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By Melonie Schmierer-Lee on Thu 9 Dec 2021

Our Throwback Thursday this week is taken from issue 63 of the printed edition of Genizah Fragments, published in April 2012, by Oded Zinger:

One of the pleasures of Genizah research in Cambridge is the way one stumbles across fascinating human stories while leafing through the Collection. Though my dissertation research revolves around marital disputes in the Genizah, when examining some of the documentary... Read More

Has tags: Abraham Maimonides, agunah, Genizah Fragments, Mosseri, petition, widow

 

By Ben Outhwaite and Melonie Schmierer-Lee on Wed 8 Dec 2021

Mel, what are you working on today?

I’ve been reading through a folder of correspondence between Cambridge and the Jewish Theological Seminary covering quite a few decades in the 20th century. I can’t really call it work though – it’s more like snooping. The letters and other documentation are about 251 Genizah fragments which Schechter took with him to America in 1902, when he departed Cambridge to become President of the Jewish Theological Seminary. He wanted to continue working on the fragments, and Cambridge agreed to let him borrow them for a period of time.... Read More

Has tags: Genizah Fragments, Jewish Theological Seminary, Q&A, Solomon Schechter

 

By Melonie Schmierer-Lee and Gary Rendsburg on Wed 1 Dec 2021

Gary, you’ve recently created a website dedicated to the life of Obadiah/Johannes of Oppido and his conversion to Judaism in the Middle Ages. How did you become interested in the manuscripts associated with Obadiah?

I actually do not recall the specific moment, but I can tell you that several lines converged: a) as I began to read more and more about medieval history, especially in the light of new research, including by my colleague Paola Tartakoff, I realized that conversion from Judaism to Christianity... Read More

Has tags: conversion, Genizah Fragments, Karaite, Q&A

 

By Melonie Schmierer-Lee on Tue 30 Nov 2021

Happy Hanukka to all readers of Genizah Fragments! Yesterday evening (in what was possibly a first for the University Library?) a Hanukka menorah (hanukkiya) was lit at the front of the building in an event jointly organised by the University Library and the Cambridge Chabad Society. 

Menorah lighting at the UL

Hanukka and Purim, though seen as minor holidays because they are not set out in the Torah, were nevertheless celebrated by the Jews of... Read More

Has tags: Genizah Fragments, Hanukka

 

By Melonie Schmierer-Lee on Thu 25 Nov 2021

Our Throwback Thursday this week is taken from issue 56 of the printed edition of Genizah Fragments, published in October 2008, by Marina Rustow:

No one has satisfactorily explained why the Cairo Genizah preserved Arabic texts from the Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk chancery (dīwān al-inshā), the bureau charged with, among other tasks, receiving petitions from Egyptian and Syrian subjects and issuing decrees in response to them.
To date, 135 such documents have been... Read More

Has tags: Chancery, Fatimid, Genizah Fragments, petition

 

By Melonie Schmierer-Lee and Phil Lieberman on Wed 24 Nov 2021

Phil, what are you working on at the moment?

For the past decade I’ve been working with my Vanderbilt colleague Lenn Goodman – a philosopher and accomplished Judaeo-Arabist – on a new translation of the Guide for the Perplexed for Stanford University Press. We come from very different disciplinary approaches – he’s a philosopher and I’m a social historian – so we look at Maimonides in different ways. We’ve actually written different introductions to the book (I’m writing a historian... Read More

Has tags: Genizah Fragments, Moses Maimonides, Q&A

 

By Melonie Schmierer-Lee on Thu 18 Nov 2021

Our Throwback Thursday this week is taken from issue 11 of the printed edition of Genizah Fragments, published in April 1986, by Michael Klein:

The Cairo Genizah has proved to be a unique kaleidoscope of mediaeval Jewish society. Its many thousands of manuscript fragments have shed light on almost every aspect of Jewish life in the Mediterranean basin. The texts and documents reflect both the sacred and mundane realms of daily life.
In the synagogal domain, new liturgical customs and texts have... Read More

Has tags: Bible, Genizah Fragments, Targum

 

By Melonie Schmierer-Lee and Deborah Farndell on Wed 17 Nov 2021

In 2014, UL conservator Mary French was asked to examine a parchment fragment in the New Series which had been encapsulated with a small piece of parchment folded over and obscuring a word. When she opened the Melinex pocket she was perplexed to find that some areas of the parchment were translucent, sticky, and unexpectedly pliable. Concerned that it might mean there was a humidity issue in the manuscript storage room, Mary measured the relative humidity levels and found they were elevated in areas near to some air vents. These vents were capped, and in 2016, our Conservation and... Read More

Has tags: conservation, Genizah Fragments, parchment, Q&A, Targum

 

By Melonie Schmierer-Lee on Wed 17 Nov 2021

The Israel Museum’s new exhibition, Hear, O Israel, The Magic of the Shema, explores the complex relationship between ‘religion’ and ‘magic’ in the story of the Shema – a text recited by Jews since time immemorial. The exhibition brings together artefacts from Qumran tefillin to Babylonian magic bowls, with protective incantations covering all eventualities and amulets of all descriptions. The exhibition is accompanied by a handsome, hardcover exhibition guide that is both scholarly and... Read More

Has tags: exhibition, Genizah Fragments, magic

 

By Melonie Schmierer-Lee on Thu 4 Nov 2021

Our Throwback Thursday this week is taken from issue 60 of the printed edition of Genizah Fragments, published in October 2010, by Ronny Vollandt:

The installation of a Hebrew press at Constantinople in 1503 by David b. Nahmias ushered in a period of prosperity for Jewish printing in the Ottoman Empire. Gershom Soncino, head of the Soncino family and universally acknowledged towering figure of five centuries of Hebrew printing, followed in 1530 and established his Jewish publishing house in... Read More

Has tags: Bible, Genizah Fragments, printed, Targum