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A Most Important Prayer Book Been Precarious, and Visits Relied the Littman Genizah Education on the Spare Time of Researchers

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A Most Important Prayer Book Been Precarious, and Visits Relied the Littman Genizah Education on the Spare Time of Researchers The Littman Genizah Educational Programme launches The crowds that attended the about its treasures. This is not fragments available online (more we can host visits of organised Genizah exhibition ‘Discarded straightforward in an academic than 20,000 now on Cambridge groups on most days of the week History’ in 2017 convinced us that facility like Cambridge University Digital Library), but digital images (bar Sundays, when the Library there was an enthusiastic and Library, which is geared towards are not always a substitute for is closed), for a general overview knowledgeable public audience students and scholars, and where those who want to get a sense of of the Collection or to match a for Genizah manuscripts, and neither staff nor space for visitors what the tattered manuscripts of more specialised interest. Tours that we should find a way to can be guaranteed. Through the Genizah Collection really look usually last two hours. For details continue to give access to those our research and cataloguing like in all their thousand-year-old and charges, please see our who wanted to come and learn projects, we continue to make splendour. Over the past nearly website or contact Sarah Sykes The Newsletter of the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit, Cambridge University Library No. 79 April 2020 two years, we have experimented in the Genizah Research Unit. If with offering organised group the group is from a recognised tours of the Collection, and again educational institution then there we have been surprised by the is no charge. We are very grateful extent of the uptake. Funding has for the opportunity to launch A most important prayer book been precarious, and visits relied the Littman Genizah Education on the spare time of researchers. Programme, and we hope to Now, however, thanks to the extend the programme and A manuscript from the Mosseri generosity of the Littman find new ways for the Genizah Collection of a prayer book Foundation, we have been able to reach its audience in the of the Palestinian rite, made to retain staff time for public coming years. accessible for the first time in engagement and ensure that we 70 years, reveals unique prayer continue to offer public access Ben Outhwaite traditions, solves some scholarly to visitors. By prior arrangement, Genizah Research Unit conundrums and evokes new questions. The extinct prayer rite of Eretz New book, The Tiberian Pronunciation Tradition of Biblical Hebrew (vols I & II) Israel – the rite used in the ‘Synagogue of the Palestinians’, and Psalms. Accompanying In this monumental new Judaeo-Arabic text alongside the Ben Ezra Synagogue, until the these passages are links to book, Prof. Geoffrey Khan English translations. beginning of the 13th century– oral performances, all recited produces the most up-to- caught the vigilant attention according to their original date picture of the biblical The Tiberian Pronunciation of scholars from Solomon Tiberian pronunciation. recitation tradition of the Tradition of Biblical Hebrew is Schechter onwards, following its Tiberian Masoretes. It is the a remarkable resource that rediscovery in the Cairo Genizah. first in a new open-access In volume II, Prof. Khan makes the pronunciation In 1949, Professor Simcha Assaf, Jacques Mosseri series, Cambridge Semitic provides an edition of tradition of the ‘great masters’ a rabbi, a scholar and a supreme Collection at Cambridge Languages and Cultures, Hidāyat al-Qārī (The Guide of Tiberias widely accessible court judge, published a siddur University Library, one published by the Faculty for the Reader), the most for the first time in over according to the Palestinian leaf from this important of Asian and Middle comprehensive pre-modern 900 years. rite from the Jacques (Jack) siddur, reconstructed Eastern Studies and Open book on the Tiberian Mosseri Collection, featuring from Mosseri V.94 and Book Publishers. pronunciation tradition. Nick Posegay the weekday Ma’ariv (evening other fragments. Written by the 11th-century University of Cambridge service). The Genizah fragments Karaite Abū al-Faraj Hārūn, Utilising a bevy of medieval of the Mosseri Collection were it was well-known in the sources, Prof. Khan presents originally excavated from the to the Collection impossible. By Thanks to the efforts of Dr Ben of the Mincha and Ma’ariv for medieval period, but until Both volumes can be downloaded for free: the history of the Tiberian Ben Ezra Synagogue courtyard the time that Israel Adler made Outhwaite, Head of the Genizah weekdays in the Palestinian now only fragments of an www.openbookpublishers.com/product/951 Masoretes and their tradition and the Al-Bassatine Cemetery, contact with the Mosseri family Research Unit, Anna Johnson, the rite. The lower part of all the abridged version had been of reciting the Hebrew and many of them are therefore in 