РАЗЛИЧНА ИЗСЛЕДОВАТЕЛСКА ГЛЕДНА ТОЧКА ОТНОСНО ДОКУМЕНТИТЕ, ОТКРИТИ В ХРАНИЛИЩЕТО НА СИНАГОГАТА „БЕН-ЕЗРА“ (ГЕНИЗА) В КАЙРО
A DIFFERENT RESEARCH PERSPECTIVE ABOUT THE DOCUMENTS DISCOVERED IN THE BEN-EZRA SYNAGOGUE’S REPOSITORY (GENIZAH) IN CAIRO

Summary/Abstract: A Genizah is a repository (hiding place) for the “ritual burial” of worn-out Jewish books or documents containing sacred words. Since 1896, a portion of the contents of Ben-Ezra Synagogue’s Genizah in Cairo‘s Fustat District of some 400,000 documents, the oldest of which from the 9th century, has been stored in the „Genizah Research Unit“ at Cambridge University Library, where they are deciphered, and used for research, like this on the Jewish communities of Andalusia/ Spain, from 10th to 15th centuries. Other documents were kept during the 18th to 19th centuries by collectors and research centers, like Princeton and Jerusalem Universities, and 60 other libraries. About ninety percent of the Cambridge papers are texts on the Bible, Rabbinic Literature, Philosophy, Medicine, Astronomy, Astrology, Law, Lexicography, Poetry, and Theology. The remaining documents: Letters, Legal Acts, Lists, Bills, State Papers, and other daily writings are in the Genizah Project at Princeton and Jerusalem. In 1517, Cairo was conquered by Sultan Selim I, and Egypt became a part of the Otto￾man Empire until 1914. We are interested in any documents that may exist in the Ge￾nizah from this period, most likely at Princeton and Jerusalem universities, and also in private collections, that might illuminate issues in the life and activities of Jews in the Balkans between the 18th and 19th centuries. During this period, Sephardic Jews from the Balkans emigrated and settled in cities of the Habsburg monarchy such as Vienna and Budapest. Many of them traded in Tobacco and Coffee, but also in Cotton purchased from Egypt. This Genizah-based research would hopefully also find evidence of this Sephardic Jewish community destroyed in the Holocaust.

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