Maimonides from Scratch

Maimonides was a rabbi, philosopher, theologian, and medical expert. He was born in Spain in around 1135, moved to Morocco, then to Israel, before settling in Fustat, Old Cairo, in Egypt, where he stayed until his death in 1204. Maimonides was very knowledgeable about health, illness, and medicines so, after the death of his brother who had always supported him, Maimonides worked as a medical doctor to make a living. He was well-read in medical texts by Muslim thinkers such as Ibn Sina, Ibn Bajja, and Ibn Rushd. These men built on the work of medical experts from ancient Greece whom Maimonides was also familiar with, such as Hippocrates, Aristotle, and Galen. Although he was still busy with his theological and philosophical work, Maimonides gave medical advice to many people via letter writing and he wrote medical books to reach a wider audience. His work had a huge positive influence on the history of medicine.

Maimonides the Healer features a real letter that was written by Maimonides to someone who had requested medical advice. When Jewish people write the name of god, they do not just throw away the page that the name is written on once they’ve finished using it. The page is taken to a place called a genizah, a storage space in or just outside a synagogue where the special pages can decay in a sacred environment. Documents in the genizah at the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Cairo never decayed because Egypt is very hot and dry and the genizah was inside the synagogue. Many centuries after that genizah was started, some people were selling its contents in the markets of Cairo during the rebuilding of the synagogue. This brought the documents to the attention of travelling British twins Agnes Lewis and Margaret Gibson, scholars who were searching for early copies of the bible. Realising that the pages they were offered were significant, they consulted Soloman Schechter, a Hebrew specialist at the University of Cambridge. He confirmed that the pages came from a historic genizah in Cairo and arranged with the Chief Rabbi of Cairo that the contents of the genizah would be brought to Cambridge to be studied and preserved.

Further details of the letter will follow here when the animation is complete.

The animation Maimonides the Healer shows Maimonides receiving a letter with a medical query. He draws on all his knowledge to think up an answer and write a letter of advice, then sends out a boy to pick up medical ingredients to take with his letter to the person who is ill. There is a woman looking after the patient. She receives the letter and the ingredients and will use them to make the patient better. The animation also shows that Maimonides wrote medical books, such as Medical Aphorisms, which was hugely influential over the centuries. We also see that there are modern hospitals named after Maimonides because of his impact on the history of medicine. In the hospital in the animation, Maimonides sees a modern medical doctor reading some of Maimonides’ famous words and it makes him smile to know that he still has a positive influence in the world of medicine.

In making Maimonides the Healer, it was necessary to create a world in which the letter would appear. The illustrations were drawn by Panoply’s animator Steve K Simons, who then animated the illustrations to bring them to life. The street scenes, inside scenes, and the clothing of the people are based on medieval illustrations of Fustat, pharmacies, and medical doctors, and on early photographs of Cairo. Melonie Schmierer-Lee of the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit at the University of Cambridge advised us on some neat details. For example, it would be normal for Maimonides and his contemporaries to work at a writing board, sitting on the floor with cushions and rugs, rather than working at a table. You may also notice that the boy puts Maimonides’ letter in his sleeve. This was the usual way for messengers to carry letters in medieval Egypt.

Maimonides the Healer was made as part of a wider project called Maimonides From Scratch. The storyboard – the planning – of the animation was done as a collaboration between the Manchester Jewish Museum, school children, museum volunteers, and the academics working on the project, inspired by fragments of Maimonides’ work from the University of Cambridge Solomon-Schechter Cairo Genizah. The project is supported by Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Impact Accelerator funds, University of Southampton pump-priming and Marie Skłodowska-Curie awards. We hope to bring you more animations about different aspects of Maimonides’ fascinating life.

Visit the website of the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit:

https://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/departments/taylor-schechter-genizah-research-unit

Browse scanned documents from the genizah: https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/genizah/1

Explore the Ben Ezra Synagogue:  https://egymonuments.gov.eg/monuments/ben-ezra-synagogue/

PowerPoint coming soon.