And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end (Ecclesiastes 12:12) A pdf version of this essay can be downloaded here [*] Years in brackets refer to an individual’s or book author’s year of birth Thought experiment for the day: Anyone born 1945 would be pushing towards 80 and mostly past their prime. So name any Charedi sefer written by someone born post war that has or is likely to enter the canon, be it haloche, lomdus, al hatorah or mussar. Single one will do for now — IfYouTickleUs (@ifyoutickleus) July 27, 2022 A tweet in the summer which gained some traction asked for a book by an author born from 1945 onwards that has entered the Torah and rabbinic canon or is heading in that direction. I didn't exactly phrase it this way and some quibbled about 'canonisation'. The word does indeed have a precise meaning though in its popular use it has no narrow definition. Canonisation, or ‘entering the canon’ is generally understood to...
Readers of the Jewish Chronicle were kept entertained over Pesach at the clash of two titans of Anglo Jewry over none other than our friend, the revered 'Rabbi' Pinter. It all started when Geoffrey Alderman suggested that the way to resolve the Ofsted 'crisis' (or the-failure-to-educate-boys crisis, with no inverted commas) would be to facilitate round-table discussions between Ofsted, the government and local chareidi parents. Alderman then added that he can think of no one better to facilitate such discussions than the Great Beard himself. We'll come back to this marvellous suggestion a little bit later though logistically it should not be too difficult. Boruch Hashem , Pinter's beard has been released from the camera lens shutter where it had become entangled and which forced him to go AWOL while the BBC and the Independent were running prominent stories on local boys' schools. The 'Rabbi' did however pop up to call for the resignation of the...