This year, the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit celebrates its 50th anniversary. Based in Cambridge University Library, the Genizah Research Unit is occupied by a very special collection.
CIP Programme Manager Dr Iona Hine caught up with outgoing Cambridge postdoc Dr Nick Posegay to learn about an appropriately-special endeavour to mark the occasion—The Illustrated Cairo Genizah.
[IH:] I’d like to begin by reminding readers what a genizah is:
We’re talking about a special cupboard or storeroom that Jewish communities use to house sacred documents that have deteriorated to the extent to become unusable. By sacred documents, we’d most often mean documents that contain the divine name, so this is a way of observing commandments about using God’s name carefully. Right?
[NP:] That’s right. And the most famous genizah is the one that belonged to the community of the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Fustat, also known as ‘Old Cairo’.
For about 1000 years, the Jews of Cairo stored hundreds of thousands of manuscript fragments in a hidden chamber in the Ben Ezra. These manuscripts included the typical fare of any genizah – Bibles, prayer books, liturgical poetry, etc. – but also personal letters, magic amulets, legal documents, medical manuals, impromptu sketches, financial records, shopping lists, Islamic exegesis... Pretty much any genre you can think of in Arabic and Hebrew.
At the end of the 19th century, western scholars ‘discovered’ the Cairo Genizah and ‘acquired’ most of the manuscripts within. Almost all of them now reside in American and European archives, with by far the largest collection at Cambridge University Library. Over the last 125 years, Genizah manuscripts have repeatedly redefined our perceptions of Middle Eastern History, especially medieval Jewish history.
[IH:] So what exactly is The Illustrated Cairo Genizah, and how did it come about?
[NP:] Well, I’ve spent the last three years as a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow working on a project called “Interfaith Exchange in the Intellectual History of Middle Eastern Languages.” My primary sources for that project were medieval manuscripts and early modern printed books in Arabic and Hebrew, so I’ve worked closely with the Genizah Research Unit (GRU) the entire time.
I was lucky enough that my time in Cambridge coincided with the 50th anniversary of the GRU, which was founded in 1974. In 2021, we formed a sort of ad hoc committee to figure out a way to commemorate that milestone.
I first proposed a celebratory festschrift volume of collected essays, in the same way that former students often do for a retiring professor. Prof Ben Outhwaite, Dr Magdalen Connolly, and I edited together contributions from three generations of Genizah scholars – all former members of the GRU – including its founder, Prof Stefan Reif. They’ll appear later this year in From the battlefield of books: Essays celebrating 50 years of the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit (Brill 2024). The goal of this volume is to demonstrate the academic impact that the GRU has had on the field of Genizah Studies and celebrate the achievements of GRU alumni all over the world.
But the GRU does a lot more than just academic research. A large part of its mission is to educate the public on the importance of medieval history to the foundations of society in the present day. We run regular hands-on tours of the UL’s Genizah collections for people of all ages and curate displays for the UL’s exhibition space. We also share interesting discoveries with wider audiences via our Genizah Fragments blog, Fragment of the Month articles, and social media platforms (@CambridgeGRU on FB, IG, and Threads).
We wanted to celebrate this side of the GRU’s work, so I joined the GRU’s Education officer, Dr Melonie Schmierer-Lee, to make a ‘coffee-table’ book showcasing the most visually unique and historically interesting fragments in the Genizah. This project combined her experience with the GRU public tour programme and my experience producing our Instagram content.
And the target audience is not Genizah scholars or academics – although we think they will enjoy it, too. We’ve written the book to be accessible for anyone interested in World History, even if they’ve never heard of the Cairo Genizah before.
[IH:] This is a coffee-table book, which means large & well-illustrated. Can you quantify that?
[NP:] Absolutely. It’s 340 pages, each measuring 10.5 x 9 inches, so roughly the size of a sheet of A4. There is at least one full-colour image with the text on every page, for a total of 320+ pictures of Genizah fragments in the whole book; plus a few more in the Introduction, which tells the history of the Genizah at Cambridge University Library.
We divided the book into 12 thematic chapters based on genres of manuscripts in the collection:
I) Collection highlights, II) Bible & Judaism, III) sketches & illustrations, IV) letters, V) magic, VI) science & medicine, VII) Arabic & Islam, VIIIa) documents, VIIIb) ketubbot, IX) education, X) bookmaking & scribal arts, and finally XI) printing.
[IH:] The Genizah materials attract scholars with an incredible eye for detail and the ability to really focus. Working with fragmentary stuff, having to begin by figuring out what the stuff even is, must require a lot of patience as well as expertise.
What parts of creating The Illustrated Cairo Genizah required most patience, and how important was the work of other scholars?
[NP:] Definitely the curation process. There are about 200,000 Genizah fragments in Cambridge collections, and we had to narrow that down to just 300!
Mel and I both had lists of our favourite fragments, but we have different specialties, and the trick was making sure the images we selected for the book were representative of the Genizah’s incredible diversity. In the end, I think we did a pretty good job.
Of course, we also relied on lots of previous scholarship. No one is an expert in all the different subfields of Genizah Studies, and many of the manuscripts in the book have been studied in journal articles before. That was one of my favourite things about writing this book. I learned so much about past Genizah discoveries that I otherwise never would have seen.
[IH:] What detail are you most proud of?
[NP:] I did the most new research for the Arabic & Islam chapter and the Printing chapter, both of which focus on topics that have been historically understudied among Genizah scholars. My goal was to show how the Cairo Genizah is not just a medieval Jewish corpus, but actually contains valuable material for the history of the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe up through the end of the nineteenth century.
Even if you’ve been studying Genizah fragments for 50 years, I guarantee there are things those two chapters you’ve never seen before.
[IH:] Thanks so much for taking the time to explain & enthuse about this wonderful-sounding book.
If our readers are interested to learn more, what’s the most important message for them?
[NP:] The book will have a limited print run from Gorgias Press, but you can pre-order it now! That would really help us out. For UK delivery addresses, the cheapest option is to order directly from Cambridge University Library (£45 + delivery). They should dispatch at the end of September and all the money goes directly to supporting the Genizah Research Unit. For anyone in Cambridge, you’ll also be able to buy a copy from the gift shop in the UL lobby. For addresses outside the UK, please order from the Gorgias Press website ($60 + delivery). These orders should dispatch in October. We’re also working on a cheaper EU shipping option – please bear with us!
Next steps
Visit the Genizah Fragments blog (hosted by lib.cam.ac.uk).
Read the GRU Fragment of the Month series (in lib.cam.ac.uk/collections).
Buy a copy from the University Library (via onlinesales.admin.cam.ac.uk)—UK only.
Place an international order with Gorgias Press (gorgiaspress.com).
View all current order options and further information (via linktr.ee).
