Karaite Marriage Documents from the Cairo Geniza

Karaite Marriage Documents from the Cairo Geniza

Author: Judith Olszowy-Schlanger

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 562

ISBN-13: 9789004108868

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The edition and linguistic, palaeographic and legal analysis of 65 marriage documents preserved in the Cairo Geniza shed a unique light on the socio-economic and intellectual history of the mediaeval Karaite Jews who wrote them.


Karaite Marriage Contracts from the Cairo Geniza

Karaite Marriage Contracts from the Cairo Geniza

Author: Judith Olszowy-Schlanger

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2021-10-11

Total Pages: 554

ISBN-13: 9004497536

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book is the first comprehensive study of legal, historical and economic aspects of marriage as practised during the Middle Ages, in Egypt and Palestine, by members of distinct Jewish movement known as Karaism. This study is based on original mediaeval manuscripts written in Hebrew, and recovered from the famous Cairo Geniza. Sixty-five manuscripts, most of them previously unpublished, are edited and translated in the second part of the book. The detailed and accessible analysis of their contents, language, formulation and palaeography sheds a new light on Karaite legal and linguistic tradition, and provides a unique source for our understanding of early Karaism, and of Mediaeval Jewish History in general.


Composition Analysis of Writing Materials in Cairo Genizah Documents

Composition Analysis of Writing Materials in Cairo Genizah Documents

Author: Zina Cohen

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2021-10-11

Total Pages: 227

ISBN-13: 9004469354

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Through the application of scientific methods of analysis to a corpus of medieval manuscripts found in the Cairo Genizah, this work aims to gain a better understanding of the writing materials used by Jewish communities at that time, shedding new light not only on the production of manuscripts in the Middle Ages, but also on the life of those Jewish communities.


Karaite Judaism

Karaite Judaism

Author: Meira Polliack

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2016-07-18

Total Pages: 1013

ISBN-13: 9004294260

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Karaism is a Jewish religious movement of a scripturalist and messianic nature, which emerged in the Middle Ages in the areas of Persia-Iraq and Palestine and has maintained its unique and varied forms of identity and existence until the present day, undergoing resurgent cycles of creativity, within its major geographical centres of the Middle-East, Byzantium-Turkey, the Crimea and Eastern Europe. This Guide to Karaite Studies contains thirty-seven chapters which cover all the main areas of medieval and modern Karaite history and literature, including geographical and chronological subdivisions, and special sections devoted to the history of research, manuscripts and printing, as well as detailed bibliographies, index and illustrations. The substantial volume reflects the current state of scholarship in this rapidly growing sub-field of Jewish Studies, as analysed by an international team of experts and taught in various universities throughout Europe, Israel and the United States.


Sacred Trash

Sacred Trash

Author: Adina Hoffman

Publisher: Schocken

Published: 2016-06-21

Total Pages: 306

ISBN-13: 080521223X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD FINALIST WINNER OF THE 2012 AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION’S SOPHIE BRODY AWARD FOR OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN JEWISH LITERATURE Sacred Trash tells the remarkable story of the Cairo Geniza—a synagogue repository for worn-out texts that turned out to contain the most vital cache of Jewish manuscripts ever discovered. This tale of buried communal treasure weaves together unforgettable portraits of Solomon Schechter and the other modern heroes responsible for the collection’s rescue with explorations of the medieval documents themselves—letters and poems, wills and marriage contracts, Bibles, money orders, fiery dissenting religious tracts, fashion-conscious trousseaux lists, prescriptions, petitions, and mysterious magical charms. Presenting a pan­oramic view of almost a thousand years of vibrant Mediterranean Judaism, Adina Hoffman and Peter Cole bring contemporary readers into the heart of this little-known trove, whose contents have rightly been dubbed “the Living Sea Scrolls.” Part biography, part meditation on the supreme value the Jewish people has long placed in the written word, Sacred Trash is above all a gripping tale of adventure and redemption. (With black-and-white illustrations throughout.)


