Theory and Practice of Magic. Two manuscripts from the Alliance Israelite Universelle’s Genizah Collection

This essay deals with magical documents from the Cairo Genizah, which are currently held at the Alliance Israélite Universelle (AIU) library in Paris (Collection du Consistoire de Paris, déposée à la Bibliothèque de l’Alliance Israélite Universelle), and aims to trace the main features of the Jewish magical tradition by examining a range of direct textual evidence. An amulet for the general protection of a woman, manuscript VI C 21, and a text of segullot (magical recipes), manuscript VI C 6, are analysed and compared with other samples from the same collection.