The Fragment of the Month takes a close look at an interesting fragment – or fragments – from the Cairo Genizah. The series has been running since 2007.
We are always keen to receive submissions, so if you'd like to contribute, please send us an email (genizah@lib.cam.ac.uk). All submissions are peer-reviewed by members of the Genizah Research Unit or one of our colleagues worldwide.
July 2024: A birthday with uncertainty: RNL Evr Arab I 4816 (Nadia Vidro)
May 2024: A Buyid-Fatimid Diplomacy Letter? (Yusuf Umrethwalla)
March 2024: Lionising Luria: Mosseri III.232 (Ben Outhwaite)
December 2023: An Aramaic Antiochus Chanukah poem: T-S A45.14 (Marc Michaels)
September 2023: Greco-Coptic exercises in Hebrew script: T-S Ar.35.109 (Julia G. Krivoruchko)
August 2023: A lost work or a lost title? Iqāma al-ʿIbbur: T-S 10G5.7 (Nadia Vidro)
January 2023, Solving European Writer’s Block in Jewish Cairo (T-S 20.188), (Nick Posegay)
September 2022, A Story of Scribal Collaboration: the Targum of T-S 6H5.1 (Estara Arrant)
July 2022, T-S Misc.22.264 - a trope trainer from the Cairo Genizah (Marc Michaels)
June 2022, Moses b. Abraham the Nagid – New evidence: T-S AS 147.93 (Dotan Arad, Amir Ashur)
April 2022, An eighth-century Easter cycle in Hebrew (T-S NS 98.51) (Sacha Stern)
March 2022, Ripe apples with bread? T-S Ar.43.225 (Ani Avetisyan)
February 2022, A New Judaeo-Syriac Fragment from the Genizah: ENA 3846.2 (Alan Elbaum)
January 2022, A Tale of a Torn Title Page: T-S AS 191.716 (Julia G. Krivoruchko)
December 2021, Relaxing the Tiberian Standard: T-S A11.1 (Samuel Blapp)
November 2021, Kalah in the lands of Java: T-S Ar.30.42 (Marina Rustow)
October 2021, Nāṣir, the Hebrew littérateur (Alan Elbaum)
August 2021, More on Moshe’s Laments: T-S NS 324.1 (Julia G. Krivoruchko)
July 2021, New Tiqqunei Soferim: T-S A4.10 and T-S D1.37 (Joseph Ginsberg)
May 2021, Bilingualism in Genizah Arabic poetry: T-S NS 108.60 (Mohamed Ahmed, Ben Outhwaite)
April 2021, Five Greek Glosses to Bava Metzia 93b: T-S F2(1).164 (Julia G. Krivoruchko)
March 2021, Muslim and Christian calendars in Jewish calendar booklets: T-S K2.33 (Nadia Vidro)
January 2021, A Sixteenth-Century Trilingual Dictionary of Hebrew (Julia G. Krivoruchko)
December 2020, A Memorial list of Elijah b. Zechariah’s family: T-S 10J18.2 (Amir Ashur)
October 2020, Saʿadya's Hermeneutical Principles? T-S Ar. 50.159 (Zvi Stampfer)
July 2020, The letter of the Convert: T-S 16.100 (Ben Outhwaite)
June 2020, A Fustat Summer Wedding: Pictures and Poetry in T-S NS 266.113 (Nick Posegay)
May 2020, A Shorthand Psalter: T-S A43.8 (Kim Phillips)
March 2020, Addressing the Rambam: ENA 4020.56 (Amir Ashur & Ben Outhwaite)
December 2019, The letter for a man from somewhere: T-S 10J10.9 (Ben Outhwaite)
November 2019, From a lost book of Egyptian proverbs: T-S Ar.13.13 (Mohamed A H Ahmed)
October 2019. A hitherto unknown poem by Shelomoh ibn Gabirol: T-S NS 143.46 (José Martínez Delgado)
September 2019, The Book against the People of the Equinox: T-S K6.63 (Nadia Vidro)
August 2019, Saʿāda the enslaved woman: immersion and oblivion: T-S 12.872 (Moshe Yagur)
June 2019, T-S Ar.38.64: A Maġribī-Script Qurʾān Fragment (Magdalen Connolly)
April 2019. Standard Tiberian Pronunciation in a Non-Standard Form: T-S AS 64.206 (Estara Arrant)
March 2019, The Oldest Fragment of Origen's Hexapla: T-S 12.182 (Ben Kantor)
January 2019, The Uncommon Bible: T-S AS 44.35 (Ben Outhwaite)
October 2018, The strange Hebrew of a blessing for the Prophets: T-S K6.113 (Nadia Vidro)
August 2018, A Young Syriac Pupil in the Cairo Genizah: Or.1081 2.75.30 (George Kiraz)
July 2018, Reunited At Last: T-S K10.4 and Bodl. MS. Heb. c. 13/25 (Noam Sienna)
June 2018, A Muslim Genizah in Damascus (Ronny Vollandt)
May 2018, Mishnah with Judeo-Arabic Translation: T-S E1.124 (David Wasserstein)
April 2018, Mourning in Late Antiquity: T-S NS 148.58 (Laura Lieber)
March 2018, Judaeo-Arabic poetry in the Cairo Genizah: T-S Ar.37.127 (Mohamed A H Ahmed)
