The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context

34 The Aramaic Bible: Targums in their Historical Context
immediate reason for the removal. Sadly, however, the survival rate
of such genizoth has not proved impressive, the ravages of time and
climate on the one hand and the vicissitudes of Jewish history on the
other either ensuring a return to dust or denying later generations
adequate knowledge of where a search might even be commenced.
Fortunately, however, in at least one case, the first stage of consignment
into the synagogue genizah appears not to have been followed by
removal to a cave or burial place and scientific study of Jewish
literature has consequently been greatly enriched. The Jewish community
of Fustat (old Cairo) appears to have been established soon
after the Muslim conquest of Egypt in the seventh century and to have
settled in the area of the old Byzantine fortress known as 'Babylon'.
There is certainly testimony to a synagogue in the ninth century and it
is possibly on the site of that house of worship, formerly occupied by
a church, that the Ben-Ezra synagogue was built or rebuilt in the
eleventh century. 12 The survival of that community in situ for 900
years; the dry climate of Egypt; the central importance of the city to
Muslim and Jewish history for a number of centuries; and the
reluctance of the Jewish communal leaders to take any action in the
matter of its genizah other than to expand its contents with all forms
of the written word—all these factors contributed to the survival there
of a collection of fragmentary Jewish texts that is at least as significant
as the Qumran Scrolls and may arguably outstrip the latter in overall
historical significance.
The 'Cairo Genizah', as it has come to be called, has bequeathed to
contemporary scholars some 200,000 items, or about 800,000 folios,
of texts mainly dating from about a thousand years ago, written in
various languages on papyrus, vellum, cloth and paper, and containing
a wide variety of subject matter. In addition to the field of Bible studies,
such disparate topics as rabbinics, philology, poetry, medicine and
magic have been virtually revolutionized by the Genizah discoveries
and the more mundane documents found among the fragments have
12. In addition to the works cited in nn. 9 and 11 above and n. 14 below, see
also J. Mann, The Jews in Egypt and in Palestine under the Fatimid Caliphs
(Oxford, 1920-22), reprinted with supplementary material and an introduction by
S.D. Goitein (New York, 1970); M. Ben-Dov, 'The Ezra Synagogue in Cairo',
Qadmoniot 15 (1982), pp. 33-39. A more recent survey of the synagogue site was
undertaken under the auspices of the Canadian Center for Architecture and one of the
team, Charles Le Quesne, is shortly due to publish the findings.