A Scholarly Network between East and West: The Exegetical Works of Shemarya ha-Ikriti

The oeuvre of Shemarya ben Elija, also called Shemarya ha-Ikriti, represents an exception from the general situation that Jewish writings from the Late Byzantine period have been scarcely preserved. From the small corpus of Shemarya’s transmitted works it is possible to fill this gap and partly reconstruct the complex cultural profile of the Romaniote Jews in 14^th-century Byzantium, a community that was formed by the Hellenistic tradition, an influx of knowledge from the West (especially after the Fourth Crusade), the Christian-Orthodox surrounding, and the ongoing intra-Jewish discourse between Rabbanites and Karaites. Although Shemarya probably spent most of his life in Negroponte, he argued with his Jewish contemporaries in Byzantium as well as all around the Mediterranean. This lecture will focus on Shemarya’s exegetical works and thereby demonstrate his participation in a network of Jewish scholars spanning from Spain and the Provence over Italy through Constantinople to Palestine and Egypt. His commentaries on the Bible, the Talmud and liturgy not only reflect the discussions following Maimonides’ reconfiguration of Jewish exgesis, but also allow a new perspective on Byzantium as a hub of cultural transfer between the medieval Jewish communities which is corroborated by Byzantium’s role as an economic and cultural node during the Palaeologan period.