinnati was the cause of the withdrawal of

5049-485: The building until 1997, when the Ramaz School , in an expansion deal for itself and York Prep School , bought the building and traded it with York for their prior campus on the block of Ramaz. As of 2009, the Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion is an international seminary and university of graduate studies offering a wide variety of academic and professional programs. In addition to its Rabbinical School,

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5148-504: The commentary portion of the Talmud. The Mishnah, and its commentary (the Gemara), together constitute the Talmud. This commentary arises from a longstanding tradition of rabbis analyzing, debating, and discussing the Mishnah ever since it had been published. The rabbis who participated in the process that produced this commentarial tradition are known as the Amoraim . Each discussion is presented in

5247-409: The correct biblical basis for a given law in the Mishnah as well as the logical process that connects the biblical to the Mishnaic tradition. This process was known as talmud , long before the "Talmud" itself became a text. In addition, the Gemara contains a wide range of narratives, homiletical or exegetical passages, sayings, and other non-legal content, termed aggadah . A story told in a sugya of

5346-428: The creation of the Center for Muslim-Jewish Engagement , an interfaith think tank through the partnership of HUC, USC and Omar Foundation. CMJE holds religious text-study programs across Los Angeles. Rabbi Alfred Gottschalk was appointed as HUC's sixth president, following the death of Nelson Glueck . As president, Gottschalk oversaw the growth and expansion of the HUC campuses, the ordination of Sally Priesand as

5445-404: The disregard to dietary laws at the Cincinnati banquet. The Jewish Herald in its leader warned the Cincinnatians in due time on that question." But, on the contrary, the American Israelite affirms that "Not a murmur, not a word of displeasure, not a sign of disappointment was observable among the 300 or 400 ladies and gentlemen who partook of the entertainment." Whether Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise ,

5544-408: The early seventh century. In all, the Talmud is divided into 63 tractates , with each tractate systematically discussing one general subject or theme. In the standard print of the Talmud (the Vilna Shas ), the Talmud runs to a length of 2,711 double-sided folios . Talmud translates as "instruction, learning", from the Semitic root lmd , meaning "teach, study". Originally, Jewish scholarship

5643-410: The explanations of Tosafot differ from those of Rashi. Among the founders of the Tosafist school were Rabbeinu Tam , who was a grandson of Rashi, and, Rabbenu Tam's nephew, Isaac ben Samuel . The Tosafot commentaries were collected in different editions in the various schools. The benchmark collection of Tosafot for Northern France was that of Eliezer of Touques . The standard collection for Spain

5742-426: The fifteenth century. Saadia Gaon is said to have composed commentaries on the Talmud, aside from his Arabic commentaries on the Mishnah. The first surviving commentary on the entire Talmud is that of Chananel ben Chushiel . Many medieval authors also composed commentaries focusing on the content of specific tractates, including Nissim ben Jacob and Gershom ben Judah . The commentary of Rashi , covering most of

5841-413: The first female rabbi in the United States, the investiture of Reform Judaism's first female hazzan and the ordination of Naamah Kelman as the first female rabbi to be ordained in Israel. In 1996, Rabbi Sheldon Zimmerman was appointed as the 7th President of the College-Institute. He was succeeded in 2000 by Rabbi David Ellenson as the 8th President. The 9th president of HUC-JIR, elected in 2014,

5940-420: The ground. What made the Cincinnati entertainment in its audacious effrontery most humiliating to the cause and vexatious to believers, is the remarkable event which principally brought it about.… It is mortifying in the extreme, that the occasion in American Judaism which ought more especially to have gone down to posterity with the purest record, was stained by the unpardonable flippancy of a Hebrew Council, and

6039-405: The late 19th century another trend in Talmud study arose. Hayyim Soloveitchik (1853–1918) of Brisk (Brest-Litovsk) developed and refined this style of study. Brisker method involves a reductionistic analysis of rabbinic arguments within the Talmud or among the Rishonim , explaining the differing opinions by placing them within a categorical structure. The Brisker method is highly analytical and

