Rebecca J.W. Jefferson

I am the Curator of the Isser and Rae Price Library of Judaica and a Joint Faculty member of the Bud Shorstein Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Florida. In addition to managing and developing the Price Library, I was recently a PI on a National Endowment for the Humanities Challenge Grant, raising a $2 million endowment in support of preserving, collecting, and promoting Jewish heritage materials from Florida, Latin America and the Caribbean. Prior to moving to Florida, I worked as a Research Associate in the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit, Cambridge University Library. My personal research continues to focus on the history of Hebraica and Judaica library collections, particularly the discovery and distribution of the Cairo Genizah manuscripts. My book on this subject, The Cairo Genizah and the Age of Discovery in Egypt: the History and Provenance of a Jewish Archive, was published by I. B. Tauris in 2022.