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Sefunot () was a Hebrew-language academic journal, published annually, dealing with the study of Jewish communities in the East, from the end of the Middle Ages unto the present time.Yitzhak Ben-Zvi (1956), p. 5 It was initiated by Meir Benayahu, and jointly published by the Ben Zvi Institute and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. A total of 26 books have been published in 25 volumes. The first book was published in 1956 and the last in 2017. The appellative Sefunot was chosen for the Annual, as it has the distinct meaning of "those things concealed," an allusion to the obscure nature of these Jewish communities.
The chronological-historical range of the present volume ( Sefunot) spans ten centuries while its geographical range includes Babylonia, Palestine, Syria, the Yemen, the Balkans, the Mountain Jews, Egypt and North Africa.
A number of important articles published in this volume include 1) the history of Cordovian and Lurianic Kabbalah, 2) the history of early Zionist activities in Egypt at the turn of the 20th-century, 3) Turkish documents on the rebuilding of Tiberias in the sixteenth century,Heyd (1966), pp. 193–210 4) studies on the Mountain Jews of the Northern Caucasus, 5) studies on the Jews of Yemen, with important liturgical, literary, and linguistic contributions related to this community.Shaked, et al. (1983), p. 538Ratzaby (1957), pp. 287–302 The volume also contains a description of a short poem dated to the 10th century CE, dedicated to one of the leaders of the Jewish community in Baghdad, as well as three 13th-century philosophical treatises from Yemen which reflect the overwhelming influence of Maimonides' and Saadia Gaon's philosophy on the Yemenite Jewish community.
The New Series was edited by Shaul Shaked (one volume), Joseph Haker (three volumes), Menachem Ben-Sasson (three volumes) and Meir Bar-Asher (two volumes). Here, too, most of the articles were written in Hebrew, accompanied by abstracts at the end of the volume, although a number of articles appeared in English and French for the first time.See, for example, the first book of the New Series (vol. 16): Haïm Vidal Sephiha, Ladino (judéo-espagnol calque) et Sémantique, pp. V - XV.
Many of the prominent Jewish scholars of the time participated in the journal, alongside rabbis and Israeli academia.
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