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Genizah Fragments To receive Genizah What’s in your suitcase? Fragments, to inquire What do rice, locks, rat traps, a potentially hazardous voyage about the Collection, coconut scraper, several ladles across the Indian Ocean. or to learn how to assist and four bed legs have in Elizabeth Lambourn’s with its preservation common? The foundations of a Abraham’s Luggage: a social life and study, please write Two Ronnies’ sketch? Maybe, of things in the Medieval Indian to Dr Ben Outhwaite, but they are all items that Ocean world mines this text, Head of the Genizah Abraham ben Yijū, the twelfth- and its wider context, as a study HOW YOU CAN HELP YOU HOW Research Unit, at century Jewish trader, packed in material culture. The book is Cambridge University for a journey back across the actually quite remarkable in the The Newsletter of the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit, Cambridge University Library No. 77 April 2019 Library, West Road, sea from his adopted home of detail it manages to extract Cambridge, CB3 9DR, Mangalore. Abraham, who was from a single Genizah the subject of Amitav Ghosh’s document, one that actually England. celebrated In an Antique Land, came to Elizabeth’s attention More fragments of early Torah scroll come to light made two lengthy sojourns on when she reviewed Mordechai takes on a life in the wider The Library can be the Malabar Coast, before Friedman and S. D. Goitein’s world of scholarship, reached by fax (01223) sailing back across the Indian India Traders for the journal informing areas of inquiry that 333160 or by telephone In 1959 the paleographer Ocean to Yemen for the last South Asian Studies. She might hitherto never have (01223) 333000. Inquiries Solomon Asher Birnbaum time in 1149. These items recognised the Jewish trader’s encountered the unique by email should be published a fragment of a appear, alongside containers list as utterly unique, ‘the only sources of the Cairo Genizah. addressed to the Unit at: Torah scroll which he dated and baskets containing all known document of its type to [email protected] to the eighth century (S. A. sorts of foodstuffs and have survived from the Elizabeth Lambourn, Birnbaum, ‘A Study of an Eighth commodities in a single premodern Indian Ocean’. Abraham’s Luggage: a social Century Synagogue Scroll’, document, T-S NS 324.114, a Abraham’s Luggage therefore life of things in the Medieval Contributions to the Unit Vetus Testamentum 9 [1959], list that Abraham wrote epitomises the second Indian Ocean world are made to the “University pp. 122–29). In 2015 Edna specifying exactly what would fundamental stage of Genizah (Cambridge: Cambridge of Cambridge,” which Engel and Mordechai Mishor be carried on the lengthy and Studies, where the material University Press, 2018) enjoys charitable status for published this fragment, along tax and similar purposes. with an additional piece that they attributed to the same Ben Sira after 120 years In the USA the Collection Torah scroll (E. Engel and M. is supported through Mishor, ‘An Ancient Scroll of the An important new collection scintillating bunch of the world’s (Reymond, Corley) and Ben “Cambridge in America”. Book of Exodus: The Reunion of of papers on Ben Sira has best Ben Sira scholars to examine Sira’s language in relation to For further information Two Separate Fragments’, Israel just appeared, Discovering, the text and its manuscripts Biblical Hebrew (Joosten, Dihi). please contact them on Museum Studies in Archaeology Deciphering and Dissenting: Ben from all angles, including papers 212-984-0960 or see their 7 [2015], pp. 24–69). The first Sira Manuscripts after 120 years. on the early publications of the Aitken, Egger-Wenzel and website: www.cantab.org fragment is MS. London, Jews’ Edited by James Aitken, Renate text (Reif), the codicology of the Reif (eds), Discovering, College 31, and the second is MS. Egger-Wenzel and founding manuscripts (Olszowy-Schlanger), Deciphering and Dissenting: Durham, Duke University, Ashkar director of the Genizah Unit, the Persian glosses (Wright), its Ben Sira Manuscripts after “Cambridge in America” is 2. The two fragments contain a Stefan Reif, it brings together a reception (Aitken), its poetry 120 years (De Gruyter, 2018) recognized by the IRS as text from the book of Exodus. a charitable organization, and contributions for the Although the two fragments A new Masora offering benefit of the Genizah are not consecutive, the authors Research Unit are legally argue that they belong to the Yosef Ofer, one of the in all its aspects, including for Masoretic scholars and deductible for USA same biblical book. They base world’s leading scholars of orthography, ketiv and qere, those with any interest in income tax purposes. this claim on a textual and date, by paleographic means Above: T-S AS 37.1, part of the book of Genesis. One of thirteen the