"Judaism has never been solely a religion to me. It’s a people, a culture, and a religion, kind of like a state of being. It helps me locate myself in the world."
Circle Book Group: _Sacred Trash: The Lost and Found World of the Cairo Geniza_ by Adina Hoffman and Peter Cole
At this meeting of the Circle Book Group, we'll discuss Sacred Trash: The Lost and Found World of the Cairo Geniza by Adina Hoffman and Peter Cole. We'll be at the home of Marie Ariel, near Inman Sq. in Cambridge. Bagels, coffee & socializing at 10:15. Note that there's one cat who is out of the way during the meeting.
About this month's read:
This National Jewish Book Award Finalist describes how, “one May day in 1896, at a dining-room table in Cambridge, England, a meeting took place between a Romanian-born maverick Jewish intellectual and twin learned Presbyterian Scotswomen, who had assembled to inspect several pieces of rag paper and parchment. It was the unlikely start to what would prove a remarkable, continent-hopping, century-crossing saga … Cole and Hoffman tell the story of the retrieval from an Egyptian geniza, or repository for worn-out texts, of the most vital cache of Jewish manuscripts ever discovered .... Presenting a panoramic view of nine hundred years of vibrant Mediterranean Judaism, they bring modern readers into the heart of this little-known trove, whose contents have rightly been dubbed ‘the Living Sea Scrolls.’ Part biography and part meditation on the supreme value the Jewish people has long placed on the written word, Sacred Trash is above all a gripping tale of adventure and redemption. (description by Sydetica/Bowker)
