How do you remember things? Memories are stored in the mind, of course: we make “mental notes,” set long lists to song, use practice drills, and more. But how does it work, exactly? Where do memories reside; how are they created and retrieved when needed; and what relationship do they have to body and soul? These are questions that ancient and medieval thinkers pondered for both theoretical and practical reasons, in a tradition of ars memorativa.

JQR 114.3 is now available, online and in print. 

In this issue:

Elyashiv Cherlow brings new light to the provenance of a passage of the Jerusalem Talmud based on newly identified Cairo Geniza manuscript fragments.

JQR 113.4 is now available, online and in print. 

In this issue:

JQR 113.3 is now available, online and in print. 

In this issue:

Barry Wimpfheimer shows that the Mishnah stacks legal couplets like building blocks to produce ever-richer conceptual understandings and train the reader to mine it for such meaning.

Steven Weitzman (SW): Can you tell us about your research on ultra-Orthodox Judaism and philosophy?

Current fellow Sarah Zager is an award-winning teacher known for clarity and accessibility in taking up complex and thorny issues, a recent PhD from Yale, and at work on a book exploring how Jewish philosophy can contribute to today’s debates about virtue ethics.

As she is gearing up to teach an online course on gender and Jewish philosophy for us, we asked her a few questions about the subject and her approach to it.

JQR 112.4 is now available, online* and in print. 

In this issue:

JQR 112.3 is now available, online* and in print. 

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JQR 112.1 is now available, online* and in print. 

In this issue:

Simcha Gross and Avigail Manekin-Bamberger introduce Aramaic incantation bowls that draw on rabbinic and elite literary sources, forcing a reevaluation of the “popular” religion traditionally ascribed to the bowls.

JQR 111.4 is now available, online* and in print. 

In this issue: