Jewish Theological Seminary of America

The Geniza Collection represents a substantial portion of some 300,000 items “discovered” in the late 19th century in the Cairo Geniza (a Hebrew word meaning “storeroom”) of the Ben Ezra Synagogue in the old city of Cairo (Al-Fusṭāṭ). The Cairo Geniza fragments — which span more than a millennium — were consigned to the storeroom because damaged or worn-out religious texts and unneeded old documents could not be thrown away if they contained the name of God.