The Cairo Genizah is famous as a source for the study of medieval Jewish history, and that is mainly what we focus on in our work at the Genizah Research Unit. However, Egyptian Jews continued to produce and consume textual media all the way up to the Genizah’s “discovery” in 1896 (and beyond). As a result, Genizah collections also contain hundreds of manuscripts produced during the 19th century, written even as Oxbridge scholars sought to move them from Egypt to England. Among these are Arabic textbooks, Ladino novels, French wedding invitations, Yiddish newspapers, and Viennese Bibles.... Read More
Ottoman
Dotan, what are you working on at the moment?
I’m working on a group of documents, mainly in Judaeo-Arabic, related to the relations between Karaites and Rabbanites in the Ottoman period, especially in Cairo and Jerusalem. Most of the documents are part of the Firkovich collection, such as Evr. Ar. II 1143, Evr. Ar. II 1408, Evr. Ar. II 1458 and more, but a few of them belong to other collections. For example, Mosseri VII.84.1, a torn loan deed, written in the 16th century, which testifies that a Karaite borrower, Jacob ibn Farjallah, owed money to a Rabbanite... Read More
Has tags: debt, Firkovich, Genizah Fragments, Karaite, marriage, Ottoman, Q&A, Rabbanite, responsa
Our Throwback Thursday this week is taken from issue 23 of the printed edition of Genizah Fragments, published in April 1992, by Abraham David:
During the Mamlūk period (1250-1516), the land of Israel was politically and economically attached to the Egyptian centre and was ruled from Cairo by emirs and governors with varying degrees of authority.
From the second half of the fifteenth century, Jewish sources paint an interesting picture of relations... Read More
Has tags: charity, Genizah Fragments, Hebron, Jerusalem, mamluk, Ottoman, Safed