Acknowledgments ix Note xiii Introduction 1 Chapter One: A Taxonomy of the Poor 33 Chapter Two: The Foreign Poor 72 Chapter Three: Captives, Refugees, and Proselytes 109 Chapter Four: Debt and the Poll Tax 130 Chapter Five: Women and Poverty 139 Chapter Six: "Naked and Starving," the Sick and Disabled 156 Chapter Seven: Beggars or Petitioners? 174 Chapter Eight: Charity 189 Chapter Nine: Conclusion: Poverty and Charity, Continuity and Acculturation 243 Bibliography 253 Index of Geniza Texts 271 General Index 278
Cohen has made the first comprehensive book-length attempt to study the subject of poverty in a premodern Jewish community. This book is an important contribution. -- Miriam Hoexter, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Cohen's book constitutes a significant contribution both to the study of the Jewish world of medieval Egypt and to the study of poverty and charity in medieval society generally. -- Amy Singer, Tel Aviv University
Mark R. Cohen is Professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University and a well-known authority on the Cairo Geniza and the history of the Jews in the medieval Islamic world. His publications include more than 80 articles and reviews and several books, among them: "Jewish Self-Government in Medieval Egypt" (Princeton), which won the National Jewish Book Award for Jewish history in 1981; "Jewish Life in Medieval Egypt 641-1382", translated into Arabic, 1987; "The Autobiography of a Seventeenth-Century Venetian Rabbi: Leon Modena's Life of Judah", (Princeton); and, most recently, "Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages", (Princeton), which has been translated into Hebrew, Turkish, and German.
Mark R. Cohen, Winner of the 2010 Goldziher Prize, The Center for the Study of Jewish-Christian-Muslim Relations at Merrimack College Runner-Up for the 2005 National Jewish Book Award in History, Jewish Book Council "This book will undoubtedly be required reading for anyone interested in the study of poverty and charity, both in medieval Islam and in the Jewish tradition. Because its source material is so exceptionally rich, it can be argued that it is also an important contribution to the understanding of non-European premodern charitable institutions. The lucid presentation of the material, especially the translated documents in the companion volume, make this work very useful for undergraduate and graduate students."--Yossef Rapoport, International Journal of Middle East Studies
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