A Jewish Archive from Old Cairo
Subtitle: The History of Cambridge University's Genizah Collection (Culture and Civilisation in the Middle East)
Edition: 1 edition
Publisher: RoutledgeCurzon
Published: March 9, 2000
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 277
ISBN-13: 9780700713127
Subjects: Bibliographies, catalogues, discographies; History of specific racial & ethnic groups; Jewish studies; Middle & Near Eastern archaeology; Middle East - Egypt; Jewish - General; History; History - General History; Medieval and early modern period, 425-1789; History: World; Middle East; Jewish archives; Social Science / Ethnic Studies; Egypt; Cairo; Cairo Genizah; Judaism; Manuscripts
First sentence: Over seven hundred years ago, when a few brave souls in England were bearing the torch of learning to damp and distant Cambridge, and almost four centuries before Hebrew was taught at its famous university, a Jewish community known throughout the Islamic empire for its social and political stability, as well as its economic and cultural achievements, had already been flourishing on the Nile for two hundred and fifty years.
Description: "In 1897, Solomon Schechter brought over 140,000 fragmentary Jewish documents from the Ben Ezra synagogue in Cairo to Cambridge University Library and ushered in a new age of learning about Jews and Judaism as they existed in the Mediterranean a thousand years ago. The texts that he and others found in what has become famous as "the Cairo Genizah" have shed light not only on what Jewish scholars wrote then in the biblical and rabbinic fields but also on the daily lives, loves and relations of Jews, Christians and Muslims." "This book will serve as a helpful reference work for students and teachers of Jewish history and literature. Perhaps more importantly, it will introduce the whole topic to those with an interest in uncovering the secrets of the past but lacking the awareness that the Genizah's contents are at least as important for this purpose as the Dead Sea Scrolls."--BOOK JACKET.