By Melonie Schmierer-Lee
on Tue 3 Aug 2021
On his return to Britain, Solomon Schechter described his ‘pilgrimage’ to the Genizah in the Ben Ezra Synagogue. His account, an article entitled ‘A Hoard of Hebrew Mss’, was published in The Times 124 years ago, on 3 August, 1897.
After introducing the concept of a Genizah to the British public:
‘The Genizah of the old Jewish community... represents a combination of sacred lumber-room and secular record office.’
Schechter outlines his motivation for visiting Cairo and thanks his patrons:
‘especially Dr. Taylor, the Master... Read More
Has tags: Genizah Fragments, Solomon Schechter
By Melonie Schmierer-Lee
on Thu 29 Jul 2021
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
By Melonie Schmierer-Lee
on Thu 22 Jul 2021
Our Throwback Thursday this week is taken from issue 17 of the printed edition of Genizah Fragments, published in April 1989, by Geoffrey Khan while he was a Research Associate in the GRU:
Among the treasures of the Cairo Genizah collections are a number of Hebrew Bible manuscripts written in the Middle Ages by members of the Karaite Jewish sect. These manuscripts are unusual in that the text is written not in Hebrew, but in Arabic script, sometimes with Hebrew pointing. The synagogue in which the... Read More
Has tags: Arabic, Bible, British Library, Crusaders, Genizah Fragments, Hebrew, Karaite, language, Shapira
By Melonie Schmierer-Lee and Moshe Yagur
on Wed 21 Jul 2021
Hi Moshe, what are you working on at the moment?
In my new project I’m working on dwelling patterns of Jews, Christians and Muslims in medieval Egypt (and a bit elsewhere). We know they lived side by side, but to what extent? How did it effect notions of communal identity, religious practices, inter-religious contacts and sympathies, and so on?
Which kinds of Genizah manuscript are you utilising for this?
There are several kinds of documents to look at:
1. Deeds of sale or rent, written either in Jewish or Muslim court,... Read More
Has tags: Fustat, Genizah Fragments, Goitein, legal, Moses Maimonides, Muslim-Jewish relations, property
By Melonie Schmierer-Lee
on Thu 15 Jul 2021
It’s the 15th of July, and 922 years since the Christian armies of the First Crusade captured Jerusalem from her Fatimid defenders. The siege of 38 days ended in a bloodbath, according to contemporary accounts, but the Cairo Genizah preserves what may be the earliest written account of some of the events of that day, and its aftermath. Weeks after Jerusalem was looted and burned, the elders of Ashqelon wrote to the Egyptian Jewish community to describe the reports of refugees who had either fled there ahead of the Crusaders or had been captured and released by them.
...
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Has tags: Crusaders, Fatimid, Genizah Fragments, Goitein, Jerusalem
By Melonie Schmierer-Lee and Oded Zinger
on Wed 14 Jul 2021
Oded, what are you working on at the moment?
I’m currently working on several court notes (for example Mosseri VII.207.1 and Mosseri VII.189.2). Mosseri VII.207.1 is a small note written by the court clerk (probably Hillel b. Eli or Halfon b. Manasseh in his early years) to the judge. A woman presented a bill of divorce which appeared suspicious. It was dated according to the calendar of deeds (shetarot) though the writer claims that it was not the custom of the judge to use this type of dating, and the bill of divorce also lacked the legal formula on its verso that... Read More
Has tags: agunah, divorce, dowry, Firkovich, Genizah Fragments, legal, Mosseri, petition, Q&A
By Melonie Schmierer-Lee
on Thu 8 Jul 2021
Our Throwback Thursday this week is taken from issue 12 of the printed edition of Genizah Fragments, published in October 1986, by Mordechai A. Friedman:
The ban of Rabbenu Gershom ben Judah of Mainz (early eleventh century), which prohibited polygamy among the Ashkenazim, was never accepted by Jewish communities living under Islam. But how polygamous were these Jews during the so-called “classical” Genizah period of the High Middle Ages, between the tenth and thirteenth centuries?
...
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Has tags: betrothal, Crusaders, divorce, Genizah Fragments, Gershom, get, Goitein, Karaite, mamluk, marriage, Mordechai Akiva Friedman, polygamy, responsa, Simcha Assaf, slave
