Name: Using AI to cast a fresh eye on an ancient Jewish archive
Uploaded: 2025-11-26T08:21:44.368Z
Duration: 1 min 57 s
Description: Researchers are training an artificial intelligence model to read and transcribe a massive repository of medieval Jewish texts known as the Cairo Geniza, hoping for a deeper understanding of a vanished world.

Researchers are training an artificial intelligence model to read and transcribe a massive repository of medieval Jewish texts known as the Cairo Geniza, hoping for a deeper understanding of a vanished world.

Jerusalem

Researchers in Jerusalem are employing artificial intelligence to analyze the Cairo Geniza, a vast archive of over 400,000 medieval Jewish documents. Although the entire collection has been digitized, only a small portion has been transcribed into readable text. The AI system is being trained to read and cross-reference manuscripts written in multiple languages, helping to piece together fragmented texts and reconstruct historical records. 

The Cairo Geniza, preserved in the Ben Ezra synagogue, contains liturgical, civic, and personal documents from the city's medieval Jewish community. Project leaders hope that AI-driven analysis will accelerate research and provide new insights into the daily life and culture of this once-thriving community.

Using AI to cast a fresh eye on an ancient Jewish archive

Researchers are using artificial intelligence to delve into the world's largest collection of medieval Jewish documents. The trove of over 400,000 texts is known as the Cairo Geniza. Discovered over 100 years ago, historians have spent countless hours studying these pages, but say only a fraction have been properly researched. They are now training an artificial intelligence model to read the manuscripts, hoping to cast a modern eye on this ancient archive. We have scripts from many different hundreds of years, many different regions, many different languages. Daniel Stöckel Ben Ezra is the lead researcher in the effort to transcribe the contents of the Geniza. There was always a huge challenge for automatic systems because these items can surprise you all the time. They're damaged. You can see all the holes inside here. You have this item here, the Yiddish letter, where suddenly the writing direction changes and it's written on the top. The entire Geniza has been digitized and is available online as images. However, only around a tenth had been transcribed into readable text. The AI system enables researchers to cross-reference names or words across thousands of documents and piece together fragments into complete manuscripts written in Hebrew, Arabic, Aramaic and Yiddish. We thought when we started two years ago that maybe in two years or something like that, maybe in 2027, we would be able to do it, but we already were surprised by the advances. A Geniza is a repository for texts, including sacred documents meant for ritual burial. The ancient Ben Ezra synagogue in Cairo, with its dry climate, preserved a library of liturgy, civic records and personal correspondence from that city's once thriving medieval Jewish community. Ben Ezra said he hopes their efforts will illuminate that vibrant lost world. The possibility to reconstruct, to make a kind of Facebook of Middle Ages is just before our eyes now.

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