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.
January 2026: A Fatimid Interoffice Memo about the Franks, May God Forsake Them (Alan Elbaum, Paul Cobb, Marina Rustow)
December 2025: ‘Cursive, foiled again’: Mezuzot CUL T-S A44.36 and CUL T-S AS 11.52 (Marc Michaels)
November 2025: “Their Battlefield is Eight upon Eight”: A Newly-Discovered Hebrew Poem on Chess (T-S Misc. 17.60) (Noam Sienna)
October 2025: Three Different Uses of One Leaf by Rabbi Samuel b. Saʿadiah ha-Levi: Gaster Heb. ms. 1770/18 (Adiel Breuer and Oded Zinger)
September 2025: Al-Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān’s Legal Legacy in the Cairo Geniza (Yusuf Umrethwala)
August 2025: Tracing the Trade in Genizah Fragments through Solomon Aaron Wertheimer’s Sales Correspondence, Or.1080 (Rebecca J. W. Jefferson)
June 2025: The Torah of St Filippo? (Marc Michaels)
May 2025: Documents Entangled: Tax Receipts from the Bamiyan Papers and the Cairo Geniza (Arezou Azad)
April 2025: A Hidden Layer of Sifra beneath the Mishnah: A Hebrew Palimpsest in the Cairo Genizah, T-S E2.51 (Elyashiv Cherlow)
March 2025: A Lost Manuscript, A Forgotten Tradition, and the Power of Modern Technology: T-S Ar.50.198 (Zvi Stampfer)
February 2025: Qumran, Qaraites and Controversies: Mosseri I.40 (Ben Outhwaite)
January 2025: Rabbi Isaiah HaLevi ben Mishaʾel: The Rambam's Brother-in-Law and His Two Works (Yehuda Seewald)
December 2024: T-S A36.18 – hole-y megillah it’s the oldest! (Marc Michaels)
November 2024: The Maldives and “the beginning of the season”: can we guess the sailing month mentioned in Madmūn b. Ḥasan’s letter? (Nazim Sattar)
October 2024: A fragment of a piyyut by Qilliri for Yom Kippur from the Collection of Yeshiva University (Shulamith Berger, Joseph Ginsberg, and Aaron Koller)
September 2024: Unraveling a Genizah Mystery: New Insights into Saadia Gaon's Biblical Commentary and Anti-Karaite Polemic (Yehuda Seewald)
August 2024: Illuminating an Illuminated Islamic Document: The Twin Arts of Calligraphy and Embroidery in Fatimid Egypt: T-S K10.12 (Nick Posegay)
July 2024: A birthday with uncertainty: RNL Evr Arab I 4816 (Nadia Vidro)
June 2024: New Genizah Responsa Revealed: Another Glimpse into Medieval Jewish Family Life: T-S Misc. 28.186 (Zvi Stampfer)
May 2024: A Buyid-Fatimid Diplomacy Letter? (Yusuf Umrethwalla)
April 2024: Geṭ groundwork from the Cairo Genizah: practising writing a Jewish divorce document: T-S 10J2.34 (Marc Michaels)
March 2024: Lionising Luria: Mosseri III.232 (Ben Outhwaite)
February 2024: Bad calculations: another missing link in the history of the rabbinic calendar (Sacha Stern)
January 2024: More about less: A New Shorthand Targum Manuscript: Oxford MS Heb. f.56/1-12 (Kim Phillips)
December 2023: An Aramaic Antiochus Chanukah poem: T-S A45.14 (Marc Michaels)
October 2023: The Long Road to Samarqand: Reverse-Engineering the Travels of a 12th-Century Andalusi Muslim (T-S Ar.53.39) (Nick Posegay)
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)
July 2023: A Tale of Two Cities: From Singora to Shingly (Amir Ashur, Elizabeth Lambourn, Alan Elbaum)
June 2023: The oldest Hebrew manuscript dated by its colophon: a leaf of a Mishna manuscript with Babylonian vocalization in Toronto (Judith Olszowy-Schlanger)
May 2023: A Maldivian boat and cowrie shells in a letter from Nahray b. ʿAllān to his son (Nazim Sattar)
April 2023: New Pages of Sefer Tagin: JTS ENA 2753.16 and National Library of Russia (NLR) Box N.91 (Joseph Ginsberg)
March 2023: The Book of Joshua in a Christian Palestinian Aramaic Palimpsest Fragment (T-S 12.758) (Christa Müller-Kessler)
February 2023, Andalusi masters of Hebrew language, scholars who avoid buying expensive books and gossipy travelling cousins: on the manuscript transmission of the book of Ḥayyūj (T-S K7.56), (Prof. José Martínez Delgado)
January 2023, Solving European Writer’s Block in Jewish Cairo (T-S 20.188), (Nick Posegay)
November 2022, “At Least Like a Dog Treat me”, Says Not the Sufi: The Use of Animals in Poetry as Didactic Tools, T-S Ar.40.204 (Muhammad Imran Khan)
