WOW Speaker Exchange with Rabbi Mark Glickman

As part of the Calgary Interfaith Council’s Weekend of Welcome speaker exchange, we are
delighted to have Rabbi Mark Glickman with us on Wednesday, December 3 rd at 7 pm.

In 1896, Rabbi Solomon Schechter of Cambridge University stepped into the attic of the Ben Ezra
Synagogue in Cairo, Egypt, and there found the largest treasure trove of medieval and early
manuscripts ever discovered. He had entered the synagogue’s genizah—its repository for
damaged and destroyed Jewish texts—which held nearly 300,000 individual documents, many
of which were over 1,000 years old. Why was this enormous collection amassed, how was it
discovered and what are the many lessons to be found in its contents? Schechter’s find, though
still being “unpacked” today, forever transformed our knowledge of the Jewish past, Muslim
history and much more. Rabbi Glickman’s talk will tell the story of this astounding discovery.
 
Rabbi Mark Glickman is the spiritual leader of Temple B’nai Tikvah, in Calgary. He is the author
of Sacred Treasure: The Cairo Genizah (Jewish Lights Publishing, 2011), and Stolen Words: The
Nazi Plunder of Jewish Books (Jewish Publication Society, 2016). He is currently working on a
book entitled Looking to the Sun and the Moon: The Story of the Jewish Calendar.