Read the new Fragment of the Month article by Dotan Arad and Amir Ashur via the Taylor-Schechter Geniza Research Unit.
Monthly Archives: June 2022
The Summer 2022 Mediterranean Seminar Workshop: “Purity, Pollution, Purification and Defilement in the Premodern Mediterranean” 28 & 29 June 2022, University of Haifa
This is an in-person event only held at the University of Haifa; there is no virtual or zoom option. Register prior to 17 June
New Issue of the Journal Aschkenas 32.1 (2022)
The new issue of the journal Aschkenas. Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Kultur der Juden is out now and features some medieval content as well.
Book Review of Hellner-Eshed’s Book “Seekers of the Face”
You can now read Mark Verman’s review of Melila Hellner-Eshed’s Seekers of the Face: Secrets of the Idra Rabba (The Great Assembly) of the Zohar. Translated by Raphael Dascalu. Stanford Studies in Jewish Mysticism Series (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2021).
A ‘Geniza Street View’: On Jewish Neighborhoods and Inter-Religious Neighborliness
by Moshe Yagur, Jerusalem

My current project examines spatial realities of Jewish life in the medieval Islamic cities of the eastern Mediterranean, mostly Egypt and greater-Syria, from the late 10th to the late 15th centuries. It is well known that Jews, Muslims, and Christians lived side by side in these cities, without a clear separation along religious lines. There was also no clear zoning of the medieval Mediterranean Islamic city to residential, commercial, industrial, and public zones. And so, Jews, Muslims and Christians lived, worked, and traded with each other in the same neighborhoods, alleys, and small courtyards, between mosques, synagogues, and churches. The aim of my current project is first to document this reality, which until today was seen as self-evident and has not received proper scholarly attention, and then to analyze these daily, individual interactions around residential areas as an arena for inter-religious encounters.
Continue reading A ‘Geniza Street View’: On Jewish Neighborhoods and Inter-Religious NeighborlinessWorkshop “Reading the Torah Ritually: The Art and Architecture of Ancient and Medieval Synagogues”, 21 June 2022
Online-Workshop, 21 June 2022, 6-8 p.m., at the Research Centre „Dynamics of Jewish Ritual Practices“, University of Erfurt

For the access link please send email to: claudia.bergmann@uni-erfurt.de.
Online resource: Calendar Fragments as a Tool for Palaeography
Read the new post by Ben Outhwaite on the Genizah Research Unit Blog about “Calendar Fragments as a Tool for Palaeography.”
New Book by Andrew D. Berns: “The Land Is Mine”
This new book by Andrew D. Berns, The Land Is Mine. Sephardi Jews and Bible Commentary in the Renaissance. Jewish Culture and Context (Penn Press, 2022), deals with biblical commentaries by scholars like Isaac Abravanel, Abraham Saba, and Isaac Arama.

University of Amsterdam and the Rothschild Foundation Hanadiv Europe. Jewish Heritage Seminar for Early-Career Professionals and Graduate Students.
This seminar will take place in Amsterdam, 28 August – 2 September 2022.
Deadline: 12 July 2022
New Post at the Blog of the Genizah Research Unit: ‘Found in one of the Genizas of old Egypt’
Read now the new story at the Blog of the Genizah Research Unit.