CAN THE CAIRO GENIZA be a bridge between Jews and Muslims?

Princeton University professor has high hopes for a mutual academic interest. (The Princeton Packet)

For hundreds of years, the Jews of Cairo deposited documents and fragments of paper that bear the name of God in a chamber behind a wall on the second floor mezzanine of the Ben Ezra Synagogue.
The documents, both important and mundane, offer an intimate look at everyday medieval Jewish and Muslim life. Written in Hebrew script, but in the Arabic language, some of the Geniza commercial letters offer insights into the earliest trade between the Mediterranean and India.
Princeton University Professor Mark R. Cohen believes that depository, known as the Cairo Geniza, may one day bring Jewish and Muslim scholars together.
"One of my dreams is that the Geniza will be a bridge between Jewish Israeli scholars on one hand and Arab Muslim scholars on the other," said Professor Cohen, who divides his time between the Department of Near East Studies and the Program in Judaic Studies.
Professor Cohen, a specialist in medieval Jewish history, is director of the Princeton Geniza Project, which, since the late 1980s, has been making the documents of everyday life accessible to scholars online.
"It's not going to bring peace," Professor Cohen said. He hopes that one day Jewish and Muslim scholars will meet in a neutral space where the issue of a Palestinian state doesn't play a role.
"It holds interest not only for Jewish scholars, but for Muslim scholars" because it sheds light on the Arab Muslim majority of Cairo, he said.

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For more on the Cairo Geniza go here.