It’s been a bumper year for Talmudology. The website grew its readership by almost 30% and hosted almost 30,000 unique visitors. It had 55,000 page views, an increase of almost 50% from the previous calendar year.
The Most Popular Posts of 2019
Here are the ten most popular posts of the year:
Bava Basra 126b ~ The Healing Power of Saliva. Saliva, wound healing, and the magic of a firstborn’s spit.
Chullin 22b ~ Yellow Pigeons, Folk Medicine and Hepatitis. Why pigeons are still used to cure hepatitis.
Avodah Zarah 28b ~ Ear Candling. On a silly way to clean your ears.
Kiddushin 29a ~ Swimming and Drowning. The Jewish requirement to teach a child to swim.
Avodah Zarah 39a ~ Do Swordfish have Scales? Actually they do. So they are kosher.
Bava Basra 25b ~ The Sun's Orbit Around the Earth. The rabbis of the Talmud vs. Copernicus.
Kiddushin 30a ~ How Many Letters are in a Sefer Torah? 304, 801. Or 304, 805. And why the rabbis miscounted.
Kiddushin 82a ~ The Best Doctors Go to Hell. Doctors were at best useless, and at their worst, agents of death. To hell with them.
Bava Basra 27b ~ The Roots of a Palm Tree. How the United Nations supported Abayye’s botanical opinions.
Ketuvot 36a ~ The Aylonit Syndrome and Turner's Syndrome. How genetics sheds light on a Talmudic category.
Where are the Talmudology readers FROM?
Here are the top five Talmudology reading countries:
USA - 61% (24,200 visitors)
Israel 12% (4,700 visitors)
United Kingdom 5% (1,900 visitors)
Canada 3% (1,200 visitors)
Australia 2% (1,000 visitors)
But let’s not forget our loyal readers from other parts of the world. A special shout out to the 350 visitors from Pakistan, 73 visitors from Saudi Arabia, the 39 visitors from Iran, the 14 from Bahrain, and the 6 visitors from Zimbabwe. We value your readership, and don’t worry, we cannot identify you in any more detail, even if we wanted to.
We thank you for your readership and the encouraging emails you have kindly sent. Thanks as well to each of you who diligently alert us to any typos.
What’s Next for Talmudology?
We started this project in November 2104, which was about two years into the one-page-a-day Daf Yomi cycle of seven-and-a half years. That cycle will be completed in just four more days, (and Talmudology will be celebrating in Jerusalem here and here). We will then continue with new posts as we follow the brand new Daf Yomi cycle.
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