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6138-445: The law firm Morgan Lewis , who conducted 170 interviews addressing incidents beginning in the 1970s. The report described the culture at the school's campuses as a " good old boys " mindset demonstrating favoritism towards cisgender men , particularly at the Cincinnati and Jerusalem campuses. It found that students and administration were reluctant to confront professors over repeated incidents of harassment and discrimination, as many of

6237-409: The menu, "an elegant French cuisine dinner composed of nine courses and five alcoholic drinks would be served.… By any standard, the party was lavish, even in an age of excess. For sure, the dinner was extremely costly." The cost was defrayed by wealthy Jews ("Cincinnati's leading Jewish families"), at the head of whom was Julius Freiberg , the business partner and neighbor of Samuel Levy, the husband of

6336-402: The menu, Wise added: "It is about time to stop that noise over the culinary department of Judaism. The American Hebrew's religion confers not in kitchen and stomach. The American Israelite begs to be excused, it does not deal in victuals." "Word of the Trefa Banquet spread quickly throughout the Jewish press." Our Jewish contemporaries seem to be a good deal exercised in mind over the menu of

6435-465: The most important of the Jewish centres in Mesopotamia , a region called " Babylonia " in Jewish sources (see Talmudic academies in Babylonia ) and later known as Iraq , were Nehardea , Nisibis (modern Nusaybin ), Mahoza ( al-Mada'in , just to the south of what is now Baghdad ), Pumbedita (near present-day al Anbar Governorate ), and the Sura Academy , probably located about 60 km (37 mi) south of Baghdad. The Babylonian Talmud comprises

6534-450: The museum has grown physically to encompass 5,000 square feet (460 m ) of exhibition space, expanding to include the Petrie Great Hall, Klingenstein Gallery, Heller Gallery and Backman Gallery. The Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion in Los Angeles originally housed The Skirball Museum. The museum collection moved to the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles when the Center opened in 1996. The Skirball Cultural Center

6633-429: The need to ascertain the Halakha (Jewish rabbinical law). Early commentators such as Isaac Alfasi (North Africa, 1013–1103) attempted to extract and determine the binding legal opinions from the vast corpus of the Talmud. Alfasi's work was highly influential, attracted several commentaries in its own right and later served as a basis for the creation of halakhic codes. Another influential medieval Halakhic work following

6732-443: The number who were indignant was "surprisingly small. …Two rabbis left the table without having touched the dishes, and I am happy to state that I know of at least three more who ate nothing and were indignant but signified their disapproval in a less demonstrative manner." The first known complaint, however, is from a non-attendee, Sabato Morais , who would become the first president of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America . In

6831-442: The order of the Babylonian Talmud, and to some extent modelled on Alfasi, was "the Mordechai ", a compilation by Mordechai ben Hillel ( c. 1250–1298). A third such work was that of Asher ben Yechiel (d. 1327). All these works and their commentaries are printed in the Vilna and many subsequent editions of the Talmud. A 15th-century Spanish rabbi, Jacob ibn Habib (d. 1516), compiled the Ein Yaakov , which extracts nearly all

6930-456: The other band, the American Israelite affirms that not one of the 300 or 400 guests exhibited the slightest dissatisfaction. The Jews of Cincinnati recently tendered a banquet to the Jewish ministers and laymen of that city at which many articles of diet forbidden by the Jewish ritual were served and eaten. Clams, soft-shell crabs and frog-legs were among the forbidden articles on the table. The affair has excited no end of comment and criticism on

7029-540: The part of Jewish journals. The Jewish Record says: "We coincide with those who censure this committee and all concerned in the affair. We doubt much if a society of Gentiles would not have paid more respect to a Jewish guest, than to set before him food which they know his religious convictions would not permit him to eat, as did this organization for the education of the Jewish rabbis." The Jewish Tribune calls it an "unmitigated disgrace." The Jewish Herald says: "The American Hebrew from its standpoint justly complains of

