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Genizah Fragments

By Sacha Stern on Sat 2 Mar 2024

The Jewish calendar that is in almost universal use today, and in the Middle Ages was associated with the Rabbanites, was instituted at some point in the ninth century (its attribution to a Hillel in the mid-fourth century is a medieval tradition that has long been disproved in modern scholarship).1  It is a fixed calendar, based on a calculation. Its origins are yet to be fully understood, although some of its elements can be traced back to Talmudic sources. The fragment I present here reveals new ‘missing... Read More

Has tags: calendar, Genizah Fragments, Russian National Library

 

By Catherine Ansorge on Mon 26 Feb 2024

The discovery of the Cairo Genizah manuscript fragments in the synagogue in Al-Fustat, Old Cairo, has already been well documented. In January 1897, Solomon Schechter, the Cambridge rabbinical scholar, made his first visit to the synagogue subsequent to information given to him by the twin sisters Agnes Lewis and Margaret Gibson that these texts, stored there over centuries, could be of unexpected interest. The twins had visited Cairo briefly the previous year prior to the start of an expedition to look for manuscripts in Cairo and Jerusalem. On their return to Cambridge, they had, with... Read More

Has tags: Agnes Lewis, Genizah Fragments, Margaret Gibson, Solomon Schechter

 

By Kim Phillips on Thu 8 Feb 2024

Among the most charming of the dozens of thousands of Bible fragments found in the Cairo Genizah,1 are the hundred or so in which the biblical text is written in some sort of shorthand, or abbreviated, manner.2 At least three different methods of abbreviation are found among these manuscripts. Sometimes, only the opening few words of each verse are written (the ‘Lemma Method’). The great pronouncement of comfort in the opening... Read More

Has tags: Bible, FOTM, Genizah Fragments, serugin, Targum, vocalisation

 

By Melonie Schmierer-Lee on Sun 29 Oct 2023

Food represents culture without boundaries with flavors, changing fashions, and personal preference all gaining expression in our plates. Celebrating the food culture of the Middle East, a new temporary exhibition 'Tastes of Heaven: Tales of the Arab Kitchen' – curated by Limor Yungman and Adi Namia-Cohen at the Museum for Islamic Art in Jerusalem – brings together cookbooks, artworks, travelers' literature, cooking, eating and drinking utensils, archaeological discoveries, historical... Read More

Has tags: exhibition, food, Genizah Fragments

 

By Sarah Sykes on Sat 28 Oct 2023

In recent weeks Genizah researchers recorded two radio interviews about the collection and its Bible fragments for the Catholic radio station Radio Maria England. On 24 July 2023, Dr Ben Outhwaite gave an introductory talk on the Cairo Genizah covering its history and importance to our understanding of Jewish medieval life, and on 25 September, Dr Kim Phillips followed up with a talk about early Bible fragments in the Genizah collections, explaining how scribes maintained the accuracy of their holy texts and how that relates to the Bible you read today. 

Radio Maria England aims to... Read More

Has tags: audio, Bible, Genizah Fragments

 

By Ben Outhwaite on Fri 27 Oct 2023

Today we are announcing a new piece of Genizah research and a new book in the field of book history from our friends over at Gorgias Press. This book, titled Literary Snippets: Colophons Across Space and Time, is a collection of essays examining the widespread phenomenon of ‘colophons’ in manuscript culture. From Gorgias Press:

The colophon, the ultimate or “crowing touch” paragraphs of a manuscript or a book, provides readers with a the historical context in which the scribe produced the manuscript (or the publisher, a book). At its most fundamental level, the... Read More

Has tags: article, colophon, Genizah Fragments, printed

 

By Nadia Vidro on Thu 13 Jul 2023

Most Genizah fragments are damaged – “torn”, “stained”, “rubbed”, “faded” occur frequently in Genizah catalogues – but some fragments are more damaged than others. Ink corrosion can destroy a text almost completely. A page torn vertically is harder to make sense of than one torn horizontally. It is especially frustrating but also tantalising when writing is preserved but earlier conservation work has, through error or a misunderstanding, obscured it. In such cases, working today with the UL’s Conservation... Read More

Has tags: calendar, conservation, Genizah Fragments, polemic, Saadiah Gaon

 

By Ben Outhwaite on Wed 22 Mar 2023

The Arabic Poetry in the Cairo Genizah project (APCG) recently embarked on a tour of the United Arab Emirates, showcasing its collection of poetry manuscripts to scholars and the public in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. Dr Mohamed Ahmed, head of the project, organized the tour in the Gulf with the aim of highlighting the significance of the Cairo Genizah as a repository of Arabic literature and an important – but little known – resource for Arabic textual history.

... Read More

Has tags: Arabic, exhibition, Genizah Fragments, poetry

 

By Melonie Schmierer-Lee on Tue 21 Mar 2023

The Kedem YouTube channel has recently published three video interviews with Ben Outhwaite, dealing with some recent discoveries and perennial fascinations of the Genizah. So, if you are interested in hearing what he thinks about the Kyiv Letter’s origins (spoiler: he thinks Norman Golb was spot on) or the new Maimonides discovery by Prof. Delgado (... Read More

Has tags: Genizah Fragments, Hexapla, Kiev, Moses Maimonides, podcast

 

By Melonie Schmierer-Lee on Thu 16 Feb 2023

A new online exhibition ‘Coins of the Cairo Geniza’, curated by Matthew Dudley and Alan Elbaum of the Princeton Geniza Lab, brings together data on the many coins and currencies that crop up in Genizah manuscripts. The exhibition presents coins from the Princeton Numismatic Collection and images of Genizah documents, according to state authority, regnal years, production thresholds, alternative names, and etymology.

In the 12th century fragment T-S AS... Read More

Has tags: coins, currency, exhibition, Genizah Fragments