Books within Books

Books within Books presents some recent findings and research projects on the fragments of medieval Hebrew manuscripts discovered in the bindings of other manuscripts and early printed books across Europe. This is the second collection of interdisciplinary articles on Hebrew binding fragments presenting current scholarship and its international scope.

From the contemporary perspective, the fragments of medieval Hebrew manuscripts preserved until today, through their numbers (estimated 30,000 fragments, so more than double of the number of the known Hebrew volumes produced in medieval Europe ), the texts they carry (some of them have been previously unknown), the insights into book making techniques and finally their economic impact, are an unprecedented source for our knowledge of the Hebrew book culture and literacy as well as the economic and intellectual exchanges between the Jewish minority and their non-Jewish neighbours.

Andreas Lehnardt, PhD (1999), is Professor of Jewish Studies at Mainz University. He is the Head of a project on Hebrew binding fragments in Germany. He is the editor of 'Genizat Germania'. Hebrew and Aramaic Binding Fragments from Germany in Context (Brill, 2010).
Judith Olszowy-Schlanger, PhD (1995), is Professor of Hebrew Manuscript Studies at the Section des Sciences historiques et philologiques (Historical and Philological Sciences), École Pratique des Hautes Études, Sorbonne. She is the author of Karaite Marriage Contracts from the Cairo Geniza. Legal Tradition and Community Life in Mediaeval Egypt and Palestine (Brill 1997).