8 - 14 February 2001
Issue No.520
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Al-Ahram Weekly On-line 8 - 14 February 2001 Issue No.520 |
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The Fustat connection
A Jewish Archive from Old Cairo, The History of Cambridge University's Genizah Collection, Stefan C Reif, London: Curzon Press, 2000. pp277
In his introduction to A Jewish Archive from Old Cairo, Stefan Reif presents his book as an attempt to offer the general public an insight into an area of specialised research, without burdening the reader with tedious scholarly details. There is no doubt that the Genizah collection, "discovered" in the 1890s at the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Old Cairo (Fustat), has been hailed as a major breakthrough by scholars whose subject of expertise was the Mediterranean basin between the 11th and 13th centuries. The event, however, made little impression -- if any -- on the general public, or even on historians, whose knowledge of Hebrew did not allow them a beneficial foray into what specialists deemed a unique treasure trove. Few Egyptian researchers, for instance, specialising in the history of the Fatimid period (for which the Genizah documentation is the richest) were able to avail themselves of this collection of Jewish records, most of them from Egypt, until Shelomo Dov Goitein began publishing volumes of his oeuvre A Mediterranean Society in the 1950s and was invited to teach in the United States, where he was able to make "Genizology" something of an academic industry.
Solomon Schechter at work in Cambridge University Library, 1898
Goitein was not the first to study the Genizah documents, but he was gifted for attracting talented students who enthusiastically took up the challenge of enlarging the circle of researchers concentrating on the various aspects of the manuscripts discovered in the repository of the Ben Ezra Synagogue.
Amitav Ghosh's widely acclaimed "traveller's tale" In An Antique Land kindled further interest in these mediaeval times with hints about the slave of MS H.6, who lived in Egypt when Fustat was a vibrant capital where a thriving and observant Jewish community worshipped in three synagogues a stone's throw from each other and engaged in commerce around the Mediterranean.
Reif, who for the past 25 years has been in charge of the Genizah section at the Cambridge University Library, asserts that "one of [his] aims was not to restrict the activities of the Genizah Research Unit to the kind of technical observation, manuscript research and bibliographical publication that would be valuable... to other Genizah researchers in the international scholarly community, but also to convey the excitement of the Genizah texts to those with no more than a modest interest in what was happening a thousand years ago in the Mediterranean area and a limited knowledge of the relevant history and literature. To this end," he writes, "there have been popular as well as scholarly publications, particularly the Unit's newsletter, Genizah Fragments; exhibitions of the Genizah manuscripts in Cambridge as well as elsewhere; an ongoing interchange with the media; and the mounting of information and some experimental manuscript images on the Internet." Furthermore, 300 lectures have been organised on different aspects of the collection; according to Reif, these have attracted over 15,000 people, few of whom were left "unmoved and uninspired [by] the details about the lives and loves of people in medieval Cairo streets, and with examples of the languages they spoke and the literature they composed."
It is during the Fatimid period (969-1171), recounts the author, that Fustat reached the zenith of its commercial power. The small existing Jewish community was fortified at this time by an influx of immigrants from Palestine and North Africa, attracted by the climate of affluence and religious tolerance. By the 12th century, Fustat had become the centre of Jewish religious power for the whole region of Egypt, Palestine and Syria. Such a buoyant development was accompanied by an increased importance being attributed to written documents, both religious and literary. A fortuitous combination of circumstances allowed for a considerable proportion of this textual material emanating from the Jewish community to be preserved. The successful amassing of these treasures took place in the Ben Ezra Synagogue of Old Cairo, which, according to local Jewish tradition, had been built on the site where Moses appealed to God to bring the plague and hail to an end. Another legend has it that "Ezra the scribe persuaded his sceptical tormentors of his religious credentials by transcribing a Torah scroll with magical powers and depositing it among the community's archives." His name is associated with different parts of the synagogue and it is by extension, says Reif, that this particular Jewish temple became known by his name.
