Exploring Jewish Cultural Heritage in the Near East
1. Almost a year after the fall of Bashar al-Assad, I returned to my hometown of Damascus. I walked through the Jewish Quarter and Bāb Tūmā – places in Old Damascus that had shaped my childhood and early adult years. I came … Continued
1. After having been long marginalised and largely neglected, the study of Samaritan Arabic literature and manuscripts has witnessed steady growth over the past few decades. A major factor contributing to this renewed momentum has been improved access to significant … Continued
1. Sulochana – the one with beautiful eyes – was Indian cinema’s first female superstar. She rose to prominence in the 1920s, acting in a variety of roles: from telephone operator to popular sex symbol, Wild Cat of Bombay, becoming … Continued
1. It is not uncommon for Qaraite studies to suffer from the unavailability of literary sources. This can be caused by the date of the works or their geographical origin, as well as the necessity of relying on an often … Continued
1. ‘Lūlū al-ʿAṭār and Nīnā Zlayṭa are Jews, our neighbor Līzayt Lāṭī is also a Jew, the lady here is a Muslim, and I am a Christian – we all live here happily together’. With these concise words, the Damascene … Continued
1. In the 1850s, Leipzig attained a prominent position in the field of Qaraite studies due to its unique collection of this literature in Europe – manuscripts that were acquired by Constantin von Tischendorf (1815–1874). During this period, the only … Continued
1. Among the rich manuscript treasures kept at the British Library, we find more than one hundred Christian Arabic Bible translations and Bible commentaries. So far, information about them has been dispersed in a dozen manuscript catalogues. This dispersion of … Continued
1. The Masoretic Text of the Hebrew Bible contains words and phrases that are written in one way (called the ketiv) but recited in a different way (called the qere). In Bible codices such differences between the ketiv and qere … Continued
1. In recent years, booklists and other documentary sources that shed light on various facets of book cultures in West Asia and North Africa before the advent of printing have attracted increasing scholarly interest. This blog post delves into one … Continued
1. Anyone who works on Arabic translations of the Bible, especially Christian translations, knows the name Georg Graf (1875–1955) very well. With the first volume of his Geschichte der christlichen arabischen Literatur, he has created a reference work that is … Continued
