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'Indiana Jones' of the Cairo Genizah


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'Indiana Jones' of the Cairo Genizah

As many as 200,000 Jewish manuscripts, some more than 1,000 years old, comprise the most important Jewish treasure of the century. Prof. Stefan Reif of the University of Cambridge, who exposed Cairo Genizah and its discoveries to the world, tells Ynet about the revolution it created in the perception of Judaism.

Tali Farkash

Published: 07.04.14, 08:13 / Israel Jewish Scene

"In 1897, two British scholars, Solomon Schechter and Charles Taylor, unearthed a real treasure in the attic of the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Cairo. The attic, which was used for genizah, a storage area for worn-out Hebrew-language holy books and papers, was a historical treasure trove.

Alongside torn books from that period, they discovered a cache of hundreds and thousands of letters, books, court protocols, halachic rulings, prayer books and more, which were remarkably preserved in the desert climate – some from the ninth century.

Most of the material was sent to Cambridge, England. Schechter even managed to publish several studies about it, but the research was put on hold and abandoned due to the upheavals of that period and the two world wars."

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