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Sacred Trash: The Lost and Found World of the Cairo Geniza

par Adina Hoffman, Peter Cole (Auteur)

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History. Nonfiction. HTML: NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD FINALIST Part of the Jewish Encounter series One May day in 1896, at a dining-room table in Cambridge, England, a meeting took place between a Romanian-born maverick Jewish intellectual and twin learned Presbyterian Scotswomen, who had assembled to inspect several pieces of rag paper and parchment. It was the unlikely start to what would prove a remarkable, continent-hopping, century-crossing saga, and one that in many ways has revolutionized our sense of what it means to lead a Jewish life. In Sacred Trash, MacArthur-winning poet and translator Peter Cole and acclaimed essayist Adina Hoffman tell the story of the retrieval from an Egyptian geniza, or repository for worn-out texts, of the most vital cache of Jewish manuscripts ever discovered. This tale of buried scholarly treasure weaves together unforgettable portraits of Solomon Schechter and the other heroes of this drama with explorations of the medieval documents themselves�??letters and poems, wills and marriage contracts, Bibles, money orders, fiery dissenting tracts, fashion-conscious trousseaux lists, prescriptions, petitions, and mysterious magical charms. Presenting a panoramic view of nine hundred years of vibrant Mediterranean Judaism, Hoffman and Cole bring modern readers into the heart of this little-known trove, whose contents have rightly been dubbed "the Living Sea Scrolls." Part biography and part meditation on the supreme value the Jewish people has long placed on the written word, Sacred Trash is above all a gripping tale of adventure and redemption.… (plus d'informations)

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Fascinating, but I'm overwhelmed with facts; I won't remember them all: There are the names of all the people connected with the Cairo Geniza and what they found from there and how it changed, created, added to many topics, including biblical commentary, Spanish poetry, daily life, and our knowledge of many important scholars, poets, writers, some not known before. I found out that Solomon Schechter met Flinders Petrie, "the leading English Egyptologist of the day [p.81]," and they sailed back from Egypt to England together and nearly drowned on the same ship. They shared "Petrie's belief in the archeological importance of 'unconsidered trifles' for the reconstruction of history." [p. 81] (

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raizel | May 20, 2022 |

Interesting that both this book and Sacred Treasure - The Cairo Genizah: The Amazing Discoveries of Forgotten Jewish History in an Egyptian Synagogue Attic were published almost simultaneously in 2011, so I decided to read them both back to back. Both detail [and I do mean detail] the history of the discovery of the Cairo Geniza, a repository for old Jewish manuscripts. But this one reads like a scholarly tome, more a history of the scholars who worked on the geniza manuscripts than on the geniza itself.

I was particularly disappointed that Friedburg Geniza project for digitalizing all the known fragments, which will surely revolutionize the study of these manuscripts, was barely mentioned in the .afterword. Even worse, one would never know from this book that the majority of geniza texts are spells, incantations, and instructions for performing these from myriads of ancient magic manuals.

If you want to read one book on the Cairo Geniza, read Mark Glickman's, not this one (

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Maggie.Anton | Jul 18, 2014 |

There was some fascinating information in this book, but the writing was confusing. It seemed to assume a level of knowledge that I don't have, and it kept jumping in and out of historical time periods. Overall, I'm glad I'd read it. (

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aglater | Apr 9, 2013 |

A geniza(h) is a kind of storeroom found in a Jewish synagogue or cemetery, used to store old Hebrew religious texts, as it was forbidden to throw away or destroy any document which contained the name of God. Over time, genizot also came to contain many writings of a secular nature in languages like Yiddish or Ladino, because even personal letters and legal contracts could begin with a divine invocation. The Cairo Geniza is one of the largest medieval genizot, with documents and document fragments numbering in the hundreds of thousands.