Medieval Hebrew Poetry in Muslim Egypt

Medieval Hebrew Poetry in Muslim Egypt

Author: Joachim J.M.S. Yeshaya

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2010-11-11

Total Pages: 364

ISBN-13: 9004191844

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Moses ben Abraham Darʿī, born in Alexandria into a family of Moroccan Jewish immigrants, lived in Egypt in the middle of the twelfth century. Though he visited Damascus and Jerusalem, he spent most of his professional life as a physician and poet in the Karaite community of Fusṭāṭ-Cairo. This study offers an annotated edition of secular poems taken from the earliest manuscript, NLR Evr. I 802, dated to the fifteenth century. The Hebrew text and Judaeo-Arabic heading of each poem are provided in the original order attested in the manuscript. The introduction to this edition seeks to evaluate Darʿī’s poetry in the light of the Andalusian-Hebrew poetical tradition and within the context of Hebrew literary activity in the Muslim East. “This learned book displays sound, rigorous scholarship in the best tradition of the philological-historical method... It also provides solid ground for further work by scholars with different agendas, different scholarly interests and different methodologies in the study of medieval Hebrew poetry. On all accounts, it is a welcome and most valuable addition to the field.” Esperanza Alfonso, CCHS-CSIC "Yeshaya's work is an excellent contribution to the study of both medieval Hebrew poetry and Karaitica, showing Darʿī to be a central representative of Hebrew poets writing in the Muslim East and, most importantly, a charming author, whose Karaiteness only adds to the attraction." Riikka Tuori


The Cambridge Genizah Collections

The Cambridge Genizah Collections

Author: Shulamit Reif

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2002-05-23

Total Pages: 342

ISBN-13: 9780521813617

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A collection of essays by international experts summarizing recent developments in Genizah research.


The Dead Sea Scrolls and Contemporary Culture

The Dead Sea Scrolls and Contemporary Culture

Author: Adolfo D. Roitman

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2011-03-21

Total Pages: 790

ISBN-13: 9004196145

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This volume contains the proceedings of the international conference held at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem in July 2008 in honor of the 60th anniversary of the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. As indicated by its title “The Dead Sea Scrolls and Contemporary Culture,” the aim of the conference was to move beyond the strict confines of conventional scholarship and to explore new avenues of research, including the examination of the place of the findings from the Judean Desert in contemporary culture. The book is divided into five main sections: (1) the Identity and History of the Community; (2) the Qumran “Library”: Origins, Use, and Nature (2a. Biblical Texts; 2b. Biblical Interpretation; 2c. Sectarian and Non-Sectarian Literature; 2d. Sectarian vis-à-vis Rabbinic Halakha); (3) Christianity in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls; (4) Gender at Qumran; and (5) New Perspectives (5a. Methodological Approaches; 5b. Educational Approaches).


Reading for History in the Damascus Document

Reading for History in the Damascus Document

Author: Maxine L. Grossman

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2018-12-24

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 9004350438

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Scholars tend to view the Damascus Document as a historical source, but a reading of the text in light of contemporary (audience-oriented) literary criticism finds its emphasis in the ideological construction of history and communal identity, rather than in the preservation of a historical record. An introduction to contemporary literary criticism is followed by a series of thematic readings, focusing on historical narrative, priestly imagery, and gender in the covenant community. Each theme is examined in terms of its potential for multiple (sometimes contradictory) interpretations and for its place in the larger sectarian discourse. This study offers an alternative approach to the historiography of ancient Jewish sectarianism, acknowledging the presence of competing claims to shared traditions and the potential for changes in textual interpretation over time or among diverse communities.


Karaism

Karaism

Author: Daniel J. Lasker

Publisher: Liverpool University Press

Published: 2021-12-14

Total Pages: 269

ISBN-13: 1802070702

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Finalist for National Jewish Book Award for Scholarship 2022. Karaite Judaism emerged in the ninth century in the Islamic Middle East as an alternative to the rabbinic Judaism of the Jewish majority. Karaites reject the underlying assumption of rabbinic Judaism, namely, that Jewish practice is to be based on two divinely revealed Torahs, a written one, embodied in the Five Books of Moses, and an oral one, eventually written down in rabbinic literature. Karaites accept as authoritative only the Written Torah, as they understand it, and their form of Judaism therefore differs greatly from that of most Jews. Despite its permanent minority status, Karaism has been an integral part of the Jewish people continuously for twelve centuries. It has contributed greatly to Jewish cultural achievements, while providing a powerful intellectual challenge to the majority form of Judaism. This book is the first to present a comprehensive overview of the entire story of Karaite Judaism: its unclear origins; a Golden Age of Karaism in the Land of Israel; migrations through the centuries; Karaites in the Holocaust; unique Jewish religious practices, beliefs, and philosophy; biblical exegesis and literary accomplishments; polemics and historiography; and the present-day revival of the Karaite community in the State of Israel.