Uncovered Documents Tell the Story of Cooperation Between Muslims and Jews in Medieval Cairo
- Details
- Category: Dissidenza ebraica
- Published on Tuesday, 20 March 2012 19:53
- Written by Allan C. Brownfeld
Winter 2012
Documents Downgraded
It is Glickman’s view that the Geniza documents have been downgraded in importance because they hold the entire Zionist idea open to serious question. He compares the treatment of the Geniza with that of the Dead Sea Scrolls, several of which are now housed in the Israel Museum’s Shrine of the Book in Jerusalem. “There are,” he writes, “no such shrines for the Geniza documents. For the most part the Geniza manuscripts — even the several hundred now in Israel — are safely encased in plastic and stored in albums in the shelves of locked rooms rather than housed in beautiful, crowded museums. While the Dead Sea Scrolls testify to a glorious past in the Land of Israel, the Geniza documents paint a vivid picture of Jewish life thriving outside the Land — and in Egypt no less … The State of Israel has transformed Jewish life but in the process, it has also defined Jewish history. The Cairo Geniza, on the other hand, tells a very different story — one that doesn’t quite fit the narrative.”