7128-587: The period of the Amoraim (rabbis cited in the Gemara) beginning around the year 200. A second Aramaic dialect is used in Nedarim , Nazir , Temurah , Keritot , and Me'ilah ; the second is closer in style to the Targum . The oldest full manuscript of the Talmud, known as the Munich Talmud (Codex Hebraicus 95), dates from 1342 and is available online. Manuscripts of the Talmud are as follows: The exact date at which

7227-502: The perpetrators are or were revered scholars in their field, and complaints were often swept under the rug. Former professors Steven M. Cohen , Michael Cook , and Stephen Passamaneck , Director of Litiurgical Arts and Music Bonia Shur , and former presidents Alfred Gottschalk and Sheldon Zimmerman were reported to be the subject of repeated credible allegations of sexual harassment. The report recommended renaming or removing endowed chairs , scholarships, statues, and buildings that honor

7326-442: The president of Hebrew Union College and leader of American Reform Judaism, was aware of the menu plans of the banquet committee is not known. "Determining Wise’s personal food policy is not easy. Frequently inconsistent, he readily changed or revised his views for opportunistic purposes." He declined to apologize and condemn the banquet, and instead dismissed "kitchen Judaism" and argued that the dietary laws were obsolete and cheapened

7425-466: The program includes professional learning opportunities as a student-cantor, in which students serve congregations within and outside of the NY area. The curriculum includes liturgical music classes covering traditional Shabbat, High Holiday and Festival nusach, Chorus, Musicology, Reform Liturgy and Composition; Judaica and text classes such as Bible, Midrash and History; and professional development. Each student

7524-461: The prohibited ( treif ) foods clams, crabs, shrimp, and frogs' legs. It also combined meat with dairy dishes (ice cream). The meat was probably not kosher. This reflected the dining tendencies of Reform Jews at the time, who maintained the prohibition against pork but commonly ignored others, such as the one on shellfish. The banquet received a long write-up in the Cincinnati Enquirer , under

7623-691: The purpose of supplementing it and addressing internal contradictions via the technique of pilpul . This genre of commentary is known as the Tosafot and focuses on specific passages instead of a running continuous commentary across the entire Talmud. Many Talmudic passages are difficult to understand, sometimes owing to the use of Greek or Persian loanwords whose meaning had become obscure. A major area of Talmudic scholarship developed to explain these passages and words. Some early commentators such as Rabbenu Gershom of Mainz (10th century) and Rabbenu Ḥananel (early 11th century) produced running commentaries to various tractates. These commentaries could be read with

7722-509: The religion in the eyes of others. A tradition that dates back to attendee Philipson credits outrage over the banquet as a key turning point in the path of Conservative Judaism later forming as an alternative to the larger Reform Judaism movement. It "furnished the opening to the movement that culminated in the establishment of a rabbinical seminary of a Conservative birth," as the Jewish Theological Seminary , founded shortly after

7821-583: The rival Reform Jewish Institute of Religion (JIR) in New York. JIR was previously affiliated with the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue next door. Additional campuses were added in Los Angeles in 1954, and in Jerusalem in 1963. In 1979, HUC moved its New York campus from the original JIR building to 1 West Fourth Street in Greenwich Village . The Jewish Association for Services for the Aged took over

7920-469: The room. Shrimp had been placed before them as the opening course of the elaborate menu." If this is so, and his report has been described as "replete with misinformation" (among other things, shrimp was not the opening course), these rabbis did so quietly, without confrontation or protest. Another eyewitness, Henrietta Szold , commented in a letter, published in The Jewish Messenger on July 27, that

8019-471: The sixth century, the Babylonian Talmud was compiled. This later Talmud is usually what is being referred to when the word "Talmud" is used without qualification. The two Talmuds were likely written independently of one another. The Jerusalem Talmud ( Talmud Yerushalmi ) is known by several other names, including the Palestinian Talmud (which is more accurate, as it was not compiled in Jerusalem ), or

