Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit, University of Cambridge
Contact details
West RoadCambridge
CB3 9DR
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0)1223 333129
Email: genizah@lib.cam.ac.uk
https://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/departments/taylor-schechter-genizah-research-unit
Head of Department/Director
Dr. Ben Outhwaite
Activites
Pursues academic research activitiesMain research activities
The Taylor-Schechter Genizah Collection is a window on the medieval world and has been colourfully described as ‘a refuge for writings’ and ‘a battlefield of books’. Its 193,000 manuscript fragments, mainly in Hebrew, Judaeo-Arabic, Aramaic and Arabic, are an unparalleled resource for the academic study of Judaism, Jewish history and the wider economic and social history of the Mediterranean and Near East in the Middle Ages and Early Modern period. They shed light on the mundane as well as the religious and cultural activities of that world, since the Collection preserves a huge number of personal letters, legal deeds and other documents, alongside literary and sacred texts. The Genizah Research Unit was established in the 1970s to carry out a comprehensive program of conservation, cataloguing and research on the manuscripts.
There is a Jewish Studies library
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