I am a cultural and intellectual historian of medieval Jews in Muslim lands, with a strong focus on Qaraite Judaism. All my research is manuscript based. I hold a PhD in Hebrew Studies from Cambridge (2010), an MA in Jewish Studies (major), Islamic Studies (minor) and General Linguistics (minor) from the University of Cologne (2004) and a Diploma in Bio-physics from the Saratov State University, Russia (2000). In my PhD and early post-doctoral research, I studied Qaraite treatises on Biblical Hebrew grammar, focusing on the Qaraite approaches to Biblical Hebrew verbal morphology, and worked on the transmission of grammatical knowledge between the Muslim and the Jewish cultures. My more recent research has been on the history of the Jewish calendar, both Qaraite and Rabbanite, and the socio-historical implications of calendar diversity. In a separate project, I explored the possibility of using datable calendar fragments from the Cairo Genizah as points of comparison for handwriting analysis, a topic that bridged my interest in calendars and my fascination with Jewish manuscripts.
n.vidro@ucl.ac.uk https://ucl.academia.edu/NadiaVidro https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3668-100X
Areas of Interest
Qaraite Judaism, Jewish manuscripts, History of the Hebrew grammar, History of the Jewish calendar, Cairo Genizah
Historical Periods of Interest
10th through 15th centuries CE
Positions
September 2021
Senior Research Fellow, Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies, University College London
Research Project: Saadya Gaon’s works on the Jewish calendar: Near Eastern sources and transmission to the West, funded by Fritz Thyssen Foundation
2018 – 2021
Research Project: Qaraite and Rabbanite calendars: origins, interaction, and polemic, funded by Fritz Thyssen Foundation
2018 – 2021
Research Associate, Genizah Research Unit, Cambridge University Library
Research Project: Calendar fragments as a tool for palaeography, BA/Leverhulme Small Research Grant
2018
Research Associate, Genizah Lab, Princeton University
Research Project: Cataloguing documentary manuscripts from the Cairo Genizah
2013 – 2018
Research Associate, Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies, University College London
Research Project: Jewish calendar cycles in medieval manuscripts, as part of the ERC-funded project Calendars in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages: standardization and fixation
2011 – 2013
Research Associate, Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Cambridge
Research Project: A medieval Karaite pedagogical grammar of Biblical Hebrew: a critical edition and English translation of Kitāb al-ʿUqūd fī Taṣārīf al-Luġa al-ʿIbrāniyya
2011 – 2013
Research Associate, Genizah Research Unit, Cambridge University Library
Research Project: Cataloguing grammatical and scientific fragments in Hebrew and Judaeo-Arabic
2009 – 2010
Research Assistant in medieval Hebrew linguistic terminology (part-time), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris
Research Project: Premodern philosophic and scientific Hebrew terminology: studies on its emergence and development, and the creation of an Internet-based historical lexicon with the acronym PESHAT
Education
2006 – 2010
PhD in Hebrew Studies, Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Cambridge, St. Edmund’s College
Thesis title: Verbal morphology in the medieval Karaite treatise on Hebrew grammar Kitāb al-ʿUqūd fī Taṣārīf al-Luġa al-ʿIbrāniyya; Supervisor: Prof. Geoffrey Khan; passed without corrections
2004 – 2006
Maternity leave
2001 – 2004
MA in Jewish Studies (major), Islamic Studies (minor) and General Linguistics (minor), University of Cologne, Germany
Dissertation title: Diseases of the head in the medical encyclopaedia of Moses Narboni Oraḥ Ḥayyim [in German]; Supervisor: Prof. Gerrit Bos; grade: 1.5 (very good)
1999 – 2001
Degree course in Jewish Studies, Moscow State University, Russia (transferred to the University of Cologne, Germany)
1995 – 2000
Degree course in Bio–Physics (hons), Saratov State University, Russia
Awards and distinctions
2013
British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship (not taken up)
2013
The Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship matched by The Isaac Newton Trust Matching Funding Award (not taken up)
2011 – 2013
The Isaac Newton Trust Matching Funding Award
2009 – 2010
St. Edmund’s College (Cambridge) Emsley Prize for the highest mark or recommendation in History and/or subjects with a historical approach or content at a postgraduate level
2006 – 2009
Kapitza Cambridge Scholarship by the Cambridge Overseas Trust
2006 – 2007
Academic Jewish Studies in Europe Doctoral Award of the Hanadiv Charitable Foundation
Functions
2022
Member of the Executive Committee of the Society for Judaeo-Arabic Studies
2022
Member of the Editorial Board of Zuot: Perspectives on Jewish Culture
2021
Member of the Scientific Board of Israel Oriental Studies Annual
2019
Member of the Research Committee of the Hebrew and Jewish Studies Department, UCL
