For a millennium the Jewish community of Old Cairo placed their old books and other writings, from marriage contracts and love letters, to children’s drawings and even drafts from the hands of Maimonides, in a genizah, or storeroom, of the Ben Ezra Synagogue. In 1896 Dr Solomon Schechter, a Talmudic scholar, was granted permission by the Jewish community of Egypt to take all he liked to Cambridge. He ‘liked it all’ and took 193,000 manuscripts. This treasure trove from Cairo has had a seismic impact on our understanding of Jewish history. Ben Outhwaite, head of the Cambridge University Library Genizah Research Unit joins film-maker Michelle Paymar – whose breath-taking film From Cairo to the Cloud tells the story of how the content of the Genizah, dispersed around the globe, has become accessible to all – in examining the legacy of this extraordinary discovery.

An event from Jewish Book Week 2020.