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E-book
Author Cohen, Mark R., 1943-

Title Poverty and charity in the Jewish community of medieval Egypt / Mark R. Cohen
Published Princeton : Princeton University Press, ©2005

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Description 1 online resource (xi, 287 pages) : illustrations
Series Jews, Christians, and Muslims from the ancient to the modern world
Jews, Christians, and Muslims from the ancient to the modern world.
Contents Acknowledgments; Note; Introduction; Chapter One: A Taxonomy of the Poor; Chapter Two: The Foreign Poor; Chapter Three: Captives, Refugees, and Proselytes; Chapter Four: Debt and the Poll Tax; Chapter Five: Women and Poverty; Chapter Six: "Naked and Starving," the Sick and Disabled; Chapter Seven: Beggars or Petitioners?; Chapter Eight: Charity; Chapter Nine: Conclusion: Poverty and Charity, Continuity and Acculturation; Bibliography; Index of Geniza Texts; General Index
Summary What was it like to be poor in the Middle Ages? In the past, the answer to this question came only from institutions and individuals who gave relief to the less fortunate. This book, by one of the top scholars in the field, is the first comprehensive book to study poverty in a premodern Jewish community--from the viewpoint of both the poor and those who provided for them. Mark Cohen mines the richest body of documents available on the matter: the papers of the Cairo Geniza. These documents, located in the Geniza, a hidden chamber for discarded papers situated in a medieval synagogue in Old Cai
Notes Complemented by the author's collection of primary sources in translation, The voice of the poor in the Middle Ages: an anthology of documents from the Cairo Geniza, on which the research is based
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 253-269) and indexes
Notes Print version record
Subject Jews -- Egypt -- Charities -- History
Poverty -- Religious aspects -- Judaism.
Judaism -- Charities -- History
Jews -- Egypt -- Social conditions
Poor -- Egypt -- History
Judaism -- Relations -- Islam.
Islam -- Relations -- Judaism.
Cairo Genizah.
SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Poverty & Homelessness.
HISTORY -- Medieval.
Cairo Genizah
Interfaith relations
Islam
Jews -- Charities
Jews -- Social conditions
Judaism
Poor
Poverty -- Religious aspects -- Judaism
Armoede.
Joden.
Liefdadigheid.
Egypt
Genre/Form History
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9781400826780
1400826780
OTHER TI Voice of the poor in the Middle Ages