More Maimonides in Manhattan museum
Last November, we reported in these pages about an astonishing discovery by researchers of the Cairo Geniza, that miraculous repository of generations of writings from medieval Egypt.
José Martínez Delgado of the University of Granada had realized that a page from the Geniza, listing 91 words and phrases in Arabic — half of them with translations into early Spanish (though in Hebrew letters, as was the practice of that era’s Jews) — was in the handwriting of the most famous denizen of medieval Cairo, Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, aka Maimonides.
And in May, Joanne Palmer devoted this paper’s cover story to the Yeshiva University Museum exhibit, “The Golden Path: Maimonides Across Eight Centuries.”
Well, we’re pleased to report that the still-running exhibit has received a minor update of three new Maimonidean manuscripts, including the word list.
So if you want to see Maimonides’ own Spanish notes for yourself, now is your chance. But you better go quickly — the exhibit is scheduled to end on December 31.
comments