The Hebrew manuscript from "the new find" in the monastery of St. Catherine: a Jewish Machzor

Abstract

As a library of manuscripts from the ancient Middle East, the Monastery of St. Catherine in Sinai is second to none except that of the Vatican. In 1975, a new find of manuscripts was made in the monastery, including one Hebrew paper codex. In 1996 I visited the monastery for an examination of the manuscript, which turned out to be a Jewish Machzor. The script type is Sephardic and the watermarks indicate a date in the 16th century. The size of the codex is 157 x 110 mm and its 144 folios contain 279 pages with Hebrew or Aramaic texts. The codex contains a Jewish liturgy to Rosh Hashana and Jom Kippur together with 104 piyyutim, inserted in extensor. 21 of these are written by Moshe ibn Esra from Granada, and at least one of the piyyutim – “God, save me by thy name” – is previously unknown.

Keywords

• Middle East
• Maḥzor
• Ibn Ezra, Moses, 1060?-1139?
• Saint Catherine Monastery (Mount Sinai)
• Monasteries -- Egypt
• Manuscripts, Hebrew