For the past 130 years, the Cairo Geniza has been reconfiguring the history of rabbinic Judaism by allowing glimpses into the inner working of Jewish communities around the Mediterranean basin in the tenth–thirteenth centuries. But the Geniza also preserved letters and legal documents related to Jews involved in the Indian Ocean trade in the same period. Together with archeological and other discoveries of the past generation or two, these documents suggest a burgeoning Jewish world east of the Tigris. This lecture will attempt to draw out some of the implications of the Indian Ocean trade for the history of medieval Judaism.

Marina Rustow is Khedouri A. Zilkha Professor of Jewish Civilization in the Near East; Professor of Near Eastern Studies and History; Director, Program in Near Eastern Studies

Presented in partnership with Barnard College’s Department of Religion.

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