IMC 2024: Sessions

Session 1532: Crises of Everyday Life among Jews in the Eastern Mediterranean and West Asia: Insights from the Cairo Genizas and Other Documents

Thursday 4 July 2024, 09:00-10:30

Organiser:	Alexandra Cuffel, Centrum für Religionswissenschaftliche Studien, Ruhr-Universität Bochum
Moderator/Chair:	Craig Perry, Department of Middle Eastern & South Asian Studies / Tam Institute for Jewish Studies, Emory University, Georgia
Paper 1532-a	A Crisis of Trust: Assessments of Reverting Jewish Apostates in the Medieval Islamic Period (Language: English) Uriel Simonsohn, Department of Middle Eastern & Islamic Studies, University of Haifa Index terms: Hebrew and Jewish Studies, Islamic and Arabic Studies and Religious Life
Paper 1532-c	The Forgotten Jewish Chapter in Arabia: A Medieval Response to Crisis (Language: English) Oded Zinger, Department of Jewish History, Hebrew University of Jerusalem Index terms: Folk Studies, Hebrew and Jewish Studies and Language and Literature - Semitic
Abstract	While peoples, including Jews, faced a number of cataclysmic events such as earthquakes, drought, famine, plague and war in the medieval Mediterranean and West Asia, the Cairo Geniza(s) provides insights into other kinds of smaller, individual crises as well, namely those affecting daily life. These may include but are not exclusive to: enslavement; immigration; death or disappearance of family or business partner; strife with spouse or other family member; disability; religious or other cultural difference. Of course large-scale disasters, also caused personal crises for individuals. The papers for this session will explore questions of individual crisis and resilience among Jews in Byzantium, the Islamicate Mediterranean, and West Asia.