Tag Archives: Geniza

A Receipt for Funds to Redeem Captives Signed by Maimonides

Did you know that Maimonides’ first public activity in Egypt was a large-scale mission to get Jews out of Crusader captivity? In a letter preserved in the Geniza (which has since disappeared) Maimonides makes an appeal to the various communities “Regarding the captives, may our God release their bonds”, and …

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Up in the Attic

Solomon Schecter examining manuscripts from the Cairo Geniza.(Cambridge University Library)

Sacred Trash, new from Nextbook Press, tells the remarkable story of the Cairo Geniza, a trove of Jewish documents from the Middle Ages discovered again in the late 1800s In the late 1800s, Solomon Schechter, the scholar and teacher whose name is familiar to scores of Jewish day-schoolstudents, discovered a …

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