Review
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WINNER OF THE 2012 AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION'S SOPHIE
BRODY AWARD FOR OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT IN JEWISH LITERATURE
“Beautifully written, learned and lucid, Sacred T is a
treasure that should not be hidden . . . Exquisitely realized.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
“A literary jewel whose pages turn like those of a well-paced
thriller, but with all the chiseled elegance and flashes of
linguistic surprise that we associate with poetry . . . Sacred
T has made history beautiful and exciting.”
—The Nation
“Hoffman and Cole unfold this saga with dramatic flair, peppering
their narrative with the Geniza’s own distinct voices, from the
ancient and medieval to the modern and contemporary. Skillfully
they embed the drama contained within the old texts with the
contemporary dramas of the people handling the texts . . . It is
a testament to [them] that they have ed out these ghosts,
and patiently constructed a vivid, human saga every bit as
extraordinary as a miracle.”
—Haaretz (Israel)
“Both lively and elevating . . . An extended act of celebration
of Cairo’s historical Jewish community, their documents, and
their documents’ 20th-century students . . . wonderfully revived
by Hoffman and Cole.”
—Anthony Julius, The New York Times Book Review
“A multi-layered work that provokes admiration and excites the
imagination on many levels.”
—Moment
“Hoffman and Cole’s vivid portrayal of the discovery of the
ancient Cairo Geniza . . . is equal parts treasure hunt for the
sacred and historical, and Herculean rescue of important texts .
. . Sacred T is a wonderfully accessible and exciting account
of ‘numerous heroes, medieval and modern’ and their discoveries
of artifacts that have transformed our understanding of the
interplay between history and religion.”
—The Boston Globe
“The real behind-the-scenes story of the Cairo Geniza and the
Western scholars who retrieved and studied it is . . . also a
very human story, as Adina Hoffman and Peter Cole show in their
charming and unobtrusively erudite new book.”
—The Jewish Review of Books
“A wonderfully passionate and lively account of a civilization we
could not have imagined existed and of the men and women whose
enthusiasm and dedication brought it to light.”
—Gabriel Josipovici, The Wall Street Journal
"Absorbing . . . Hoffman and Cole are adroit in their exegesis .
. . [Sacred T is] an accessible, neatly narrated story of
hallowed detritus and the resurrection of nearly 1,000 years of
culture and learning."
—Kirkus Reviews
“What a delight to have the story of the Cairo Geniza, its
romantic recovery and spectacular contents, told here by two such
brilliant wordsmiths as Adina Hoffman and Peter Cole. This book
takes readers to the very navel of the medieval world, east and
west, Arab and Jew, shattering many preconceptions along the
way.”
—Janet Soskice, author of Sisters of Sinai
“Hoffman and Cole spin an extraordinary tale of intellectual
adventure and lasting scholarly accomplishment. The men and women
who brought the Cairo Geniza to light are presented here in
painstaking detail, their quirks and their brilliance exposed in
equal measure. Carefully researched and beautifully written.”
—James Kugel, author of How to Read the Bible
“Sacred T is a jewel of a book: a lively and deeply informed
account of the Cairo Geniza, a magnificent Egyptian
treasure-house of Jewish religion, literature, and history that
was forgotten for centuries, and of the extraordinary crew of
scholars and impresarios who saved the documents, fitted the
scraps back together, and made them speak and sing.”
—Anthony Grafton, Princeton University
One hundred and twenty years ago, time travel was all at once
realized: With the discovery of the Cairo Geniza, medieval Jewish
life in all its sacred and mundane efflorescence came tumbling
out in thousands of manuscript fragments, each one a distinct and
living voice of an ancestral civilization. No longer can we speak
of the seven wonders of the world—in this astounding and acutely
relevant tale, Adina Hoffman and Peter Cole have uncovered a
remarkable eighth; and in its connection to our own humanity, it
surpasses all the rest.”
—Cynthia Ozick
“Sacred T is a small masterpiece. The romance of Hebrew
scholarship has never been so vividly conveyed. This book is
extraordinary in characterization, thought, and prose style. It
will teach common readers, Jewish and gentile, how much spiritual
tradition owes to the greatest scholars. This teaching comes
through delight.”
—Harold Bloom
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About the Author
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ADINA HOFFMAN is the author of several books, including House of
Windows: Portraits from a Jerusalem Neighborhood and Till We Have
Built Jerusalem: Architects of a New City. She was named one of
the inaugural (2013) winners of the Windham Campbell Literature
Prize.
PETER COLE’s most recent book of poems is The Invention of
Influence. His award-winning translations include The Poetry of
Kabbalah: Mystical Verse from the Jewish Tradition. He was named
a MacArthur Fellow in 2007.
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