Fire and the Cross

A Historical Reading of the Anti-Christian Polemic in Two Jewish Arabic Poems from the Cairo Genizah

Abstract

This article explores two fragments of medieval Arabic poetry, written in Hebrew characters, from the Cairo Genizah, one with a lament for the loss of Jerusalem and the other a promise of redemption, return and revenge. Within both poems are explicit polemics against Christians, as usurpers and conquerors, suggesting a background in the era following the arrival of the Crusaders in the eastern Mediterranean (twelfth to thirteenth century), when the Jewish communities there began to see Christians as a direct threat to life and freedom rather than as a more remote intellectual or religio-cultural challenge. Hitherto unknown poems such as these help us to recreate some of the cultural history of the Jewish communities of the medieval Mediterranean and Middle East and allow us a glimpse into their Weltanschauung. The huge collection of manuscript fragments in the Cairo Genizah has assisted scholars in revealing hidden aspects of not just Jewish culture and history but also the history of the Mediterranean and Muslim world during the pre-modern era.