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Genizah Fragments

By Melonie Schmierer-Lee on Thu 1 Jul 2021

Our Throwback Thursday this week is taken from issue 32 of the printed edition of Genizah Fragments, published in October 1996, by Jack R. Lundbom, while he was a Visiting Fellow at Clare Hall:

What induced me to consult the Taylor-Schechter Genizah fragments in the Cambridge University Library was an interest in section markings in ancient biblical manuscripts. Modern critical editions of the Hebrew Bible, e.g. Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia, designate these sections open or closed, the former by a... Read More

Has tags: Bible, Dead Sea Scrolls, Genizah Fragments, scroll, sigla

 

By Melonie Schmierer-Lee and Ben Outhwaite on Wed 30 Jun 2021

So, Ben what are you working on today?

Well, life’s pretty varied at the moment. The GRU has a number of projects on the go, and so I’m spending quite a lot of time happily immersed in manuscripts (or, at least, their digital surrogates, since I am still working from home) in a way that I haven’t had the opportunity to for about the last 15 years, since I was a full-time researcher myself. At any one time, I may be describing documentary fragments from the T-S New Series, checking descriptions produced by other GRU researchers, enriching the TEI of descriptions with... Read More

Has tags: Genizah Fragments, liturgy, Moses Maimonides, Q&A, Saadiah Gaon, Solomon of Sijilmassa

 

By Melonie Schmierer-Lee on Thu 24 Jun 2021

Our Throwback Thursday this week is a photo of the Genizah Unit's staff as it once was in 2010 (with the exception of me - I must have been away that day). The team, from left to right: Blazej Mikula (photography), Mark Scudder (photography), Amir Ashur, Nancy Buck (photography), Ben Outhwaite, Sarah Sykes, Esther-Miriam Wagner, Lucy Cheng (conservation), Julia Krivoruchko, Gabriele Ferrario, Maciej Pawlikowski (photography), Samuel Blapp, Daniel Davies, and Ronny Vollandt. The team was particularly large at that point, as we had taken on additional researchers for an AHRC cataloguing... Read More

Has tags: Genizah Fragments, staff

 

By Melonie Schmierer-Lee and Zvi Stampfer on Wed 23 Jun 2021

Hi Zvi, which manuscript are you working on today?

I’m looking at a couple of Genizah manuscripts. In general, I’m now dealing with witches.

Are these magical texts or responsa about witches?

They’re theological texts, on the relations between witches and theologians – not personal relations but of an academic nature. Witchcraft and witches were challenging topics for Jewish rational theologians and they addressed it in their writings. The most challenging case was the biblical story of the Witch of Endor and King Saul.

... Read More

Has tags: Genizah Fragments, mu'tazila, Q&A, Saadiah Gaon, Samuel ben Hofni, theology, witches

 

By Sarah Sykes on Wed 23 Jun 2021

Bouncing Back - and Forward: From Immigrant Household to Cambridge Fellowship ● By Stefan C. Reif ● Vallentine Mitchell & Co Ltd, 2021

When you have lived such a busy and varied life as Stefan Reif, it behoves you to record it for future posterity! From humble beginnings in Edinburgh to Professor and College Fellow at Cambridge University, Stefan’s life journey has been one full of industry and determination. The book, originally... Read More

Has tags: Book, Genizah Fragments, Stefan Reif

 

By Melonie Schmierer-Lee on Thu 17 Jun 2021

To mark Refugee Week (14–20 June 2021), here’s a letter from Alexandria, Egypt from September 1212 CE, reporting the arrival of a large number of French refugees at the port. As Europe became less and less hospitable to its Jewish population – Phillip II of France had been enacting policies to confiscate Jewish property since 1180 – refugees began to flee across the Mediterranean to safety in Egypt. Their arrival is mentioned towards the end of a letter (T-S 12.299) sent to the cantor Meʾir ben Yakhin in... Read More

Has tags: charity, France, Genizah Fragments, Goitein, refugees

 

By Melonie Schmierer-Lee on Thu 17 Jun 2021

Our Throwback Thursday this week is taken from issue 21 of the printed edition of Genizah Fragments, published in April 1991, by Moshe Gil, Professor of Jewish History at Tel Aviv University:

In 1968, I started my research on the history of the Jews in Muslim lands in the early mediaeval period (frequently called the “geonic period”) with my late teacher, Professor S. D. Goitein. Since then, the main source of documentation for my work has been the Cairo Genizah manuscripts. I have made many visits to... Read More

Has tags: Babylonian, Genizah Fragments, Hai Gaon, Moshe Gil, yeshiva

 

By Melonie Schmierer-Lee and Nadia Vidro on Wed 16 Jun 2021

Nadia, which fragment are you working on today?

I am working on T-S AS 158.147. It’s a fragment of a Karaite calendar chronicle for the end of 410–418 AH (1020–1028 CE). I’m looking at it as part of the project ‘Qaraite and Rabbanite calendars: origins, interaction, and polemic’, funded by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation. It is a joint project between UCL and LMU (Munich).

What are the key things... Read More

Has tags: calendar, chronicle, Firkovich, Genizah Fragments, Karaite, Q&A

 

By Melonie Schmierer-Lee on Thu 10 Jun 2021

Nick Posegay's article 'Sticking to the Script: How an incredible journey of Hebrew letters helps us recall the Arabic language' has just appeared in The Scholar, an annual magazine for Gates Cambridge scholars and alumni. Nick's article tells the Genizah story to a general audience through the lens of T-S Ar.5.58, a leaf from a Bible glossary with the vocabulary for a portion of 1 Samuel:

"The scribe’s booklet was... Read More

Has tags: article, Bible, Genizah Fragments, glossary

 

By Melonie Schmierer-Lee on Thu 10 Jun 2021

Our Throwback Thursday this week is taken from our Fragment of the Month in September 2007, by our late colleague Friedrich Niessen and Gideon Bohak:

‘Take a plate of lead and write on it in the first hour of the day; bury it in a new grave which is three days old’. Thus starts a Judaeo-Arabic instruction preserved in the Additional Series (... Read More

Has tags: curse, Genizah Fragments, magic