Ariel Fein is an art historian specializing in the visual cultures of Byzantium and the Islamic world, with a particular focus on intercultural and interreligious relationships across the Mediterranean. Her forthcoming book, Emir of Emirs: George of Antioch and the Shaping of Norman Sicilian Visual Culture, examines the life and patronage of George of Antioch—a twelfth-century Arab-Christian refugee—across Syria, North Africa, and Sicily.  In tracing his role in shaping the art and architecture of Norman Sicily, Fein explores broader themes of migration, identity, and cultural exchange. Her research interests extend to the post-Byzantine diaspora and the negotiation of identity and memory, as well as Jewish ceremonial art and architecture, with a particular focus on the Jewish communities of the nineteenth- and twentieth-century Middle East. Her research has been supported by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Bard Graduate Center, the Medieval Academy of America, and the Mary Jaharis Center. 

The Ben Ezra Synagogue in Fustat Egypt is perhaps best known as the source of the famed Cairo Geniza fragments. This nineteenth-century history has significantly shaped, and at times obscured, our understanding of the synagogue as both a historical site and a living monument. This talk examines how the synagogue’s nineteenth-century past, along with the fragmentation and dispersal of its decorative wooden furnishings to private collections and international museums, has influenced how it is remembered today. In contrast, I explore a hypothetical reconstruction, reuniting these displaced materials with their original walls in the synagogue, shifting them from isolated objects to integral components of the Ben Ezra Synagogue’s architectural decoration. By doing so, I consider how epigraphy, liturgy, and architectural space converge to construct personal piety within the synagogue