Sacred Trash The Lost and Found World of the Cairo Geniza

NATIONAL JEWISH BOOK AWARD FINALIST

WINNER OF THE 2012 AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION’S SOPHIE BRODY AWARD FOR OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN JEWISH LITERATURE

Sacred Trash tells the remarkable story of the Cairo Geniza—a synagogue repository for worn-out texts that turned out to contain the most vital cache of Jewish manuscripts ever discovered.

This tale of buried communal treasure weaves together unforgettable portraits of Solomon Schechter and the other modern heroes responsible for the collection’s rescue with explorations of the medieval documents themselves—letters and poems, wills and marriage contracts, Bibles, money orders, fiery dissenting religious tracts, fashion-conscious trousseaux lists, prescriptions, petitions, and mysterious magical charms. Presenting a pan­oramic view of almost a thousand years of vibrant Mediterranean Judaism, Adina Hoffman and Peter Cole bring contemporary readers into the heart of this little-known trove, whose contents have rightly been dubbed “the Living Sea Scrolls.” Part biography, part meditation on the supreme value the Jewish people has long placed in the written word, Sacred Trash is above all a gripping tale of adventure and redemption. 

(With black-and-white illustrations throughout.) 

ADINA HOFFMAN is the author of several books, including House of Windows: Portraits from a Jerusalem Neighborhood and Till We Have Built Jerusalem: Architects of a New City. She was named one of the inaugural (2013) winners of the Windham Campbell Literature Prize.

PETER COLE’s most recent book of poems is The Invention of Influence. His award-winning translations include The Poetry of Kabbalah: Mystical Verse from the Jewish Tradition. He was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2007.

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