ABSTRACT:
They are voices that have been silent for centuries: those of captives and refugees, widows and orphans, the blind and infirm, and the underclass of the "working poor." The voices of the Jewish poor in the Middle Ages come to life in this book by Cohen, an authority on the Cairo Geniza and the history of the Jews in the medieval Islamic world. The book presents more than ninety letters, alms lists, donor lists, and other related documents from the Geniza, a hidden chamber for discarded papers, situated inside a wall in a Cairo synagogue. Cohen has translated these documents, providing the historical context for each.
