Academic Publications CV (as Marc Michaels)
I have just passed my PhD at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at Cambridge University (Fitzwilliam College) related to my scribal studies and Hebrew manuscripts. Below are my publications that relate to this element of my work, together with links. As well as the materials published by others, I have also self-published a number of non and semi-academic works - see www.kulmus.co.uk
for details.
Books
Sefer Tagin Fragments from the Cairo Genizah: A Critical Edition, Commentary and Reconstruction, Cambridge Genizah Studies Series, Volume 12, Études sur le judaïsme médiéval, Volume 85, Brill, 2020.
PhD Thesis
Sefer Tagin—Olde Face, Slab-Serifs and Semi-Ligatures.
Covenantal Warnings and Reassurance. Re-housing the Temple Within the Torah.
Cambridge University Library, 2024, controlled access, https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.117276
This is in process of being turned into a book through Open Book Publishers.
Articles: Forthcoming
The Quf Devuqa: The Origins and Original Meaning of the Joined Qof
in Comparative Oriental Manuscript Studies Bulletin.
Two encyclopedia entries on Tagin
and Sefer Tagin
respectively, in Encyclopedia of the Bible and its Reception (EBR), De Gruyter.
Getting the Hump: The letter ḥet in STa"M, in Review of Rabbinic Judaism, Brill, forthcoming (likely September 2025).
Manuscripts from the Cairo Genizah as Educative Tools
in Manuscript and Text Cultures Journal, Oxford, forthcoming.
Visual Midrash ‘Hovering’ at the Dawn of Time
in The Visual Aesthetics of Sacred Writings in Global Perspectives, Routledge, forthcoming.
Jewish 'Square' Script Development in Pre-Medieval Tanakh Book-hand Manuscripts
in Khan, G. (ed), The Cambridge Grammar of Biblical Hebrew, Open Book Publishers, forthcoming, (2026?).
Like a Squared Coil or a Spiral, Like a Pe Within a Pe: The Origins, and the Meaning of, the Pe Meluppefet, in Review of Rabbinic Judaism, Brill, forthcoming (2026?).
The ‘Masoretic Mix-Tape’ and the Consequences of the Faulty Transmission of Sefer Tagin
in
Origin, History and Interpretation of Tagin and Otiyyot Meshunnot for Writing STa"M, De Gruyter, forthcoming.
Art and the Sacred: Did the Robot Really Write a Torah?
in Creating Holiness: Books, Scrolls and Icons as Carriers of Sacredness, forthcoming.
Articles: Published
Fragment of the Month: The Torah of St Filippo?
Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit, June 2025, https://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/departments/taylor-schechter-genizah-research-unit/fragment-month/fotm-2025/fragment-4
Cambridge University Library, T-S A36.18—a Fragment from the Oldest Known Megillat ʾEster
in Comparative Oriental Manuscript Studies Bulletin 10/1-2, 2024, pp. 33-48, https://doi.org/10.25592/uhhfdm.17171 Full version of the FOTM
below.
Fragment of the Month: T-S A36.18 – hole-y megillah it’s the oldest!
Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit, December 2024, https://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/departments/taylor-schechter-genizah-research-unit/fragment-month/fotm-2024/fragment-10
וכתב לה ספר כריתות "And He Gives Her a Bill of Divorcement", from Review of Rabbinic Judaism, Volume 27, Issue 2, Brill, September 2024 (Open Access), https://doi.org/10.1163/15700704-20240008
Blog of the Cambridge Genizah Unit: Targum on Toast, June 2024, https://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/genizah-fragments/posts/targum-toast
Fragment of the Month: Geṭ Groundwork from the Cairo Genizah: Practising Writing a Jewish Divorce Document (T-S 10J2.34), Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit, April 2024.
A Complete Old Torah Scroll (Nicholson Ms. 37) Held at Fisher Library, University of Sydney, (co-authored with Gary Rendsburg, Ian Young, Julie Sommerfeldt, Vladimir Levchenko, and Linda Barry), from Australian Biblical Review, Volume 71, 2023.
Fragment of the Month: An Aramaic Antiochus Chanukah Poem: T-S A45.14, Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit, December 2023. https://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/departments/taylor-schechter-genizah-research-unit/fragment-month/fotm-2023/fragment-10
The Consequences of the Faulty Transmission of Sefer Tagin
from Review of Rabbinic Judaism, Volume 26, Issue 2, Brill, 2023 (Open Access), https://doi.org/10.1163/15700704-12341408
A Journey Through the Czech scroll #182 from Kostelec nad Orlici, from Wessex Jewish News, Rosh Hashana edition, 2023.
Fragment of the Month: T-S Misc.22.264 - a trope trainer from the Cairo Genizah, Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit, July, 2022.
ממקום אחר
"From Another Place". Finding God in the Megillah, from Henoch Journal, Vol. 44/1, 2022.
https://www.morcelliana.net/riviste/henoch/essays-by-studi-di-giorgio-paolo-campi-giorgio-jossa-mauro-belcastro-giulio-mariotti-bartlomiej-cyryl-kowalczyk-marc-mich.html
(If you would like a copy of this, please contact me).
Blog of the Cambridge Genizah Unit: Q&A Wednesday: The special letters of Sefer Tagin, with Marc Michaels
(with Melonie Schmierer-Lee), September 2021.
Sixty Second Shmooze with ... Marc Michaels, from Essex Jewish News, December 2020.
Scrolls to Newcastle, from Memorial Scrolls Trust Newsletter, Winter 2018.
Sofrut/Scribal Arts, extract from The World Encyclopedia of Calligraphy, Calderhead and Cohen, Sterling, New York, 2011 (pp. 98-99).
Interview in Manna, No.99, Movement for Reform Judaism, Spring 2008.
The Work of the Sofer, from Letter Arts Review, Volume 14, Number 2
(interview transcription with Frances Spiegel), 2004.
