The Genizah, to explore which was the object of 
my travels in the East (1896 - 1897), is an old Jewish 
institution.  The word is derived from the Hebrew 
verb ganaz, and signifies treasure-house, or hiding-
place.  When applied to books, it means much the 
same thing as burial means in the case of men.  
When the spirit is gone, we put the corpse out of
sight to protect it from abuse.  In like manner, when 
the writing is worn out, we hide the book to pre-
serve it from profanation.  The contents of the book 
go up to heaven like the soul.  "I see the parchment
burning, and the letters flying up in the air," were the 
last words of the martyr R. Chanina ben Teradyon, 
when he went to the stake wrapped in the scrolls of
the law.  The analogy of books with men was so
strongly felt that sometimes the term "hide" was
used even in epithaphs: "Here was hidden (nignaz or 
nitman) this man."  When R. Eliezer the Great was 
buried, they said, "a scroll of the Law was hidden."  
It was probably this feeling that suggested the in-
junction to hice worn-out copies of the Pentateuch in 
the grave of a scholar.  More often, however, they 
dug a grave for the dead books themselves in the 


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cemetary, or hid them in some sort of shed adjoining 
the synagogue.
     Happily for us, this process of "hiding" was not 
confined to dead or worn-out books alone.  In the 
course of time the Genizah extended its protection to 
what we may call (to carry on the simile) invalid
books; that is, to books which by long use or want 
of care came to be in a defective state, sheets being 
missing at the beginning, in the middle, or at the end, 
and which were thus disqualified for the common pur-
poses of study.  Another class of workes consigned to 
the Genizah were what we may call disgraced books,
books which once pretended to the rank of Scriptures,
but were found by the authorities to be wanting in 
the qualification of being dictated by the Holy Spirit.
They were "hidden."  Here our term "Apocrypha" 
for writings excluded from, or never admitted into,
the Canon.  Of course, such books came into the 
Genizah in sound condition; but the period at 
which synods and councils were able to test the
somewhat indefinable quality of inspiration is now so 
remote that these "external works" have met, by
reason of long neglect, with the same fate of decom-
position that awaited sacred books, by reason of long 
and constant use.
     Besides these sacred and semi-sacred books the 
Genizah proved a refuge for a class of writings that 
never aspired to the dignity of real books, but are 
none the less of the greatest importance for Jewish 
history.  As we know, the use of the sacred language 


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was, among the Jews, not confined to the sacred liter-
ature. With them it was a living languge.  They 
wrote in it their letters, kept in it their accounts, and 
composed in it their love-songs and wine-songs.  All
legal documents, such as leases, contracts, marriage 
settlements, and letters of divorce, and the proceed-
ings as well as the decisions of the courts of justice, 
were drawn up in Hebrew, or, at least, written in 
Hebrew letters.  As the Jews attached a cretain 
sacredness to everything resembling the Scriptures, 
either in matter or form, they were loth to treat
even these secular documents as mere refuse, and 
when they were overtaken by old age, they disposed 
of them by ordering them to the Genizah, in which
they found a resting-place for centuries.  The Geni-
zah, of the old Jewish community thus represents a 
combination of sacred lumber-room and secular record 
office.
     It was such a Genizah that I set out to visit in the 
middle of December, 1896.  My destination was Cairo.  
The conviction of the importance of its Genizah had 
grown upon me as I examined the various manuscripts 
which had found their way from it into English pri-
vate and public libraries, and which had already led 
to important discoveries.  I therefore determined to
make a pilgrimage to the source whence they had 
come.  My plan recommended itself to the authori-
ties of the University of Cambridge, and found warm
supporters in Professor Sedgwick, Dr. Donald Mac-
Alister, and especially Dr. Taylor, the Master of St. 


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John's College.  To the enlightened generosity of this 
great student and patron of Hebrew literature it is due 
that my pilgimage became a regular pleasure trip to 
Egypt, and extended into the Holy Land.
     Now that the sources of the Nile are being visited 
by bicycles, there is little fresh to be said about Cairo 
and Alexandria.  The latter, at which I landed, is 
particularly disappointing to the Jewish student.  
There is nothing in it to remind one of Philo, whose
vague speculations were converted into saving dogmas, 
of the men of the Septuagint, whose very blunders 
now threaten to become Scripture.  Nor is any trace 
left of the principal synagogue, in whose magnificent
architecture and tasteful arrangements the old Rabbis
saw a reflex of "the glory of Israel."  Cairo is not
more promising at the first glance that one gets on 
the way from the station to the hotel.  Everything in 
it is calculated to satisfy the needs of the European
tourist is sadly modern, and my heart sank within me 
when I reflected that this was the place whence I was 
expected to return laden with spoils, the age of which
would command respect even in our ancient seats of
learning.  However, I felt reassured after a brief inter-
view with the Reverend Aaron Bensimon, the Grand 
Rabbi of Cairo, to whom I had an introduction from 
the Chief Rabbi, the Very Reverend Doctor Herman 
Adler.  From him I soon learnt that Old Cairo would 
be the proper field for my activity, a place old enough 
to enjoy the respect even of a resident of Cambridge.
     I must remark here that the Genizah, like the rest 


