Hidden Treasure: The Lives and Afterlives of Jewish Texts

Join us as Professor Oren Kosansky reveals what the genizah of the old synagogue in Rabat, Morocco tells us about the Jewish relationship to the written word as well as the earlier generations of Moroccan Jews.

Oren Kosansky is Associate Professor of Anthropology and Chair of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Lewis & Clark College, where he researches and teaches on topics related to Jewish culture and society in North Africa and the Middle East. As a Fulbright scholar in Morocco, which once was home to many Jews but now has a population of about 100, Dr. Kosansky discovered a genizah, which has become an important focus of his work since.  As director of the Rabat Genizah Project, Dr. Kosansky  brings together an international team of community representatives, scholars, archivists, and information technologists to develop a digital archive of Moroccan Jewish documents.

Prior to arriving in Portland, Dr. Kosansky was a fellow at the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advance Jewish Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Recent publications include the book Jewish Studies at the Crossroads of Anthropology and History (co-editor) and the article The “Jewish Questions” in Postcolonial Moroccan Cinema, which appeared in the International Journal of Middle East Studies.