The title of this book is a little misleading—Sacred Trash is really more a collection of linked biographies about key scholars, such as Solomon Schechter and S.D. Goitein, who've worked on the Cairo Geniza since its "discovery" in the late 19th century. To that extent, it may be a little dense for someone who doesn't have much background in the area; certainly, while I've read some about this Geniza before, and about the Jewish community of Fustat, there were parts that went over my head. Hoffman and Cole do seem to assume a Jewish readership, or at least a readership which has done more focused reading in the area than I have. Still, I think if you do have an interest in the area, or even just in the role of serendipity, chance, and hard work in scholarly endeavours, Sacred Trash makes for a very interesting read. (

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siriaeve | Mar 24, 2013 |

I was quite disappointed in the writing of this book. This is the story of the discovery and much of the organization of a Genizah in Old Cairo. However, I found the writing of this book and its organization very poor and confusing. There were many run-on sentences. (

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suesbooks | Dec 26, 2011 |

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If the authors' rendition of Hebrew verse is exquisite, their expository prose is charmingly breezy. They describe a palimpsest "as a kind of medieval Etch A Sketch pad," and quite rightly compare some of the work of Geniza scholars to the popular television gameshow Jeopardy!, where the answer is provided, and the trick is to come up with the question that prompted it. Though aimed at the wider public, Sacred Trash has much to satisfy the academic reader as well. The authors' grasp of the scholarly issues in Geniza research and the rich, discursive endnotes show that they have read a great deal of the academic literature in Hebrew and English. Most readers will skip the endnotes, but they are well worth reading for anyone who wants to pursue the topic.

ajouté par atbradley | modifierJewish Review of Books, Norman Stillman

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Nom de l'auteur	Rôle	Type d'auteur	Œuvre ?	Statut
Hoffman, Adina	Auteur	auteur principal	toutes les éditions	confirmé
Cole, Peter	Auteur	auteur principal	toutes les éditions	confirmé

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Jewish Encounters

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National Jewish Book Award (Finaliste – Histoire – 2011)

Sophie Brody Medal (Gagnant – 2012)

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Sacred Trash: The Lost and Found World of the Cairo Geniza

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Agnes Smith Lewis

Margaret Smith Gibson

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Hidden wisdom and concealed treasures, what is the use of either?
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For MMHC,
our Geniza's sphinx

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When the self-taught Scottish scholar of Arabic and Syriac Agnes Lewis and her no-less-learned twin sister, Margaret Gibson, hurried down a street or hallway, they moved - as a friend later described them - "like ships in full sail".

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Adina Hoffman

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▾Descriptions de livres

History. Nonfiction. HTML:

NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD FINALIST
Part of the Jewish Encounter series

One May day in 1896, at a dining-room table in Cambridge, England, a meeting took place between a Romanian-born maverick Jewish intellectual and twin learned Presbyterian Scotswomen, who had assembled to inspect several pieces of rag paper and parchment. It was the unlikely start to what would prove a remarkable, continent-hopping, century-crossing saga, and one that in many ways has revolutionized our sense of what it means to lead a Jewish life.

In Sacred Trash, MacArthur-winning poet and translator Peter Cole and acclaimed essayist Adina Hoffman tell the story of the retrieval from an Egyptian geniza, or repository for worn-out texts, of the most vital cache of Jewish manuscripts ever discovered. This tale of buried scholarly treasure weaves together unforgettable portraits of Solomon Schechter and the other heroes of this drama with explorations of the medieval documents themselves�??letters and poems, wills and marriage contracts, Bibles, money orders, fiery dissenting tracts, fashion-conscious trousseaux lists, prescriptions, petitions, and mysterious magical charms. Presenting a panoramic view of nine hundred years of vibrant Mediterranean Judaism, Hoffman and Cole bring modern readers into the heart of this little-known trove, whose contents have rightly been dubbed "the Living Sea Scrolls." Part biography and part meditation on the supreme value the Jewish people has long placed on the written word, Sacred Trash is above all a gripping tale of adventure and redemption.

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