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of the property of the synagogue in Cairo, is vested 
in the Rabbi and the wardens for the time being.  To 
this reverend gentleman and to Mr. Youssef M. Cat-
taui, the President of the Jewish Community, my best 
thanks are due for the liberality with which they put 
their treasures at my disposal, and for the interest 
they showed, and the assistance they gave me in my 
work.
     I drove to this ancient Genizah accompanied by 
the Rabbi.  We left our carriage somewhere in the
neighbourhood of the "Fortress of Babylon," whence 
the Rabbi directed his steps to the so-called Synagogue 
of Ezra the Scribe.  This synagogue, which in some 
writings bears also the names of the prophets Elijah 
and Jeremiah, is well known to old chroniclers and 
travellers, such as Makreese, Sambari, and Benjamin 
of Tudela.  I cannot here attempt to reproduce the 
legends which have grown up around it in the course 
of time.  Suffice it to say that it has an authentic 
record extending over more than a thousand years, 
having served originally as a Coptic Church (St. Mi-
chael's), and been thereafter converted into a syna-
gogue soon after the Mohammedan conquest of 
Egypt.  Ever since that time it has remained in the 
uninterrupted possession of the Jews.  The Genizah, 
which probably always formed an integral part of the 
synagogue, is now situated at the end of the gallery, 
presenting the appearance of a short windowless and 
doorless room of fair dimensions.  The entrance is on 
the west side, through a big, shapless hole reached 


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by a ladder.  After showing me over the place and 
the neighbouring buildings, or rather ruins, the Rabbi 
introduced me to the beadles of the synagogue, who 
are at the same time the keepers of the Genizah, and 
authorized me to take from it what, and as much as 
I liked.
     Now, as a matter of fact, I liked all.  Still, some 
discretion was necessary.  I have already indicated 
the mixture of the Genizah.  But one can hardly 
realise the confusion in a genuine, old Genizah until
one has seen it.  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.  Some of the belligerents have 
perished outright, and are literally ground to dust 
in the terrible struggle for space, whilst others, as if
overtaken by a general crush, are squeezed into big, 
unshaply lumps, which even with the aid of chemical 
appliances can no longer be separated without serious 
damage to their constituents.  In their present condi-
tion these lumps sometimes afford curiously sugges-
tive combinations; as, for instance, when you find a 
piece of some rationalistic work, in which the very 
existence of either angels or devils is denied, clinging 
for its very life to an amulet in which these same 
beings (mostly the latter) are bound over to be on 
their good behaviour and not interfere with Miss Jair's 
love for somebody.  The development of the romance 
is obscured by the fact that the last lines of the amulet 
are mounted on some I.O.U., or lease, and this in 


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turn is squeezed between the sheets of an old moralist, 
who treats all attention to money affairs with scorn 
and indignation.  Again, all these contradictory mat-
ters cleave tightly to some sheets from a very old 
Bible.  This indeed, ought to be the last umpire be-
tween them, but it is hardly legible without peeling off 
from its surface the fragments of some printed work, 
which clings to old nobility with all the obstancy and 
obtrusiveness of the parvenu.
     Such printed matter proved a source of great 
trouble.  It is true that it occasionally supplied us 
with loose sheets of lost editions, and is thus of consider-
able interest to the bibliographer.  But consider-
ing that the Genizah has survived Gutenberg for nearly
five centuries, the great bulk of it is bound to be com-
paretively modern, and so is absolutely useless to the 
student of palaeography.  I had, therefore, to confine 
my likings to the manuscripts.  But the amount of 
printed fragment is very large, constituting as 
they do nearly all the contributions to the Genizah of 
the last four hundred years.  Most of my time in 
Cairo was spent in getting rid of these parvenus, while 
every piece of paper or parchment that had any claim 
to respectable age was packed into bags and conveyed 
to the forwarding agent to be shipped to England.
     The task was by no means easy, the Genizah be-
ing very dark, and emitting clouds of dust when its
contents were stirred, as if protesting against the dis-
turbance of its inmates.  The protest is the less 
to be ignored as the dust settles in one's throat,


