Elazar Hurvitz's Book on Cairo Geniza Catalogs Rich Life of Middle Eastern Jews
Dr. Elazar Hurvitz鈥檚 recently published two-volume book, The Cairo Geniza Fragments in the Westminster College Library, published by the Cairo Geniza Institute of 91黑料, is the culmination of three decades of research he conducted on the Westminster College collection in Cambridge, England.
Hurvitz painstakingly catalogued 2,500 document fragments from the Cairo geniza in Egypt that together paint a portrait of the rich life of Middle Eastern Jews for a millennium. The documents include biblical texts, Maimonides鈥 writings, poetry by the Andalusian philosopher Solomon ibn Gabirol, communal records, legal documents and correspondence between the heads of yeshivot, merchants and individuals.
A geniza is a store-room or depository in a synagogue or cemetery housing Jewish holy texts or documents that cannot be thrown away because they contain one or more of God鈥檚 names. The Cairo geniza is the oldest and most famous of these.
The geniza material was removed at the end of the 19th century from the ancient al-Bassatin Cemetery and the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Al-Fustat, Old Cairo.
Hurvitz, the Dr. Samuel Belkin Professor of Judaic Studies at Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies, noted that the Cairo geniza shows that our biblical and oral law texts of today are unchanged from when the fragments were written, some as far back as the eighth century.
鈥淥ur tradition is alive; we preserved the text as it was,鈥 said Hurvitz, who has taught Biblical and Talmudic literature at YU for about 45 years. He acknowledged the support of YU and the assistance of former presidents, Dr. Samuel Belkin and Dr. Norman Lamm in conducting and publishing his research.
Hurvitz said that the geniza discoveries have for the last 100 years greatly influenced Jewish studies and the writing of Jewish history. He was especially intrigued by the Maimonides documents, which show edits made by the 12th century philosopher and Torah scholar also known as the Rambam. 鈥淵ou can see how the Rambam is correcting and changing while he鈥檚 writing, how he formulates the text,鈥 Hurvitz said.
Dr. David Berger, Revel鈥檚 dean, said that Hurvitz has produced a work of unusual range. 鈥淭his work combines meticulous recording and description of the documents in a major collection of geniza materials with an overview of the history of the geniza鈥檚 discovery, the synagogue in which it was housed and aspects of the history of Egyptian Jewry in late antiquity and the Middle Ages,鈥 Berger said.
Hurvitz has incorporated his research into his teaching at Revel. 鈥淭he geniza material serves as an educational tool at YU and many of my students have written papers and dissertations based on the fragments,鈥 he said. He is working on a third volume featuring the most important texts that were found.