8118-476: The text likely trace to this time regardless of the date of the final redaction/compilation. Additional external evidence for a latest possible date for the composition of the Babylonian Talmud are the uses of it by external sources, including the Letter of Baboi (mid-8th century), Seder Tannaim veAmoraim (9th century) and a 10th-century letter by Sherira Gaon addressing the formation of the Babylonian Talmud. As for

8217-611: The text of the Talmud and would help explain the meaning of the text. Another important work is the Sefer ha-Mafteaḥ (Book of the Key) by Nissim Gaon , which contains a preface explaining the different forms of Talmudic argumentation and then explains abbreviated passages in the Talmud by cross-referring to parallel passages where the same thought is expressed in full. Commentaries ( ḥiddushim ) by Joseph ibn Migash on two tractates, Bava Batra and Shevuot, based on Ḥananel and Alfasi, also survive, as does

8316-428: The time, Reform rabbis were split over the question of whether the Jewish dietary restrictions were still applicable. Some of the more traditionalist Reform rabbis thought the banquet menu went too far, and were compelled to find an alternative between Reform Judaism and Orthodox Judaism . This was a major cause of the founding of American Conservative Judaism . In 1950, HUC gained a second campus when it merged with

8415-436: The title of "Jewish Jollification," which reproduced the menu completely, without comment, gave the program of the 12 numbers played by the orchestra ( Brahms , Offenbach , von Suppé ), and offered a long list of "the ladies present". In Rabbi Wise's American Israelite , the " collation " was "up to the standard"; besides a list of the ladies present, the article provides the texts of 7 toasts which were offered. The banquet

8514-532: The unrabbinical demeanor of American rabbis. It behooves the President of Union College to condemn what has evoked the remonstrances of the right-thinking. Morais did not use the name "Trefa Banquet", and its first use is unknown. Isaac Wise replied on August 3 to "our Philadelphia friend" (Morais) who "chastises the American Israelite because it did not condemn or at least denounce that terrible misdeed of that said unscrupulous caterer". Disclaiming responsibility for

8613-545: The world, both those that are endangered and those that are emerging. The JLP was launched in 2020 and its activities include convening organizations and scholars to document endangered Jewish languages and created collaborative dictionaries for emerging Jewish languages. JLP's initiatives include the creation of a comprehensive resource on Jewish languages in the form of a series on online dictionaries, with information on over 30 different languages, including their history, grammar, vocabulary, and cultural significance. Most prominent

8712-399: The wrongdoers. The school's current president and board both stated that they would make teshuvah (repent), work to prevent such incidents, and revise policies for handling misconduct complaints. The HUC library system contains one of the most extensive Jewish collections in the world. Each campus has its own library: The three U.S. campuses share a catalog, but the Jerusalem collection

8811-430: Was Rabbenu Asher 's Tosefot haRosh. The Tosafot that are printed in the standard Vilna edition of the Talmud are an edited version compiled from the various medieval collections, predominantly that of Touques. A recent project, Halacha Brura , founded by Abraham Isaac Kook , presents the Talmud and a summary of the halachic codes side by side, so as to enable the "collation" of Talmud with resultant Halacha. During

8910-410: Was Sally Priesand , ordained in 1972, the only woman in a class with 35 men. The first female cantor to be invested by HUC was Barbara Ostfeld in 1975. After four years of deliberation, HUC decided to give women a choice of wording on their ordination certificates beginning in 2016, including the option to have the same wording as men. Up until then, male candidates' certificates identified them by

9009-601: Was oral and transferred from one generation to the next. Rabbis expounded and debated the Torah (the written Torah expressed in the Hebrew Bible) and discussed the Tanakh without the benefit of written works (other than the Biblical books themselves), though some may have made private notes ( megillot setarim ), for example, of court decisions. This situation changed drastically due to