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and threatens suffocation.  I was thus compelled to 
accept the aid offered me by the keepers of the place,
who had some experience in such work from their 
connexion with former acquisitions (perhaps they 
were rather depredations) from the Genizah.  Of 
course, they declined to be paid for their services in 
hard cash of so many piastres per diem.  This was a
vulgar way of doing business to which no self-re-
specting keeper of a real Genizah would degrade him-
self.  The keepers insisted the more on bakhshish, 
which, besides being a more dignified kind of remu-
neration, has the advantage of being expected also for 
services not rendered.  In fact, the whole population 
within the precincts of the synagogue were constantly 
coming forward with claims on my liberality - the 
men as worthy colleagues employed in the same 
work (of selection) as myself, or at least, in watching 
us at our work; the women for greeting me respect-
fully when I entered the place, or for showing me
their deep sympathy in my fits of coughing caused by 
the dust.  If it was a fête day, such as the New Moon 
or the eve of the Sabbath, the amount expected from
me for all these kind attentions was much larger, it
being only proper that the Western millionaire should
contribute from his fortune to the glory of the next 
meal.
     All this naturally led to a great deal of haggling 
and barganing, for which I was sadly unprepared by 
my former course of life, and which involved a great
loss both of money and time.  But what was worse, 



- 9 -


was, as I soon found out, that a certain dealer in an-
tiquities, who shall be nameless here, had some mys-
terious relations with the Genizah, which enabled him 
to offer me a fair number of fragments for sale. My 
complaints to the authorities of the Jewish community 
brought this plundering to a speedy end, but not be-
fore I had parted with certain guineas by way of pay-
ment to this worthy for a number of selected frag-
ments, which were mine by right and on which he put 
exorbitant prices.
     The number of fragments procured by me amounts, 
I think, to about a hundred thousand.  The closer 
examination of them has begun since my return to 
England, but it will take a long time before an ade-
quate account of them is possible.  Here I can offer 
only a few brief remarks about their general character, 
which, of course, must be taken with due reserve.
     The study of the Torah, which means the revela-
tion of God to man, and the cultivation of prayer,
which means the revelation of man to God, were the 
grand passion of old Judaism; hence the Bible (Old 
Testament) and liturgy constitute the larger part 
of the contents of the Genizah.  The manuscripts of 
the Bible, though offering no textual variations of 
consequence, are nevertheless not devoid of points of 
interest; for some fragments go back as far as the
tenth century, and are thus of great value, if only as 
specimens of writing; others are furnished with mar-
ginal glosses, or are interspersed with Chaldaic and 
Arabic versions; whilst some are provided with quite 


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a new system of punctuation, differing both from the 
Eastern and Western.  Regarding the Apocry-
phia, I will here refer only to the fragment of the orig-
inal of Ecclesiasticus, which it was my good fortune
to discover on May 13, 1896, in the Lewis-Gibson 
collection of fragments.  The communications which 
were then made by Mrs. Lewis to the press led to the 
discovery of further fragments at Oxford.  All these 
undoubtely come from a Genizah, and justify the 
hope that our recent acquisitions will yield more 
remains of these semi-sacred volumes.  As to liturgy, 
the Genizah offers the remains of the oldest forms of
the worship of the synagogue, and these throw much 
light on the history of the Jewish prayer-book.  The 
number of hymns found in the Genizah is also very 
great, and they reveal to us a whole series of latter-
day psalmists hitherto unknown.
     Next to these main classes come fragments of 
the two Talmuds (the Talmud of Babylon and the 
Talmud of Jerusalem) and Midrashism (old Rabbinic 
homolies).  They are of the utmost importance to the 
student of Jewish tradition, giving not only quite a 
new class of manuscripts unknown to the author of 
the Variae Lectiones, but also restoring to us parts of 
old Rabbinic works long ago given up as lost for-
ever.  It is hardly necessary to say that both Bible 
and Talmud are accompanied by a long train of com-
mentaries and super-commentaries in Hebrew as well 
as in Arabic.  It is the penalty of greatness to be in 
need of interpretation, and jewish authoritative works 
have not escaped this fate.


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     The number of autograph documents brought to
light from the Genizah is equally large.  They ex-
tend over nearly seven hundred years (eight century 
to the fourteenth). What a rich life these long rolls 
unfold to us!  All sorts and conditions of men and 
situations are represented in them:  the happy young 
married couple by their marriage contract; the mar-
riage that failed by its letter of divorce; the slave by
his deed of emancipation; the court of justice by its 
legal decisions; the heads of the schools by their 
learned epistles; the newly-appointed "Prince of the 
Exile" by the description of his installation; the rich 
trader by his correspondence with his agents in Mala-
bar; the gentleman-beggar by his letters of recom-
mendation to the great ones in Israel; the fanatics by 
their thundering excommunications; the meek man 
by his mild apologies; the fool by his amulet; the 
medical man by his prescriptions; and the patient by 
his will.  To these may be added a vast amount of 
miscellaneous matter, philosophical and mystical as 
well as controversial, which is the more difficult to
identify as almost every fragment bears witness to the 
existence of a separate work.
     All these treasures are now stored up in the Libra-
ry of the University of Cambridge, where they are 
undergoing the slow process of a thorough examina-
tion. The results of this examination will certainly 
prove interesting alike to the theologian and the his-
torian.