Skip to main content

IMC 2024: Sessions

Session 1712: Mediterranean Jewish Communities in Crisis

Thursday 4 July 2024, 14:15-15:45

Sponsor:Genizah Research Unit, Cambridge University Library
Organiser:Ben Outhwaite, Genizah Research Unit, Cambridge University Library, University of Cambridge
Moderator/Chair:Ben Outhwaite, Genizah Research Unit, Cambridge University Library, University of Cambridge
Paper 1712-aMaimonides: Navigating Personal and Political Crises in the Middle Ages
(Language: English)
Zvi Stampfer, Office of International Academic Affairs, Herzog College, Jerusalem
Index terms: Daily Life, Hebrew and Jewish Studies, Islamic and Arabic Studies and Manuscripts and Palaeography
Paper 1712-bThe Medieval Qaraite Calendar in Times of Crisis: Ideology versus Practice
(Language: English)
Nadia Vidro, Department of Hebrew & Jewish Studies, University College London
Index terms: Hebrew and Jewish Studies, Islamic and Arabic Studies, Law and Manuscripts and Palaeography
Paper 1712-cThe Execution of the Head of the Jews in Egypt: New Evidence from the Cairo Genizah
(Language: English)
Amir Ashur, Center for the Study of the Jews of Spain & Islamic Lands, University of Haifa
Index terms: Archives and Sources, Hebrew and Jewish Studies, Islamic and Arabic Studies and Manuscripts and Palaeography
Abstract

That the manuscripts of the Cairo Genizah survived at all is testament to the resilient nature of the Egyptian Jewish community who preserved the synagogue in Old Cairo, with its precious Genizah storeroom, down to the present day. This session will examine the challenges faced by the Jewish communities of the eastern Mediterranean in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and how the communities and their leaders dealt with them, drawing on the unique sources among the Genizah manuscripts. How did the bookish Qaraite community, whose liturgical year relied on the sighting of the ripening barley in Palestine, cope when access to the Holy Land was disrupted or restricted? What do contemporary Fatimid-era documents reveal about the facts behind the Mamluk historian al-Maqrizi’s reference to the execution of ‘the head of the Jews and his colleagues’? And how did the pre-eminent sage of his era, Moses Maimonides, tackle the personal, professional and communal crises that afflicted his life and career as he fled Al-Andalus to settle in Egypt at the time of the Crusades?