October 2022, Genizah Fragments of Saadiah’s tafsīr by Samuel ben Jacob: T-S AS 72.79 and T-S Ar.1a.38 Revisited (Vince Beiler)
September 2022, A Story of Scribal Collaboration: the Targum of T-S 6H5.1 (Estara Arrant)
August 2022, The Greek background of the grammatical fragments attributed to Ḥunayn b. Isḥāq (ENA 3173.1, T-S Ar.31.30, Rylands B 3652-3653, AIU IX.A.6) (Julia G. Krivoruchko)
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)
May 2022, Saadya Gaon’s Refutation of Anan or a Qaraite Book of Commandments? T-S Ar.21.156, T-S Ar.48.216 and T-S NS 303.1 (Nadia Vidro)
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)
September 2021, The Judaeo-Arabic manuscripts of the ‘Arabian Nights’ found in the Cairo Genizot: T-S NS 183.18+23+35+37+38 (Rachel Hasson)
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)
June 2021, Jewish Parchment, Muslim Prayer – Uncovering an Early Abbasid Palimpsest: T-S Ar.51.73 (Nick Posegay)
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)
February 2021, Kalila wa-Dimna: T-S Ar.6.32, part of the Arabic book Kalila wa Dimna, story nine – ʾIlāḏ, Balāḏ and Iirāḵt (Mohamed Ahmed)
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)
November 2020, Al-Qaṣīda al-Fiyyāšiyya – an old-new poem found in Judaeo-Arabic manuscripts: T-S NS 224.4 and RNL Yevr.-Arab. II:1741 (Rachel Hasson)
October 2020, Saʿadya's Hermeneutical Principles? T-S Ar. 50.159 (Zvi Stampfer)
September 2020, Yā Nafs – A Judaeo-Arabic Reproof for Yom Kippur (?): RNL Yevr.-Arab. II:2682 and T-S Ar.36.134 (Rachel Hasson)
August 2020, Masoretic lists: what crowns on letters have to do with paragraph-breaks in the Torah (Jen Taylor Friedman)
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)
April 2020, Assembling a Life: Several Dozen New Fragments on Moshe b. Levi ha-Levi, T-S 12.377 et al. (Alan Elbaum)
March 2020, Addressing the Rambam: ENA 4020.56 (Amir Ashur & Ben Outhwaite)
February 2020, Trouble with Adultery in the Cairo Genizah Biblical Manuscripts: T-S NS 67.34, T-S A40.77 et al. (Gary Martin)
January 2020, Following the Links in T-S NS 192.11: A Qur’anic Exercise from a Cairene Public School (Nick Posegay)
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)
July 2019, Reciting Hebrew with an Arabic Accent: A Partial List of Ṭeʿamim from T-S K9.11 (Nick Posegay)
June 2019, T-S Ar.38.64: A Maġribī-Script Qurʾān Fragment (Magdalen Connolly)
May 2019, On Rashi, Maimonides and a lost Talmudic commentator - Joseph ben Yahaboy: T-S Ar. 49.163 (Amir Ashur)
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)
February 2019, The Latin Iliad in the Cairo Genizah (T-S Misc. 27.2 c-e) (Gideon Bohak, Serena Ammirati)
January 2019, The Uncommon Bible: T-S AS 44.35 (Ben Outhwaite)
November 2018, Reconstructing folios from text editions: Lévi (1900) + T-S NS 98.18 and Bodl. MS Heb d.74.27 (Sacha Stern)
October 2018, The strange Hebrew of a blessing for the Prophets: T-S K6.113 (Nadia Vidro)
September 2018, Six Centuries of Arab Poets Transmitted in a Booklet of Judaeo-Arabic Poetry: T-S NS 265.29 (Gretchen Belnap)
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)
January 2018, On autographs of Saadya Gaon attested in the Genizah: CUL Or.1080 1.85 and T-S 8D.1 (Amir Ashur)
December 2017, T-S Ar. 51.86a: Shi‘ite and Karaite – a Fatimid melange (Esther-Miriam Wagner, Mohamed Ahmed)
November 2017, The first owners of the Leningrad Codex: T-S 10J30.7 (Ben Outhwaite)
October 2017, Early Karaite Halakha according to Karaite Commentaries to the Bible (T-S 16.316) (Yoram Erder)
September 2017, A popular calendar (Nadia Vidro)
August 2017, T-S 18J3.9 the Ramla Earthquake: for this relief much thanks (Ben Outhwaite)
July 2017, The rotuli corpus of the medieval midrash Pirqa de-Rabbenu ha-Qadosh, T-S K21.85 (Anna Busa)
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)
November 2016, On the identification and biography of the ‘poet for all seasons’ and his contact with Maimonides: T-S 10K8.3, T-S 8K13.8 and T-S NS 264.98 (Amir Ashur)
