One of the most frequently asked questions we get on the Scribes of the Cairo Geniza talk boards is learning more about the fragments and current research happening. Our priority is to share materials that are open-access to anyone. This list is not meant to be definitive, exhausting, or representative of all Geniza research! Feel free to email us at judaicadh@gmail.com with additional resources for this list.
Guides
- The Jewish Virtual Library provides an informative summary of the Cairo Geniza and survey of Geniza discoveries and research.
- WNET New York Public Media put together learning resources on the Cairo Geniza to…
In this series we honor the contributions made on the Zooniverse Talk boards for our project, Scribes of the Cairo Geniza. Talk is a way for citizen scientists on Zooniverse to converse with one another and experts on the different material they are working on, ask questions, and explore new insights. Each week we will feature a talk conversation that we love. Thanks for the participation #genizascribes!
Happy #DayOfDH2020! This annual event brings together digital humanists from around the world to document what they do on one day, what we’re working on, and the rhythm of our life during DH.
Last week, we shared some of our current and legacy projects from JudaicaDH at the Penn Libraries. This week, we want to share some great work happening in the #DHJewish field at large. First and foremost, h/t to Michelle Chesner for the #DHJewish hashtag! …
Thanks to a start-up gift from the Gershwind-Bennett Families, Judaica Digital Humanities at Penn Libraries launched in 2016 in order to support research and development in digital humanities to the field of Jewish studies. But we’ve been working on JudaicaDH-related projects for even longer. If you saw our announcement late last year, we’re moving towards a new phase of JudaicaDH. Let’s show you some of the projects in our history!
You probably know us for Scribes of the Cairo Geniza, a multilingual crowdsourcing project to classify & transcribe fragments of medieval and premodern manuscripts. In addition to the site, we…
By Emily Esten, Judaica Digital Humanities Coordinator
On Scribes of the Cairo Geniza, thousands of people around the world come together on the Zooniverse platform to assist professional researchers through the remarkable potential of crowdsourcing. Last week, project team members at Columbia University Libraries brought members of the crowd together in a special presentation led by Emily Esten and Michelle Chesner.
When the COVID-19 pandemic kept us from hosting in-person events, we combined our efforts for a global Geniza transcribe-a-thon via Zoom. Columbia University Libraries hosted a Scribes of the Cairo Geniza transcribe-a-thon on Tuesday, April 7. …
In this series, we take a deep dive into the Talk boards tags to look at how volunteers classify the fragments. You can read an overview of our Talk boards tags in the Sorting Phase Data review.
We’re bringing our #DataDeepDive series for a special Passover-themed look at Scribes of the Cairo Geniza. We’re explaining each tag’s meaning & providing examples within the collection.
Passover is one of the most widely celebrated Jewish holidays, commemorating the emancipation of the Israelites from slavery in ancient Egypt. The name comes from the Hebrew Pesach (“to pass over”), referring to when G-d passed…
Lots of people are turning to Zooniverse for a distraction while your lives are disrupted. We thank you for your help, and we’re trying a new approach to be more present online and engage with all of you during this time.
Special Event
Do you have questions about the Cairo Geniza fragments or our project? Want to learn more about manuscripts you’ve been classifying? Join us for a special Scribes of the Cairo Geniza project event! Penn Libraries and Columbia University Libraries invite you to help classify and transcribe this unique collection of historic materials. …
By Emily Esten, Judaica DH Coordinator, Penn Libraries
The following transcript and slides were part of a Twitter chat at National Council for Public History, March 2020.
Welcome to #DHJewish: Sharing Judaica with the Internet and Beyond! I’m going to talk for a bit about building digital projects for Jewish and non-Jewish audiences, and efforts to connect w/ offline community.
2. I’m Emily Esten, the @judaicadh coordinator at @upennlib. I manage the collaboration between digital scholarship & special collections depts. to integrate digital technologies into the ways we study Jewish history. #NCPH2020 #s36 https://judaicadh.github.io/
3. Part of my efforts…
By Emily Esten, Judaica DH Coordinator at Penn Libraries
Who are the #GenizaScribes, the thousands of volunteers who participate in Scribes of the Cairo Geniza? As we move forward with our project, we decided to ask the #GenizaScribes community questions to learn how we can best support and grow our volunteer base.
Our goals were to:
- Identify the current demographic of #GenizaScribes
- Understand participant motivation in the project
- Receive feedback about the project
The survey was open from Tuesday, December 12, 2019 through Monday, January 13, 2020, and available only through direct email via Zooniverse. Thus, only volunteers who had registered with Zooniverse, participated in the project at least…
By Emily Esten, Judaica Digital Humanities Coordinator
On Scribes of the Cairo Geniza, thousands of people around the world come together on the Zooniverse platform to assist professional researchers through the remarkable potential of crowdsourcing. This week, project team members at Princeton University brought members of the crowd together in-person.
The Princeton Geniza lab hosted a Scribes of the Cairo Geniza transcribe-a-thon on Tuesday, November 12. Encouraging volunteers to become long-term citizen historians is one of our key project goals. But our larger mission — recovering unknown chapters of the history and culture of medieval Jews, Muslims, and others in…
Judaica DH at the Penn Libraries
We are the Judaica #DH at the Penn Libraries. Follow us for news and updates on our projects. #judaicadh