Biblical Masora (and and manuscripts such as how the text of the Hebrew Contributions are similarly paleographic examination. and on the basis of carbon-14 newly-identified fragments from the same early Torah scroll. not just Tiberian Masora, as the Aleppo Codex, and its Bible has been transmitted deductible in Canada even Mishor notes that a single dating, to the seventh or eighth he’s also written definitively comprehensiveness should down the centuries. if made directly to the column of text from this Torah centuries CE. In the course of on the Babylonian Masora) ensure it takes its place Development Office at the scroll is missing between MS. a survey and classification of has a new book out, The alongside Yeivin’s The Tiberian Y. Ofer, The Masora on London and MS. Ashkar. Torah scroll fragments in the The Genizah Research Unit is grateful for the support of the University of Cambridge. Masora on Scripture and its Masorah as a standard work Scripture and its Methods Cairo Genizah, I identified two British Academy, other smaller or anonymous donations, and Methods. It covers the Masora on the subject. It’s a real treat (De Gruyter, 2019) Engel and Mishor list the unique those made by Friends of the Genizah. features of the scroll, which they continued overleaf Genizah Research Unit Genizah Fragments 77 Cambridge University Library Editor Melonie Schmierer-Lee West Road, Cambridge, CB3 9DR, England Design H2 Associates, Cambridge ON OTHER PAGES: Obituary for Professor Joel L. Kraemer | What’s in your suitcase? More fragments of early Torah scroll come to light continued from page 1 “Aside from Jerusalem, Cambridge to me is the closest place to heaven” An obituary for Professor Joel L. Kraemer fragments which directly Prof. Joel Kraemer was 61–94) and ‘Women Speak join the Ashkar and London intimately familiar with the for Themselves’, in S. C. Reif fragments and completely fill Genizah Collection of (ed.), The Cambridge Genizah the gap between these two. In Cambridge University Library. Collections: Their Contents and addition to these, I identified He received his Ph.D. in Near Significance (2002: 178–216). in the Genizah collections Eastern Studies from Yale, and Some of his works remain to eleven additional fragments taught at the faculties of JTS in be published, including More that, by paleographical criteria, New York, Yale, Tel Aviv Precious than Rubies: Women’s belong to this Torah scroll (I University, and the University Letters from the Cairo Geniza, am grateful to Edna Engel for of Chicago. Kraemer was which is being completed her opinion on this question). distinguished in many fields of by Prof. Renée Levine Quite surprisingly, one of these scholarship, from Talmud to Melammed, and Maimonides’ fragments came to light in the Islamic philosophy. His Epistles and Personal Ashkar Collection itself, but its celebrated publications in Correspondence (in English illegible condition prevented its Islamic and Jewish Studies translation), which I have identification. The discovery of include The Renaissance of Islam been editing. these fragments shows us that and Maimonides: The Life and T-S 12.832 , which the two previously discovered World of One of Civilization’s When I was a Research Kraemer identified fragments, too, originated in the Greatest Minds. A Festschrift in Associate in the Genizah in 1991 as a letter Cairo Genizah. his honour, Adaptations and Research Unit, Kraemer written by Moses Innovations: Studies on the shared with me his musings Maimonides, in The Torah scroll remnants Interaction between Jewish and on CUL and wrote: ‘Aside which the Rambam do not form a completely Above: Renée Levine Melammed with the staff of the Genizah Research Unit. On 17th October 2018, Islamic Thought and Literature from Jerusalem, Cambridge is writing to a local continuous text. Nonetheless, Renée, Professor of Jewish History at the Schechter Institute, Israel, gave the fourth Annual Genizah Lecture from the Early Middle Ages to the to me is the closest place to judge to retrieve many fragments survived in Cambridge. Her lecture, “The World of Women in the Cairo Genizah: 1978–2018”, explored the Genizah Late Twentieth Century, heaven. I mean the library the assets left by a in two concentrations, one sources relating to the lives of women, and reviewed the changing winds of scholarship in recent decades. appeared in 2007. and the collection in the first murdered merchant. is Gen. 44–Exod. 3; and the It was very well attended. place, but also the natural second, Exod. 8–17. The scroll Kraemer spent extended beauty of the place and its ‘Do your utmost to oldest Torah scroll in the world Hebrew manuscripts Cambridge, T-S AS 37.22 periods in Cambridge and tranquillity.’ summon the litigants גוויל) is written on leather Gevil – a form of skin made from of which such considerable as a whole, and especially to — Gen.
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