The order of my selection of books is basically from more
complete to those books which only contain a few
biographies. Most are available in library systems, or
libraries can borrow them from outside their system.
Inaccuracies and distortions may appear in any of these
books. I can't vouch for what appears on every page. But, what else should I do?
* Students of the Talmud refer to the
Sages as "Our Wise Ones, of blessed memory." When the Hebrew words for these expressions
are abbreviated – which they generally are – the Sages are called Chazal (khah ZAHL).
• Essential Figures in the Talmud, by Ronald L. Eisenberg
Sages are listed alphabetically by first name
Includes a chronological list of Sages, a glossary, and maps
Also a bibliography
Pages: xix, 299
Lanham, Maryland: Jason Aronson, 2013.
ISBN-13: 978-0-7657-0941-7
ISBN-13: 978-0-7657-0942-4 (ebook)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2012-021308
Subject Terms: Amoraim--Biography--Dictionaries Tannaim--Biography--Dictionaries Talmud--Biography--Dictionaries
• BM501.15 E37 2013
• 296.12--dc23
The Talmud chronicles the early
development of rabbinic Judaism through the writings and
commentaries of the rabbis whose teachings form its
foundation. However, this key religious text is expansive,
consisting of 63 books containing extensive discussions and
interpretations of the Mishnah accumulated over several
centuries. Sifting through the huge number of names
mentioned in the Talmud to find information about one figure can
be tedious and time-consuming, and most reference guides either
provide only brief, unhelpful entries on every rabbi, including
minor figures, or are so extensive that they can be more
intimidating than the original text. In Essential
Figures in the Talmud, Dr. Ronald L. Eisenberg explains
the importance of the more than 250 figures who are most vital to
an understanding and appreciation of Talmudic texts. This
valuable reference guide consists of short biographies
illustrating the significance of these figures while explaining
their points of view with numerous quotations from rabbinic
literature. Taking material from the vast expanse of the
Talmud and Midrash, this book demonstrates the broad interests of
the rabbis whose writings are the foundation of rabbinic
Judaism. Both religious studies and rabbinical students and
casual readers of the Talmud will benefit from the comprehensive
entries on the most-frequently discussed rabbis and
will gain valuable insights from this reader-friendly
text. Complete in a single volume, this guide strikes a
satisfying balance between the sparse, uninformative books and
comprehensive but overly complex references that are currently the
only places for inquisitive Talmud readers to turn. For any
reader who wishes to gain a better understanding of Talmudic
literature, Eisenberg's text is just as essential as the figures
listed within.
(bibliocommons.com)
Author:
Ronald L. Eisenberg is professor of radiology at Harvard Medical
School and on the faculty at Beth Israel Medical Center in
Boston. Dr. Eisenberg has been awarded Master's and doctoral
degrees in Jewish studies from Spertus Institute in Chicago and
has published six critically acclaimed books on Jewish
topics. He has written more than twenty books in his medical
specialty and is also a nonpracticing attorney.
-- from the back cover
• Masters of
the Talmud: Their Lives and Views
by Alfred J. Kolatch
This book also appears on the page "English Language Introductions
to the Talmud."
Begins with an introduction to the Talmud – "The Origin and
Development of the Talmud."
(38 pages)
Includes a glossary and a bibliography of English-language sources
Pages: 488
Middle Village, New York: Jonathan David Publishers, 2003.
ISBN: 0-8246-0434-2
Library of Congress Control Number: 00-065761
Subject Terms: Amoraim--Biography--Dictionaries
Tannaim--Biography--Dictionaries
Talmud--Biography--Dictionaries
• BM501.15 .K55 2003
• 296.1'2'00922--dc21
Next to the Bible itself, the Talmud is
hailed as the greatest literary achievement of the Jewish
people. Composed in the Holy Land and in Babylonia over
fifteen centuries ago, the two encyclopedic works that comprise
the Talmud contain not only intense legal debates but also
discussions on subjects as diverse as astronomy, health, sex,
domestic affairs, education, prayer, food, and superstition.
In fact, so wide-ranging are its contents that those
deeply involved in Talmudic study are said to be "swimming in the
sea of the Talmud."
-- from the inside jacket cover
"Masters of the Talmud
provides scholars and laymen alike with an indispensable key to
the magnificent treasures of the Talmud."
-- Emanuel S. Goldsmith, Professor of Jewish Studies, Queens
College of the City University of New York (back cover)
Author:
Alfred J. Kolatch, a graduate of the Teacher's Institute of
Yeshiva University and its College of Liberal Arts, was ordained
by the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, which subsequently
awarded him the Doctor of Divinity Degree, honoris causa.
From 1941 to 1948 he served as rabbi of congregations in Columbia,
South Carolina, and Kew Gardens, New York, and as chaplain in the
United States Army. In 1948 he founded Jonathan David
Publishers, of which he has since been president and editor-in-chief.
(bibliocommons.com)
• Sages and
Dreamers: Biblical, Talmudic,and Hasidic Portraits and Legends
by Elie Wiesel
Translated by Marion Wiesel and Stephen Becker
Based on several spellbinding lectures he gave in 1966 at New
York's 92nd Street Y, New York's most prestigious Jewish cultural
center, Sages and Dreamers . . . is a
quest for timeless values and truth. Twenty-five years later, Wiesel presents a collection
of twenty-five texts, "one for each of those years."
