From Cairo to the Cloud: The World of the Cairo Geniza

In 1896, the Romanian-born Cambridge University professor Solomon Schechter came upon an extraordinary discovery: a vast storage room (geniza) containing sacred ancient religious texts, manuscripts, and letters within a rundown Cairo synagogue. Filmmaker Michelle Paymar’s documentary details how Schechter located this amazing treasure trove, which included many original documents handwritten by the influential physician and philosopher Moses Maimonides, as well as more commonplace correspondence and lists that detailed the ebb and flow of life in medieval Egypt during a period when Jewish, Muslim, and Christian communities existed in peaceful cooperation. While many of the documents were intact, countless others existed in fragmentary states and required endless hours to piece together and decipher (written in Arabic, Greek, and other languages using Hebrew letters). The film also chronicles ongoing efforts to digitize the documents found in Cairo and make them available to scholars studying the history of Egypt’s Jewish community. While the subject matter is scholarly, Paymar presents this material in a user-friendly manner that places old Cairo, Schechter’s 19th-century academic world, and contemporary historical research into fascinating context. Highly recommended. Aud: C, P. (P. Hall)