Cairo Geniza

The Cairo Geniza is a collection of some 400,000 Jewish manuscript fragments and Fatimid administrative documents that were kept in the geniza or storeroom of the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Fustat or Old Cairo, Egypt. Spanning the entire period of Middle-Eastern, North African, and Andalusian Jewish history between the 6th and 19th centuries CE, these documents comprise the largest and most diverse collection of medieval manuscripts in the world.

"After Schechter had climbed a rickety ladder to reach that dim attic-like opening … he found himself staring into a space crammed to bursting with nearly ten centuries' worth of [old writings] …" (Adina Hoffman and Peter Col, Sacred Trash)

Quotes

"It is a battlefield of books …" (Solomon Schechter, "A Hoard of Hebrew Manuscripts")

• After Schechter had climbed a rickety ladder to reach that dim attic-like opening, and once his widening eyes had adjusted to the dark, he found himself staring into a space crammed to bursting with nearly ten centuries' worth of one Middle Eastern, mostly middle-class Jewish community's detritus—its letters and poems, its wills and marriage contracts, its bills of lading and writs of divorce, its prayers, prescriptions, trousseau lists, Bibles, money orders, amulets, court depositions, shop inventories, rabbinic responsa, contracts, leases, magic charms, and receipts.
  • Adina Hoffman and Peter Cole: Sacred Trash: The Lost and Found World of the Cairo Geniza, ch. 1, "Hidden Wisdom", p. 16. Schocken Books (2011). ISBN 978-0-8052-4258-4.

• It was by mere chance that the Cairo Geniza was forgotten and its contents so escaped the fate of other Genizas. These old writings have been saved quite contrary to the intention of those who stored them there. When in the course of the last century the Cairo Geniza was rediscovered, the men in charge of the Synagogue to which it belonged made the surprising discovery that there were some queer people in the world who were attracted by the old material, who were willing to pay considerable sums of money for these scraps of dirty parchment and paper, and that even famous universities were keenly interested in the matter.
  • Paul E. Kahle: The Cairo Geniza, Second Edition, ch. 1, "General Introduction", pp. 4–5. Basil Blackwell (1959).

• It is a battlefield of books, and the literary productions of many centuries had their share in the battle, and their disjecta membra are now strewn over its area.
  • Solomon Schechter: "A Hoard of Hebrew Manuscripts". In Studies in Judaism, Second Series, p. 6. The Jewish Publication Society of America (1908).

See also

• Genizah