February 2018, What happens on pilgrimage .... : T-S8J22.25 (Melonie Schmierer-Lee)
November 2017, The first owners of the Leningrad Codex: T-S 10J30.7 (Ben Outhwaite)
September 2017, A popular calendar (Nadia Vidro)
August 2017, T-S 18J3.9 the Ramla Earthquake: for this relief much thanks (Ben Outhwaite)
March 2017, Writing Lines: T-S D1.108 and the Song of Moses (Kim Phillips)
January 2017, Plants on Maimonides' bookshelf: T-S Ar.41.41 (Gabriele Ferrario)
December 2016, The Long Art: T-S AS 144.331 (Katelyn Mesler)
October 2016, Learning Torah and what is connected to it: T-S Ar.18(1).16 (Noam Sienna)
September 2016, The pursuit of happiness: T-S Ar.44.201 (Alan Elbaum)
August 2016, Who wrote the Bible? (Kim Phillips)
April 2016, Reuniting a Tax-farmer's Archive (Marina Rustow)
January 2016, Samuel ben Jacob: the Leningrad Codex B19a and T-S 10J5.15 (Ben Outhwaite)
June 2015, A petition against an anti-social child: T-S Ar.40.3 (Melonie Schmierer-Lee)
March 2015, Did the Jewish academies of Sura and Pumbedita hold original commentaries to the Talmud? T-S F9.41 (Zvi Stampfer)
January 2015, The language of women: L-G Arabic 2.129 (Esther-Miriam Wagner)
December 2014, A Dream Request for Ṣedaqah ben Maqmalyah: Mosseri VI.5 (Alessia Bellusci)
October 2014, Breathing the 'dust of centuries': Add.6463(e)3416 (Melonie Schmierer-Lee)
September 2014, A day in the life of a court scribe: T-S 12.530 (Melonie Schmierer-Lee)
May 2014, 'Go to the house of the English': 19th century Genizah merchants (Esther-Miriam Wagner)
March 2014, A newly discovered medical recipe written by Maimonides: Mosseri I.115.1 (Amir Ashur)
September 2013, A medieval Karaite pedagogical grammar of Hebrew: T-S Ar.31.71 etc (Nadia Vidro)
August 2013, The first discovery of Judaeo-Syriac: T-S K14.22 (Siam Bhayro, Ben Outhwaite)
November 2012, A Genizah manuscript of the Mishnah (Hayim Lapin)
July 2012, Karamanli – a new language variety in the Genizah: T-S AS 215.255 (Julia G. Krivoruchko)
April 2012, A Judaeo-Arabic grammar of Classical Arabic: T-S Ar.31.254 and T-S 24.31 (Nadia Vidro)
March 2012, T-S 13J24.22: Goitein and girlish prose (Esther-Miriam Wagner)
A response to the FOTM of March 2012 by M. A. Friedman
Addendum to November 2011's Fragment of the Month
May 2011, T-S 10J7.4: ‘Only death remains for him’ (Esther-Miriam Wagner)
April 2011, T-S Misc.25.24 and T-S Misc.8.90: a poet for all seasons (Amir Ashur)
March 2011, T-S Misc.22.310: the affair of the purloined cows (Gabriele Ferrario)
February 2011, Or.1081 J39: rhubarb and dodder and absinth (Efraim Lev, Leigh Chipman)
January 2011, T-S AS 118.78: a new fragment of the book of Ben Sira (Shulamit Elizur, Michael Rand)
December 2010, T-S Ar.30.221: geography in the Genizah (Yossi Ben-Artzi, Esther-Miriam Wagner)
November 2010, T-S NS 3.21: the oldest Hebrew fragment in the Collection? (Ben Outhwaite)
October 2010, T-S Misc.28.98: a new letter to Maimonides (Amir Ashur)
August 2010, Mosseri III.258.1: recovering the Kuzari (Daniel Davies, Lucy Cheng)
July 2010, T-S K12.89: ‘Like Esther in front of Ahasuerus’ (Ortal-Paz Saar)
December 2009, a ketubba in palimpsest (T-S K23.3) (Mila Ginsburskaya)
November 2009, two fragments (T-S AS 72.79 and T-S Ar.1a.38) of Saadiah’s tafsīr by Samuel ben Jacob (Ronny Vollandt)
September 2009, T-S Misc.7.140: an early copy of the Guide (Daniel Davies)
July 2009, T-S 6H9-21, the papyrus codex rebound (Rebecca Jefferson)
October 2008, T-S AS 149.178: a legal query in Judaeo-Arabic concerning a Bashful Bride (Amir Ashur)
March 2008, T-S AS 159.248, T-S AS 159.247: an unidentified Indian language (Gideon Bohak)
November 2007, an Arabic translation of the Samaritan Pentateuch: T-S Ar.1a.136 (Friedrich Niessen)
August 2007, Moses ben Solomon of Salerno: T-S AS 143.242 (Daniel Davies)
July 2007, Halfon's wife, Mosseri Ia.29 (Esther-Miriam Wagner)
May 2007, St Augustine in the Genizah (Ben Outhwaite)
April 2007, two new responsa of Moses Maimonides (Ben Outhwaite)