18 Matching Annotations
  1. Jan 2023
    1. 2. Attal, Robert. A Bibliography of the writings of Prof. Shelomo Dov Goitein, Ben Zvi Institute Jerusalem 2000, an expanded edition containing 737 titles, as well as general Index and Index of Reviews.

      Robert Attal's revised bibliography (2000) of Goitein's output lists 737 titles.

    1. Shlomo Dov (Fritz) Goitein Archive | Language: Hebrew, English, German, Size: LargeShlomo Dov (Fritz) Goitein (1900-1985), educator, linguist, orientalist and scholar of Geniza.

      https://www.nli.org.il/en/discover/archives/archives-list

      Archive listing for Goitein's papers at NLI.

    1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIfH-iSGa5M

      2021-05-12

      Dr. Hanan Harif started out as a Geniza scholar but is now a biographer of Shlomo Dov Goitein.

      In the 1920s Goitein published his only play Pulcellina about a Jewish woman who was burned at the stake in France in 1171.

      Had a friendship with Levi Billig (1897-1936)

      You know very well the verse on Tabari that says: 'You wrote history with such zeal that you have become history yourself.' Although in your modesty you would deny it, we suggest that his couplet applies to yourself as well." —Norman Stillman to S.D. Goitein in letter dated 1977-07-20

      Norman Stillman was a student of Goitein.


      What has Hanan Harif written on Goitein? Any material on his Geniza research and his note cards? He addressed some note card material in the Q&A, but nothing direct or specific.

      Goitein's Mediterranean Society project was from 1967-1988 with the last volume published three years after his death. The entirety of the project was undertaken at University of Pennsylvania.

      The India Book, India Traders was published in 2007 (posthumously) as a collaboration with M.A. Friedman.

      Goitein wrote My Life as a Scholar in 1970, which may have some methodological clues about his work and his card index.

      He also left his diaries to the National Library of Israel as well and these may also have some clues.

      His bibliography is somewhere around 800 publications according to Harif, including his magnum opus.

      Harif shows a small card index at 1:15:20 of one of Goitein's collaborators (and later rival) Professor Eliasto (unsure of this name, can't find direct reference?). Harif indicates that the boxes are in the archives where he's at (https://www.nli.org.il/en/discover/archives/archives-list ? though I don't see a reasonable name/materials there, so perhaps it's at his home at Rothberg International School of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem).

    1. Goitein referred to these materials, together with his photocopies of geniza fragments, as his “Geniza Lab.” He had adopted the “lab” concept from Fernand Braudel (1902–85), the great French historian of the Mediterranean, who ran a center in Paris that he and others referred to as a laboratoire de recherches historiques. Between 1954 and 1964, Braudel’s “lab” funded Goitein’s research on the Mediterranean.1
    1. Zinger, Oded. “Finding a Fragment in a Pile of Geniza: A Practical Guide to Collections, Editions, and Resources.” Jewish History 32, no. 2 (December 1, 2019): 279–309. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10835-019-09314-6.

      Read on 2023-01-09

      An overview of sources and repositories for fragments from the Cairo Geniza with useful bibliographies for the start of Geniza studies. Of particular interest to me here is the general work of Shelomo Dov Goitein and his 27,000+ card zettelkasten containing his research work on it. There's some great basic description of his collection in general as well as some small specifics on what it entails and some reasonable guide as to how to search it and digital versions at the Princeton Geniza Lab.

    2. Since many Geniza studies begin their research with Goitein, the same documents are ex-amined repeatedly (occasionally even receiving several editions), but others that Goitein hadnot cited remain ignored.

      Initial Herculean efforts by a particular scholar in an area can overshadow the study of corpora thereafter. As a result, it can be fruitful to examine the holes they left behind.

    3. The first place to start any search for Geniza documents is A Mediter-ranean Society by S. D. Goitein.
    4. As Goitein is reported to have said: “A good editionis the highest form of interpretation.”
  2. Dec 2022
    1. https://www.google.com/books/edition/India_Traders_of_the_Middle_Ages/WMj5aFA3bjQC?hl=en

      I've seen a few references to Goitein's "India book". This seems to be the referent, which somehow never seems to be called by title, even in contexts of academics who love citations. Is it shorthand? Was the book published posthumously? (2008, so yes)

      Wikipedia calls it out as such as well...

      India Traders of the Middle Ages: Documents From the Cairo Geniza (ISBN 9789004154728), 2008 (also known as "India Book")

    1. Goitein accumulated more than 27,000 index cards in his research work over the span of 35 years. (Approximately 2.1 cards per day.)

      His collection can broadly be broken up into two broad categories: 1. Approximately 20,000 cards are notes covering individual topics generally making of the form of a commonplace book using index cards rather than books or notebooks. 2. Over 7,000 cards which contain descriptions of a single fragment from the Cairo Geniza.

      A large number of cards in the commonplace book section were used in the production of his magnum opus, a six volume series about aspects of Jewish life in the Middle Ages, which were published as A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza (1967–1993).

    2. https://genizalab.princeton.edu/resources/goiteins-index-cards

      <small><cite class='h-cite via'> <span class='p-author h-card'>u/Didactico</span> in Goitein's Index Cards : antinet (<time class='dt-published'>12/15/2022 23:12:33</time>)</cite></small>