New Issue of the Jewish Quarterly Review: Summer 2025

In this issue:

Simcha Gross situates classical rabbinic discussions of male head coverings in their Roman and Sasanian contexts, and in doing so he shows how the diverse meanings of late antique head coverings complicate the narrative of the origins of the kippah. This essay is FREE to read and download without a subscription through September 5, 2025.

Shai Secunda analyzes textual parallels between the Babylonian Aramaic incantation bowls and the Talmud to expand our understanding of how texts were circulated, quoted, cited, and reworked in Jewish Babylonia.

Edwin Seroussi dissects a series of slanderous accusations lodged against early modern poet and musician Rabbi Israel Najara, tracing their history through Ottoman rumors, Sabbatian refutations, and modern scholarship. This essay is FREE to read and download without a subscription through September 5, 2025.

Tsiona Lida explores the concept of hope in the work of Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi and Walter Benjamin in light of their theories of historical writing, and shows how their differing approaches illustrate the affective qualities of historical writing. 

Jonathan Howard examines a medieval text by Rabbi Jacob ben Samson that seems to evidence the geographic origins of the Palestinian vocalization signs and argues that it refers to cantillation signs instead, thereby casting doubt on the Palestinian origins of the vocalization signs.

Leslie Ribovich and Cara Rock-Singer stage a conversation with James Baldwin and Rabbi Louis Finkelstein to articulate the threats to freedom and equality inherent in American secularism, and identify paths to justice.

*The most recent four years of JQR are distributed online to subscribers exclusively through Project Muse. 

As always, see jqr.pennpress.org to subscribe and get access to all 130 years of JQR content.