Marina Rustow, Professor of Near Eastern Studies and History at Princeton University, will give a lecture on November 21 on "Lost Archives, Sacrosanct Wastebins, and the Jewish Communities of the Medieval Islamicate World." The medieval Middle East, where the vast majority of medieval Jews lived, is widely presumed to have preserved few documentary texts. But tens of thousands of documents have survived for the period before ca. 1100, more than survived from Europe. The find spots range from Cairo to China. This illustrated lecture will take account of a flood of new information these various caches offer us about the Jewish communities of the Middle Ages, their surprisingly broad geographic remit and the impact of mobility and distance on communal life.
Photo © John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation- used with permission.