With a glossary
Pages: 445
New York: Summit Books, 1991.
ISBN: 0-671-74679-0
Library of Congress Control Number: 91-26454
Subject Terms: Talmud--Biography--Meditations
Hasidim--Biography--Meditations
Old Testament--Biography--Meditations
Bible
• BS571 .W548 1991
• 296'.092'2--dc20
Author:
Born in Sighet, Romania, Elie Wiesel was the son of a grocer on
September 30, 1928. In 1944 he and his family were deported,
along with other Jews, to the Nazi death camps. His father
died in Buchenwald and his mother and his younger sisters at
Auschwitz. (Wiesel did not learn until after the war that
his older sisters had also survived.) Upon liberation from
the camps, Wiesel boarded a train for Western Europe with other
orphans. The train arrived in France, where he chose to
remain. He settled first in Normandy and later in Paris,
where he completed his education at the Sorbonne (from 1948 to
1951). To support himself, he did whatever he could,
including tutoring, directing a choir, and translating.
Eventually he began working as a reporter for various French and
Jewish publications. Emotionally unable at first to write
about his experience of the Holocaust, in the mid-1950s
the novelist Francois Mauriac urged him to speak out and tell the
world of his experiences. The result was La Nuit (1958), later
translated as Night
(1960), the story of a teenage boy plagued with guilt for having
survived the death camps and for questioning his religious
faith. Before the book was published, Wiesel had moved to
New York (in 1956), where he continued writing and eventually
began teaching. He became a naturalized American citizen in
1963, following a long recuperation from a car accident.
Since the publication of Night,
Wiesel has become a major writer, literary critic, and
journalist. As a writer steeped in the Hasidic tradition and
concerned with the Holocaust he survived, he has written on the
problem of persecution and the meaning of being a Jew. Dawn (1960) is an
illuminating document about terrorists in Palestine. In The Accident (1961), Eliezer,
a Holocaust survivor, can not seem to escape the past. Other
notable works include The Gates
of the Forest (1964) and Twilight (1988), which explore the themes of
human suffering and a belief in G-d. Wiesel
has received a number of awards and honors for his literary work,
including the William and Janice Epstein Fiction Award in 1965,
the Jewish Heritage Award in 1966, the Prix Medicis in 1969, and
the Prix Livre-International in 1980. As a
result of his work in combating human cruelty and in advocating
justice, Wiesel was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986.
He has also served as chairman of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial
Council and spoke at the dedication of the Holocaust Museum in
Washington, D.C., in 1993. (Bowker Author Biography)
Author of more than forty internationally acclaimed works of
fiction and nonfiction, Elie Wiesel was awarded the Nobel Peace
Prize in 1986. He is Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the
Humanities and University Professor at Boston University. He
lives in New York City. (Publisher Provided)
Booklist:
Wiesel roams around the Bible like more ordinary folk tramp around
a shopping mall. He stops and examines a particular icon,
decides what he buys about a particular biblical tale, and in
general enjoys the goods. Based on a series of lectures,
this collection's focus is 25 Jewish figures whom Wiesel loves
because "despite their grandeur, or thanks to it, they remain
close to us everywhere and always." The subjects are mostly
men – Noah, Rabbi Akiba, The Ostrowitzer
Rabbi
– though Ruth and Esther get a nod. These figures
each represent a specific era, but Wiesel shows, in surprisingly
accessible, even colloquial, prose, that their problems and dreams
are not so very different from our own. As Wiesel develops
his arguments, shifting his focus as one tilts a prism, readers
may very well wish they had him in their living rooms, all the
better to argue back. (Certainly such colloquy would be well
within the tradition of Talmudic debate.) Before they begin
arguing with Wiesel, even in their heads, many readers will want
to consult the original texts; unfortunately, the glaring
omission of chapter and verse citations will make some of them
difficult to find. Still, this is a rich, provocative
volume
– the kind of book that gets the blood racing.
-- Ilene Cooper
• Wise Men
and Their Tales: Portraits of Biblical, Talmudic, and Hasidic
Masters
by Elie Wiesel
"This volume is the written version of lectures given in recent
years at the New York 92nd Street Y in New York and at Boston
University, where I have been teaching since 1976."
Contents of Sages in the Talmud –
Rabbi Tarfon
Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi
Abbaya and Rava
Converts in the Talmud
Talmudic Sketches (84 pages)
Includes an introduction of 17 pages
Pages: xxvi, 337
New York: Schocken Books, 2003.
ISBN: 0-8052-4173-6
Library of Congress Control Number: 2003-045576
Subject Terms: Talmud--Biography
Hasidim--Biography
Talmud--Legends
Old Testament--Biography
Bible--Old Testament--Legends
Bible
• BS571 .W5485 2003
• 296'.092'2--dc21
In Wise
Men and Their Tales, a master teacher gives us his
fascinating insights into the lives of a wide range of of
biblical figures, Talmudic scholars, and Hasidic rabbis.
-- from the inside book jacket