A Previously Unpublished Letter of Introduction by an Andalusi Karaite (T-S 8J41.7)

The document published in this article is a letter of introduction written by a Karaite Andalusi Jew upon his arrival to Egypt, on his route to Jerusalem. The text, which was deposited in the Cairo Genizah, is currently held at Cambridge University Library in the Taylor-Schechter Collection (Genizah Research Unit). Although undated, the text has the distinction of being the only known letter written by an Andalusi who presents himself as a Karaite, and is thus a first-person confirmation of the presence of this religious group in al-Andalus.

Digitization, Virtual Collections, and Total Archives in the Twenty-First Century

This final chapter argues that struggles over archival ownership and the possibility of archival totality continue far beyond the years immediately following World War II. It considers three case studies to consider new forms of total archives being created through virtual collections and digitization: The Center for Jewish History in New York City (formed in 1994/1995 and opened in 2000), the efforts by the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research to digitize materials found in Lithuania and reunite them with their own files, and the Friedberg Genizah Project’s initiative to digitize and join together fragments of the Cairo Genizah found in repositories around the world. These case studies showcase enduring visions of monumentality and indicate how archival construction is not merely the province of the past. Instead, the process of gathering historical materials is a continual process of making and remaking history.

Alchemy in the Cairo Genizah: the Nachlass of an Untidy Jewish Alchemist

Among the hundreds of thousands of fragments of mediaeval manuscripts found in the genizah of the Ben Ezra Synagogue of al-Fusṭāṭ (Old Cairo), a noteworthy corpus of alchemical material preserves alchemical recipes and theoretical works that have the potential to shed light on the oft-debated question of the involvement of Jews in alchemy during the Middle Ages. After an assessment of the status quaestionis, this article offers an introduction to the corpus and to its codicological, palaeographic and linguistic features, and focusses on a discreet number of fragments that were composed by the same alchemist/copyist. The first Judaeo-Arabic edition, Arabic transcription and English translation of a selection of passages from these fragments is presented, together with discussion of their contents. While the first of the fragments is a collection of practical alchemical recipes, the second fragment preserves the Judaeo-Arabic version of a work by the famous alchemist Jābir ibn Ḥayyān that was previously considered lost.

A Survey of Personal-Use Qur'an Manuscripts Based on Fragments from the Cairo Genizah

The Cairo Genizah is a repository of texts spanning more than a millennium of Jewish history, including thousands of Hebrew and Judaeo-Arabic manuscripts now held in collections around the world. Among these are fragments from at least 25 separate Qur'an manuscripts in Arabic script, all of which lack any traces of Hebrew writing. Their palaeographic and codicological features do not differ from personal Qur'an manuscripts found in other contexts, and their varied characteristics suggest they were placed into the Genizah at different points throughout its history. They thus provide a diachronic corpus for the study of Arabic writing, the transmission of the Qur'an, and Jewish peoples’ engagement with the Qur'an in Islamicate lands. This paper describes these 25 personal-use Qur'an manuscripts in terms of their material history and orthography, while commenting on their place in the Genizah and the history of the Qur'an.