Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Nice book in great condition. Pages in excellent condition. Plates bright and vivid. Hardcover. English. See images for condition.

About the book >.>.> The Ben Ezra Synagogue Cairo is probably best known in the West as the syna gogue in which the ‘Cairo Geniza’ was found an astonishingly rich store of ancient books manuscripts miscellaneous correspondence business records and other scraps dating back to the tenth century. The book describes the recent restoration of this ancient synagogue which was built within the walls of the Roman Fortress of Babylon as well as the historical and archaeological research essential to its preser- vation and to an understanding of the interrelationship of the religious communities which founded modern Cairo. The work is unprecedented in its comprehensive examination of the subject. It presents the first measured survey and photographic study of the fortress and the synagogue and the first thorough study of the Geniza manuscripts referring to the history of the medieval synagogue and its community. It also traces the history of the synagogue after the Geniza period from the fifteenth century to the present. The only other publication to show a groundplan of the fortress dates from 1884 while until now historical research on the synagogue has been scattered in scholarly publications and knowledge of the building has remained local. The text edited by Phyllis Lambert has been written by an international team of experts whom she assembled and directed: archaeologists Charles Le Quesne and Peter Sheehan architectural conservator John Stewart architect Johan Bellaert. and historians Professor Menahem Ben-Sasson and Professor Joseph Hacker. The book is also copiously illustrated with plans engravings and photographs while a specially commissioned portfolio of colour photographs by Richard Pare shows the synagogue today and its environment in Old Cairo. With a foreword by the Arabist/ Islamicist Professor William M. Brinner and an introduction by Phyllis Lambert Di- rector of the Ben Ezra Synagogue Project the volume as a whole reveals significant aspects of the cultural and religious history of Egypt and the interaction of religious minorities within the dominant culture of Islam laying the foundations for an inter- faith centre in Old Cairo envisaged by President Anwar Sadat of Egypt following the historic Camp David Accord of 1979. (MP)