My Latest Publication: Medieval Talmudic Fragments from Malta

My latest academic study has now been published in the United Kingdom by the London Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences. It is entitled “What Sacred Books to Take and What to Leave Behind in Times of Religious Persecution: Three Medieval Talmudic Parchment Fragments in the Context of the 1492 Expulsion of the Jews from Malta.”

The article examines three medieval parchment fragments from the Babylonian Talmud that were once used by Malta’s Jewish community. Written in a Sephardic semi-cursive script, these fragments offer rare evidence of the community’s religious, legal and intellectual life before the expulsion of the Jews from Malta in 1492.

The fragments show that Maltese Jews possessed rabbinic texts and consulted the Talmud on matters of communal conduct, family life, oaths, sexual ethics, and financial obligations. They also reveal a literate, well-organised community with cultural links to Spain and North Africa and political connections with Sicily.

The study also considers what happened to sacred books during periods of forced migration and religious persecution. Although these fragments were part of a bigger scroll that was left behind, books belonging to the Jews were not destroyed. They appear to have been preserved until they lost their recognised sacred function and were eventually reused as bookbinding material.

These modest pieces of parchment therefore provide an exceptional window into the life of Malta’s medieval Jewish community and the difficult choices its members faced when they were forced to leave the Maltese Islands.