05/20/2026
TBI’s Adult Education recently presented an engaging program focused on the Cairo Geniza, a repository for worn-out prayer books and discarded Hebrew texts, often referred to as “holy rubbish.” Traditionally, once a Geniza is full, its contents are meant to be respectfully buried. However, the medieval Geniza at the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Cairo became a unique archive, accumulating a vast array of secular materials alongside religious texts. This collection includes approximately 400,000 fragments of Jewish manuscripts and administrative documents, dating from the 6th to the 19th centuries, making it the largest and most varied collection of medieval manuscripts globally. The Geniza offers invaluable insights into the economic and cultural dynamics of the Mediterranean, particularly between the 10th and 13th centuries, featuring a wide range of writings from liturgical texts to philosophical and scientific works. Additionally, it contains everyday items like legal documents, shopping lists, personal letters, and merchants' account books, preserving the personal narratives of individuals from centuries past. The event concluded with a delicious Israeli lunch, enjoyed by all attendees.