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)
June 2016, Moses ben Judah - a 15th century bibliophile and gourmand (Dotan Arad, Esther-Miriam Wagner)
May 2016, What women want (most)? A feminist reading of the Talmud from the Middle Ages: T-S Ar.18(2).20 (Zvi Stampfer)
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)
September 2015, The earliest known fragment of Qusṭā ibn Lūqāʾs Book on Numbness: T-S K6.194 (Gabriele Ferrario)
August 2015, 'Protect me for (the tie of) blood and milk that is between us': T-S 10J9.13 and Or. 1080 3.46 (Oded Zinger)
June 2015, A petition against an anti-social child: T-S Ar.40.3 (Melonie Schmierer-Lee)
April 2015, A cautionary tale concerning the shipment of ‘sanitary napkins’ from 11th-century Tunis: T-S K3.36 (Nancy Spies)
March 2015, Did the Jewish academies of Sura and Pumbedita hold original commentaries to the Talmud? T-S F9.41 (Zvi Stampfer)
February 2015, Medieval Chapbooks – Early collecting Of Rabbi Judah ha-Levi’s poetry: T-S 13J24.13 and T-S K25.138 (Dalia Wolfson)
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)
November 2014, Eli ben Yehoshua al-Lāḏiqī: a newly identified copyist of liturgical manuscripts (Michael Rand)
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)
January 2013, The preacher who speaks like a parrot: two versions of a letter by R. Joshua ha-Nagid: T-S 12.608 (Dotan Arad, Esther-Miriam Wagner)
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)
May 2012, A newly-discovered autograph responsum of Maimonides, lower script of a pseudo-palimpsest colophon: T-S AS 221.306–307 (Mordechai Friedman, Amir Ashur)
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
November 2011, T-S 13H3.11 and T-S NS 325.69: additional fragments belonging to the First Order of Fustat (Michael Rand)
Addendum to November 2011's Fragment of the Month
October 2011, T-S F13.1: the She’iltot, recycling manuscripts and Efrayim b. Shemarya (Roni Shweka, Marina Rustow)
September 2011, T-S NS 284.120: a new autograph of Hilkhot ha-Yerushalmi by Maimonides (Zvi Stampfer)
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)
September 2010, T-S K6.181: a Judaeo-Arabic version of Ibn Bahrīz’s treatise on logic (Gabriele Ferrario, Ronny Vollandt)
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)
October 2009, Vis, liber zun, ikh hob dir vil brif geshribn: Yiddish letters in the Genizah (Esther-Miriam Wagner)
September 2009, T-S Misc.7.140: an early copy of the Guide (Daniel Davies)
August 2009, T-S NS 264.56 and T-S NS 324.118, Syria’s links with the Jews of Cairo in the 15th and 16th centuries (Dotan Arad)
July 2009, T-S 6H9-21, the papyrus codex rebound (Rebecca J. W. Jefferson)
October 2008, T-S AS 149.178: a legal query in Judaeo-Arabic concerning a Bashful Bride (Amir Ashur)
September 2008, T-S AS 145.333: keeping it in the family: the handwriting of Hillel and Ḥalfon (Esther-Miriam Wagner)
April 2008, T-S AS 157.50, a twitch divination text in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Manasseh (Esther-Miriam Wagner, Gideon Bohak)
March 2008, T-S AS 159.248, T-S AS 159.247: an unidentified Indian language (Gideon Bohak)
February 2008, a hitherto unknown dictionary of Solomon b. Mubarrak, the Karaite: T-S NS 302.42, T-S NS 302.4 (José Martínez Delgado, Friedrich Niessen)
November 2007, an Arabic translation of the Samaritan Pentateuch: T-S Ar.1a.136 (Friedrich Niessen)
October 2007, a newly-discovered fragment of a letter written by Maimonides: T-S AS 152.86 (Esther-Miriam Wagner)
September 2007, ‘Destroy the life of N.N.!’, a magical recipe: T-S AS 162.51 (Friedrich Niessen, Gideon Bohak)
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)
June 2007, redating a leaf from a medieval Hebrew book of Tobit: T-S A45.25 (Siam Bhayro, Mila Ginsbursky, Ben Outhwaite, Esther-Miriam Wagner)
May 2007, St Augustine in the Genizah (Ben Outhwaite)
April 2007, two new responsa of Moses Maimonides (Ben Outhwaite)