9108-483: Was Rabbi Aaron D. Panken , Ph.D. A noted authority on rabbinic and Second Temple literature, with research interests in the historical development of legal concepts and terms, Rabbi Panken was killed in a plane crash on May 5, 2018, while piloting a single-engine Aeronca 7AC over New York 's Hudson Valley . Andrew Rehfeld was elected the 10th president on December 18, 2018, and inaugurated at Plum Street Temple in Cincinnati on October 27, 2019. On April 11, 2022,

9207-445: Was also mentioned briefly in discussions of the meeting of the Council of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, which lasted three days (July 10–12). Nowhere is there any reference to objections or controversy in connection with the non-kosher dishes served. An eyewitness (the last living attendee, David Philipson) wrote, almost sixty years later, that "terrific excitement ensued when two rabbis rose from their seats and rushed from

9306-906: Was also the founding chancellor and president of Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Rabbi Abraham Cronbach , Rabbi Tamara Cohn Eskenazi , Abraham Joshua Heschel , Leo Baeck , Gerald Bubis , Nelson Glueck , Moses Buttenweiser , Eugene Borowitz , Jacob Z. Lauterbach , Lawrence A. Hoffman , Louis Grossmann , Moses Mielziner , Julian Morgenstern , Rabbi Alvin J. Reines , Steven Windmueller , Debbie Friedman , Rachel Adler and Carole B. Balin , as well as Sami Rohr Choicie Award for Jewish Literature and National Jewish Book Award recipient Sarah Bunin Benor . 31°46′34″N 35°13′22″E  /  31.77611°N 35.22278°E  / 31.77611; 35.22278 Talmud The Talmud ( / ˈ t ɑː l m ʊ d , - m ə d , ˈ t æ l -/ ; Hebrew : תַּלְמוּד ‎ , romanized :  Talmūḏ , lit.   'teaching') is, after

9405-665: Was considered an art form and became a goal in and of itself within the yeshivot of Poland and Lithuania. But the popular new method of Talmud study was not without critics; already in the 15th century, the ethical tract Orhot Zaddikim ("Paths of the Righteous" in Hebrew) criticized pilpul for an overemphasis on intellectual acuity. Many 16th- and 17th-century rabbis were also critical of pilpul. Among them are Judah Loew ben Bezalel (the Maharal of Prague), Isaiah Horowitz , and Yair Bacharach . By

9504-608: Was founded in Cincinnati in 1875 under the leadership of Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise . Jacob Ezekiel was Secretary of the Board, registrar, and treasurer from the College's inception until just before his death in 1899. The first rabbinical class graduated in 1883. The graduation banquet for this class became known as the Trefa Banquet because it included food that was not kosher , such as clams , soft-shell crabs , shrimp , frogs' legs and dairy products served immediately after meat. At

9603-435: Was most likely completed, however, in the 6th century, or prior to the early Muslim conquests in 643–636 CE at the latest, on the basis that the Talmud lacks loanwords or syntax deriving from Arabic . Recently, it has been extensively argued that Talmud is an expression and product of Sasanian culture, as well as other Greek - Roman , Middle Persian , and Syriac sources up to the same period of time. The contents of

9702-480: Was president of the Sura Academy from 375 to 427. The work begun by Rav Ashi was completed by Ravina, who is traditionally regarded as the final Amoraic expounder. Accordingly, traditionalists argue that Ravina's death in 475 is the latest possible date for the completion of the redaction of the Talmud. However, even on the most traditional view, a few passages are regarded as the work of a group of rabbis who edited

9801-665: Was seized upon with avidity. On January 7, 2018, a group of Reform Jews in the San Francisco Bay Area , including members of the "Illuminoshi" qv , an organization of Jewish food professionals, commemorated the original banquet with a "Trefa Banquet 2.0." It was an educational event, where they listened to a professor of Jewish history talk about the original Trefa Banquet, and ate treyf dishes made by Jewish chefs, including treyf meat. Hebrew Union College The Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion (also known as HUC , HUC-JIR , and The College-Institute )

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