Kara

Our local Jerusalem supermarket has been selling Rosh ha-Shanah vegetables, under their traditional names. I'm never sure exactly what they are. They include gourds called Kara. I have no idea whether they are worth trying. Anyone know?

Medieval Jewish Studies Online has finally shown a sign of life, with some new material on the fascinating medieval French exegete, R. Yosef Kara. A critical edition of his commentary on the books of Yoel, Ovadiah and Yonah is now available, as well as a short introduction to the project. The introduction seems to indicate an important shift in the thinking of the leader of the project. While at first she writes:

Our first investigations conducted at the Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts, Jerusalem, led us to suspect that it will not necessarily be possible to distinguish between Qara’s and Rashi’s commentaries in the sense of a literature by two clearly distinct authors, as has been assumed until now.

the actual meeting with the manuscripts led her to a different conclusion:

Having worked on the edition and translation of the text for the last two years, our first and probably most important result is that the commentary on the Minor Prophets (Tere Asar) reveals a stable and consistent textual tradition and does not show any sign of fluctual transmission.

A testimony to an open mind and the value of manuscript research!