Reif continues his exposé by explaining the origins of the word Genizah from the root gnz, found in Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, Ethiopic and Late Babylonian, and referring to the storage of valuable items. "As Jewish law developed, and synagogal ritual became more institutionalised, it became customary for communities to set aside a beit Genizah... into which could be consigned texts of the Hebrew Bible that were damaged or worn, as well as other Hebrew texts, including works regarded as heretical, that contained biblical references or references to God. The rationale for such behaviour lay in an interpretation of the third commandment that proscribed the obliteration of the name of God, but the principle appears to have been extended by many Jewish communities to the protection of a variety of Hebrew and Jewish literature... In a move that was to make its collection unique in terms of world culture and history, the community of Fustat chose to preserve much of the written word that passed through its hands, regardless of its religious status."
Normally it was customary to remove these texts to a cave and burial place, as proved by the remnants of a buried Genizah in the Jewish cemetery of Bassatin; but in the case of the Ben Ezra consignment, it was left to accumulate in the synagogue's lumbered storeroom.
Reif goes on to detail the connection between the Ben Ezra Synagogue, the only Jewish temple that withstood the test of time for over a thousand years (it was rebuilt on the same site twice and renovated a number of times, the last extensive refurbishment dating from the late 1980s) and the University of Cambridge, which subsequently became one of the most important centres of Hebrew studies. Following this information are a number of short biographies of Cambridge scholars who were closely involved at the university library in the removal, restoration and display of over 150,000 Genizah fragments, as well as a list of museums, libraries and private collections around the world where Genizah documents can be found.
Visitors in the 18th century were only interested in the synagogue building, the majestic proportions of which often filled them with awe, while others inquired about the famous Ben Ezra scroll. Only a few, however, were aware of the rare source of Hebraica that lay entombed within its walls, and which, according to yet another legend, were protected by a snake defending the entrance of the Genizah room. In 1864, Jacob Saphir succeeded in gaining access to the manuscript repository and later reported unimpressive results: "After I had laboured for two days and was covered with dust and earth, I removed a few folios of some old books and manuscripts that I had chosen, but did not find any valuable information in them. Who knows what else there is below? I was tired of searching, but I certainly came across no snake or similar reptile and, thank God, no harm came to me."
The reader of Talmudic and Rabbinic Literature at the University of Cambridge, Solomon Schechter, made a more serious attempt in 1896. Following a lead given by Agnes Lewis and Margaret Gibson, "two pious and learned Scotswomen" who had come back from a visit to Egypt that included the Fustat and the synagogue, and sponsored by the master of St John College, Charles Taylor, he was able to bring back 140,000 Genizah fragments to the Cambridge University Library.
Reif follows his incursion into Fustat and its history with a second section, in which he fails somewhat to keep his promise of providing an interesting account of his subject to the ordinary reader, and lapses into what he knows best: the minutiae of research, the technical aspects of restoration and conservation of manuscripts, including an academic description of the various religious documents at hand. For readers familiar with Goitein's Mediterranean Society, abridged in a one-volume version excluding most of these details, the disappointment is great. Expecting an interesting chronicle of the life of the Jewish community in Fatimid times and beyond, they are confronted during the next six chapters with the history of the development of Cambridge University's interest in Hebraic studies, descriptions of the fragments of religious texts it possesses, and a discussion of the importance and influence their preservation has had on documenting the evolution of the Jewish religion. In other words, ever the professor, Reif has slipped a large reference section mainly targeting students of Jewish history and religion into an otherwise engaging narrative. It is only in chapter eight that he reverts to providing details of the population's everyday life. "It may not be polite but listening to snippets of other people's conversations can be a fascinating experience," he states. Once more the amateur social historian's interest is caught by his comments on the arrangements regulating inter-faith marriages (between Rabbanites and Karaites), marriage conditions and contracts, dowries, alimony payments, and the tale of ordinary marital woes: "Soon my mother-in-law began to work against me, isolating me from everyone, and putting enmity against me in the heart of her son. The least she did to me was to say to me 'Go away and become like your notorious mother'."
Reviewed by Fayza Hassan
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