The Secret Language of Cairo’s Goldsmiths
Gabriel Rosenbaum was walking through the streets of Cairo one day when he heard a familiar word, zahub, coming from a nearby shop. The word sounded awfully close to the Hebrew word for gold, zahav, and as an Israeli, he was intrigued: The Arabic word for gold (dhahab) is similar, but zahub’s presence here seemed unusual. Rosenbaum, a professor of Arabic language and literature at The Hebrew University in Jerusalem, decided to turn into the shop. Rosenbaum found himself...