Digitizing the Cairo Geniza
The Cairo Geniza, a vast accumulation of medieval Jewish manuscripts, was discovered in the late nineteenth century in an annex of the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Fustat (Old Cairo). For members of that community the Hebrew alphabet was considered so sacred that anything written in it was placed in a Geniza, literally ‘store’, rather than discarded. Documents accumulated there from the ninth to the fourteenth centuries, and remained there until their value for scholarship was discovered and they came onto the market.
The Cairo Geniza contained a total of almost 200,000 documents, ranging from complete volumes to small fragments, that are of vital importance for reconstructing the history of Jews in the Middle Eastern and Mediterranean region in the Middle Ages, an era previously not well-known. No aspect of existence is left untouched in documents covering everything from religious beliefs and practices, to the involvement of Jews in the economic and cultural life of the Middle East. Clear evidence of the relationship between Jews and Arabs emerges from rabbinical court records, leases, title-deeds, endowment contracts, debt acknowledgments, marriage contracts and private letters.
Yet reconstructing the evidence is hard because this unique resource has been scattered over many different locations. Parts of the Cairo Geniza were acquired by a variety of institutions, libraries and individuals, dividing documents in a haphazard way. Single manuscripts or even leaves were separated, making it almost impossible to gain any understanding of their significance.
The Bodleian Collection
The Bodleian Library’s Geniza holdings are exceptional since donors and librarians in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries focused on specific subjects. Of particular significance are the rare Talmud fragments of which so few survive because of the mass burnings of Talmud manuscripts in 16th-century Europe. The liturgical material, too, is important for shedding light on the little-known beginnings of Jewish prayer. The Bodleian is rich in both of these.
The fragments in the Bodleian Library, totalling some 25,000 folios, stand out also for their size, comprising on average five folios, and forming in many cases complete quires, making them a treasure trove of great value compared to other collections.
The Digital Library
Modern technology is revolutionizing the study of the Geniza fragments, and various libraries either have digitized, or are in the process of digitizing, their collections, including those of the University of Cambridge, Jewish Theological Seminary New York, the John Ryland’s Library and the University of Pennsylvania. The aim is to generate a worldwide database of digitized images, thereby, enhancing the accessibility of the various Geniza collections, bringing them virtually together.
The Bodleian’s involvement in this exciting endeavour has been facilitated by the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies. The Centre has been instrumental in eliciting the funding for the digitization of the Oxford Geniza collection, and would like to acknowledge the generous contribution of George Blumenthal, a New York philanthropist, pioneer in digital communications, and President of the Center for Online Jewish Studies, who donated his organization's professional services to the project.
Comparing the fragments held in Oxford with those held in places like Cambridge, New York, Philadelphia or Manchester will inaugurate a new era in Geniza studies, and enable scholars anywhere in the world to access the Bodleian’s Geniza treasures. This initiative will facilitate international research and enable experts to make progress with a long-term goal of Geniza research - identifying matching fragments in different collections. The Genizah digitization project will also support the European Seminar on Advanced Jewish Studies taking place at the Centre over the next two years.
Autograph draft of Mishneh Torah, the legal code compiled by the rabbinic authority, philosopher and royal physician
Moses ben Maimon (Maimonides, 1137/8-1204) MS.Heb.d.32, fols.50b-51a
The largest fragment of uninterrupted text of the book of Ben Sira (Ecclesiasticus) in Hebrew, a work long thought
to have survived only in Greek. It is a remnant from one of the earliest Hebrew codices known, probably of the tenth century.
MS.Heb.e.62,fols.10b,17a