By Teigan Goldsmith Hitsman

The genizah, meaning a “hiding place” in Hebrew, is the sacred repository where worn-out Jewish texts and ritual objects are respectfully stored prior to burial. Rooted in ancient Jewish law, anything with G-d’s name or written for religious or liturgical uses cannot be casually discarded. Instead, they must be set aside in a genizah for eventual burial in consecrated ground.

The most famous example is the Cairo Genizah, located in the attic of the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Old Cairo (Fustat), established in the 9th century. Unlike other genizot which are typically emptied and buried, this one was left intact. Its arid environment and local caution around disturbing sacred texts created the perfect preservation conditions.

Between the 8th and 19th centuries, it accumulated around 300,000 to 400,000 fragments, including biblical scrolls, rabbinical writings, legal contracts, merchants’ ledger books, personal letters, school exercises and even medical and secular Arabic texts written in Hebrew.

In 1896, Cambridge scholars and twin sisters Agnes Lewis and Margaret Gibson returned from a trip to the Middle East with pages of ancient Hebrew manuscripts they had acquired from a bookseller in Old Cairo. Upon their return, they showed their acquisitions to fellow Cambridge scholar Solomon Schechter. He was shocked to find that among their treasures was an original copy of the Hebrew proverbs of Ben Shira, a 2nd century BCE Hebrew book of wisdom. This discovery prompted Schechter to make the journey to Old Cairo where he eventually found the Ben Ezra Synagogue. Deep within the building, Schechter came across the genizah and uncovered more than 1,700 Hebrew and Arabic manuscripts. 

In 1898, Schecter transported some 220,000 fragments to Cambridge establishing what became known as the Lewis-Gibson Genizah Collection. These were promptly catalogued and made available to scholars, forever reshaping our understanding of medieval Jewish life. The Cairo Genizah remains the deepest single archive of medieval daily life in the Middle East and Mediterranean. It spans religious texts but also the mundane and personal: from divorce documents, commercial deals, eyewitness travel letters (including from the Crusades), to children’s writing exercises.

These discoveries overturned earlier assumptions about Jewish life under Islamic rule, revealing vibrant, complex communities rather than isolated or persecuted minorities.

Closer to home in Ottawa, the Jewish Memorial Gardens hosts an annual genizah burial to ensure the community’s religious items are respectfully handled and buried.

This year, the genizah is open from until August 1, Sunday to Friday for items to be dropped off. Members of the community can bring shaimos—torah fragments, prayer books, & ritual objects—in sealed boxes for respectful deposition and eventual burial. 

Items are carefully curated to follow guidelines (e.g., three boxes maximum per household, waterproof packaging, etc). This ritual preserves the tradition on a local scale: honouring sacred texts, connecting generations, and sanctifying end-of-life for ritual objects.

For more information, visit the Jewish Memorial Garden’s website

-- Teigan Goldsmith Hitsman is the Archivist at the Ottawa Jewish Archives