Jewish Life in Medieval Cairo: New Light from the Genizah

23 Sep 2009

Free public lecture at the John Rylands Library, Deansgate

Professor Philip Alexander, from the University’s School of Arts, Histories and Cultures, will be speaking about the Rylands Cairo Genizah collection. This is a collection of 11,000 manuscript fragments from the Ben Ezra synagogue.  

Written in Hebrew, Aramaic, Judeo-Arabic, Arabic and other Jewish languages, the fragments date from the tenth to the nineteenth century and are a major primary source for the study of the Middle Ages.

The collection throws light not only on Jews and Judaism, but also more broadly on the social, commercial, political, religious and intellectual life of the Levant as a whole.

The event takes place at The John Rylands Library on Deansgate on Thursday 8 October, starting at 5.45pm.

For more information or to book a place please call Anna Harper on 53774 or email anna.harper@manchester.ac.uk