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12* Yaacov Choueka

“joined” to this fragment, an activity which had to rely almost exclusively on
the expert’s memory, or, with some luck, on information randomly mentioned
in catalogs or research papers. Such information naturally accounted for a very
small percentage of the Genizah material.

C. The Friedberg Genizah Project

In order to further promote the study of the Cairo Genizah and rejuvenate
interest in this field of study, a vast international non-profit humanities
venture, the Friedberg Genizah Project, was established in 1999 by Dr.
Albert (Dov) Friedberg of Toronto, Canada. A number of Genizah research
teams were created, both outside Israel — such as in Cambridge, Princeton
and Manchester— and in Israel itself, at the Hebrew University, Tel Aviv
University, Ben Gurion University, the Ben-Zvi Institute, and more. The aim
of these research teams was to extensively study, identify, describe, catalog,
and transcribe as many as possible of the Genizah fragments, by looking
either at the original manuscripts — wherever they resided — or at their
microfilm substitutes, housed primarily in Jerusalem. Each team was focused
on a particular domain of Genizah material and was headed by a specialist
in that domain. Thus, teams were created for Judeo-Arabic Biblical exegesis,
for Talmudic commentaries, for philosophy and ethical works, for responsa
material, for documentary material, for magic and magic-related fragments, for
language-related material, etc. These efforts resulted in a flurry of Genizah-
related activities, such as the compilation of a large amount of data on the
fragments studied, the production of a large number of research publications
(papers and books), the publicationof a yearly scholarly journal devoted entirely
to Genizah research (Ginzei Qedem), special university courses and seminars,
many M.A. and Ph.D. theses, and the like.

About six years later, the stage was set for a new vision: that of implementing
advanced computer technologies in the world of Genizah research, not only
in order to make Genizah research more easy and efficient, but in order to