1970, and received permission conservator who finally opened pages has disintegrated over published. Using manuscripts Bible. He explains the fine in a poor condition. Mosseri to examine the Collection, the the manuscript in Cambridge, time, and three small fragments from the Firkovich Collection, details of Tiberian phonetics, V.94.1 was no exception. It is siddur fragment was so fragile and Błażej Mikuła, who are kept under the separate Khan reconstructs both The Genizah Research Unit is grateful for the support of the and concludes volume I composed of six badly torn, that it could not be opened, photographed it, this fascinating classmarks Mosseri V.94.2 and the full and abridged Littman Foundation, the British Academy, other smaller or with IPA transcriptions of worn-out paper pages, of which and thus merely its two outer prayer book is now revealing its V.74.2. Many tiny pieces had to forms, and presents their passages from Genesis anonymous donations and those made by Friends of the Genizah. Assaf managed to transcribe only pages were microfilmed for the secrets. The six pages comprise be photographed separately or three. After Mosseri’s death in Institute of Microfilmed Hebrew the concluding paragraphs of are still firmly stuck to the 1934, Assaf found further access Manuscripts in Jerusalem. the Shaharit and full account larger pages. Genizah Research Unit Genizah Fragments 79 continued overleaf Cambridge University Library Editor Ben Outhwaite West Road, Cambridge, CB3 9DR, England Design H2 Associates, Cambridge ON OTHER PAGES: Maimonides and his circle | Littman Genizah Educational Programme A most important prayer book continued from page 1 A Unique Rotulus of Tosefta When fully examined for the first may assume that when evening unknown benediction initially has only heightened the The Tosefta is a compilation of include texts that may have been However, there are a few time in probably a millennium, the services were conducted attracted scholarly attention due mystery: the benediction ‘Who Jewish law composed in Palestine wanted for regular personal considerations that may lead us siddur revealed some outstanding before dark, the urge to meet to its mention in 10th-century has chosen his servant David’ in the third century CE, comprising use such as liturgical poetry to another conclusion. Among liturgical traditions. First and the obligatory time frame of polemical Karaite writings. is found here in a completely sayings by sages from the second (Piyyutim) and the Babylonian them are the rough fitting of the foremost, this manuscript is the Keriat Shema – after night has Even when it was eventually new context, commencing the century BCE to the mid-third Talmud. She also identified the Baraita in the literary structure one piece of clear-cut evidence fallen – caused the Amidah, found in Palestinian prayer daily Mincha service, and having century CE. While the Tosefta handwriting of this fragment as of the chapter, and the empty that Palestinian congregations whose obligatory status book fragments themselves, nothing to do with holidays. never achieved the canonical belonging to one of the scribes spaces near faulty readings had switched the order of the was questionable, to be its exact liturgical function status of the Mishna, to which it is working in proximity to Ephraim in the fragment, which are all weekday Ma’ariv service, with the brought forward. remained unclear. In most cases, Thousands of Mosseri fragments closely related in terms of content ben Shemarya, the leader of found in this Baraita, indicating Amidah preceding the Keriat the benediction precedes the still await their conservation. and structure, rabbis of Late the Palestinian congregation in that the Baraita was copied from Shema in the daily evening Another liturgical idiosyncrasy special dedicated psalm at When they are all finally Antiquity and the Middle Ages Fustat during the first half of the a manuscript with a low level prayers. When this feature had of the Mosseri siddur is the the beginning of Ma’ariv for made public, this collection did use material from it in their eleventh century. of precision, whereas the other been previously noted elsewhere, peculiar context of the rare holidays. However, its occasional is expected to reveal more discussions and clearly viewed halakhot were copied from a the inverted Ma’ariv was Palestinian benediction occurrence in the Shaharit could amazing discoveries to explore. it as important and somewhat This eastern fragment, the different manuscript, one far attributed by scholars to the ‘Blessed… who has chosen not be properly explained due authoritative. All the broad scope only text of the Tosefta on a more accurate. These lead to the Saturday night service alone. his servant David, and desired to the fragmentary condition Vered Raziel-Kretzmer Tosefta manuscripts we have rotulus, is important firstly for conclusion that the Baraita was The reason for this major inversion his glorification and sacred of the previous manuscript Ben Gurion University of today were copied in Europe, demonstrating that a scholar in not included in the manuscript’s in the service is unknown.
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