R. Gergely (ed.): Microcard catalogue of the rare hebrew codices, manuscripts and anciens prints in the Kaufmann Collection reproduced on microcards
Prof. Ignácz Goldziher's lecture
such consultations, and are ranked among the most considerable collections of this kind. They are mostly unedited, inasmuch as Kaufmann himself did not elaborate some of them in his various historical papers. With great diligence Dr. M. Weisz detailed the contents of the several digest volumes, which alone amount to 52 pages (pp. 31—79 and 179—182) in his catalogue ; part of the responsa still awaits classification. II. DOCUMENTS AND FRAGMENTS. I refer to the documents and fragments, partly in Arabic, partly in Hebrew, acquired from the Egyptian Genizahs as forming a separate class of the manuscripts. 7a It includes two sorts of literary documents : first, letters, familiar, business, and official documents, from the 13th and 14th centuries; second, a large number of fragments from all sorts of books (Nrs. 592—594). East summer I thoroughly scrutinized the Arabic part of this collection; for the most part, I also classified it. I dare say that the contents of the documents captivated my attention to quite an extraordinary extent. Eet alone the about eighty letters and lists — and still further documents of this class have turned up since the compilation of the catalogue — bearing evidence in an informal manner of all sorts of conditions of life, the documents are, in addition to their topical interest, extremely important materials for the knowledge of the standard language and the epistolary technique of those days of old. Their importance is attested by the circumstance that space is willingly given to the elaboration of documents of this sort included in the collection of the Rainer-papyri of the Court Library of Vienna in the distinguished scientific publication entitled Mittheilungen aus der Sammlung der Papyrus Erzherzog Rainer. I hope we shall henceforth meet with the decipherment and study of the documents possessed by its library in the publications of our Academy also. As I mentioned, there belong to this part of the collection many, about 130, fragments of various extent from various branches of Hebrew and Hebrew-Arabic literature. The mere mention of this 7a [Details about the section of Genizahs in the Kaufmann Library, see Löwinger —Hahn —Scheiber, Actes du XX le Congrés International des Orientalistes . Paris 1949. pp. 119—123; cf. also A. Scheiber, Acta Orientalia. HI. 1953. pp. 107—133; IV. 1954. pp. 271—296 ; V. 1955. pp. 231—247; VII. 1957. pp. 27—63.] 17
