Mark R. Cohen (born March 11, 1943) is an American scholar ofJewish history in the Muslim world.

Cohen is Khedouri A. Zilkha Professor Emeritus of Jewish Civilization in the Near East and Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Studies atPrinceton University.^[1] He is a scholar of the history of Jews in theMiddle Ages underIslam.^[2][3] His research relies greatly on documents from theCairo Geniza.^[2] From 1985 until his retirement in 2013, Cohen led the Princeton Geniza Lab, which aims to make the Cairo Geniza's corpus available and searchable online. As of 2023, the database contains 400,000 documents.^[4] The project was headquartered at theShelomo Dov Goitein Geniza Research Lab, where many of Goitein's books and notes are stored, but is now separate.

Cohen earned his undergraduate degree atBrandeis University, his master's degree atColumbia University, and his doctorate at theJewish Theological Seminary of America.

Cohen won the 1981National Jewish Book Award in the Jewish History category^[5] for his bookJewish Self-Government in Medieval Egypt: The Origins of the Office of Head of the Jews, ca. 1065-1126. He was awarded aGuggenheim Fellowship in 1996.^[6]

In 2014, Cohen was a visiting professor atNew York University Abu Dhabi.^[7]

• Jewish Self-Government in Medieval Egypt: The Origins of the Office of Head of the Jews, ca. 1065-1126 (1981)
• The Autobiography of a Seventeenth-Century Venetian Rabbi (1987)
• Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages (1994)
• Poverty and Charity in the Jewish Community of Medieval Egypt (2005)
• The Voice of the Poor in the Middle Ages: An Anthology of Documents from the Cairo Geniza (2005)

• Princeton University faculty page
• Princeton Geniza Project
• Mark R. Cohen atLibrary of Congress Authorities — with 10 catalog records

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