Bud Shorstein Center for Jewish Studies

Rebecca J. W. Jefferson is the Curator of the Isser and Rae Price Library of Judaica at the University of Florida, and a Joint Faculty member of the Center for Jewish Studies. Prior to moving to Florida, she gained her PhD in medieval Hebrew from the University of Cambridge (2004) and worked as a Research Associate in Cambridge University Library. In addition to managing and developing the Price Library, Jefferson recently completed 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. Her personal research focuses on the history of Judaica libraries and collections, and she has published numerous articles on the discovery of the Cairo Genizah. Her book, The Cairo Genizah and the Age of Discovery in Egypt: the History and Provenance of a Jewish Archive, I. B. Tauris (Bloomsbury), is due for publication in February 2022.

Research Interests