Topic description and stories

Dr Federica Gigante examining the Verona astrolabe

Astrolabe reveals Islamic–Jewish scientific exchange

04 Mar 2024

The identification of an eleventh-century Islamic astrolabe bearing both Arabic and Hebrew inscriptions makes it one of the oldest examples ever...

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Discarded history: Cairo Genizah treasures

31 May 2022

How the discovery and study of ancient deeds, fables, letters, magical amulets, contracts and lists in a sacred storeroom created unparalleled...

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Saving Turkey's Children

12 Jun 2020

Exiled by Hitler, Albert Eckstein turned his medical expertise to saving Turkey's poorest children from the curse of infant mortality.

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Exhibition highlights the untold story of Nazi victims in the Channel Islands

19 Oct 2017

The untold stories of slave labourers, political prisoners and Jews who were persecuted during the German occupation of the Channel Islands during...

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Discarded History exhibition lifts the lid on 1,000 years of medieval history

27 Apr 2017

Treasures from the world’s largest and most important collection of medieval Jewish manuscripts – chronicling 1,000 years of history in Old Cairo –...

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Solomon Schechter at work in the old University Library

Solomon Schechter (1847-1915): a Jewish polymath with a gift for friendship

20 Nov 2015

The Jewish scholar Solomon Schechter is best remembered for his work on the Cairo Geniza. A conference this Sunday will explore the wider impact of a...

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Detail of the Byzantine Emprire from a 14th-century world atlas created by Abraham and Jehuda Cresques

Clickable history

09 May 2013

Geographic information systems – once limited to the domain of physical geographers – are emerging as a promising tool to study the past, as...

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Mrs Gibson on a camel in the Sinai, 1893.

Historic rivals join forces to save 1,000 years of Jewish history

15 Feb 2013

Cambridge University Library and the University of Oxford’s Bodleian Libraries have today announced their first ever joint fundraising campaign to...

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Genizah fragment

Ancient Bible fragments reveal a forgotten history

10 Jan 2011

New research has uncovered a forgotten chapter in the history of the Bible, offering a rare glimpse of Byzantine Jewish life and culture.

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Free TV Texture

Watching religiously

20 May 2010

A new survey of the boom in religious broadcasting in the Middle East reveals how the small screen is becoming an increasingly important battlefield...

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Genizah fragment

The Greek Bible of the Byzantine Jews

01 Sep 2009

Researchers at the Faculty of Divinity are using ancient manuscript fragments to re-evaluate a forgotten episode of biblical history.

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Ben Ezra Synagogue

Treasures of the genizah

01 Sep 2009

How did an Egyptian storeroom come to hold a thousand years worth of manuscript fragments and why are they one of the greatest literary treasures...

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