A genizah ( / ɡ ɛ ˈ n iː z ə / ; Hebrew : גניזה , lit. 'storage', also geniza ; plural: genizot [ h ] or genizahs ) is a storage area in a Jewish synagogue or cemetery designated for the temporary storage of worn-out Hebrew-language books and papers on religious topics prior to proper cemetery burial.
30-567: The word genizah comes from the Hebrew triconsonantal root g-n-z , which means "to hide" or "to put away", from Old Median *ganza- (“depository; treasure”). The derived noun meant 'hiding' and later a place where one put things, and is perhaps best translated as "archive" or "repository". Genizot are temporary repositories designated for the storage of worn-out Hebrew language books and papers on religious topics prior to proper cemetery burial, it being forbidden to throw away writings containing
60-492: A change in Proto-Semitic language structure concomitant with the transition to agriculture . In particular, monosyllabic biconsonantal names are associated with a pre- Natufian cultural background, i.e., older than c. 14500 BCE . As we have no texts from any Semitic language older than c. 3500 BCE , reconstructions of Proto-Semitic are inferred from these more recent Semitic texts. A quadriliteral
90-568: A large majority of these consonantal roots are triliterals (although there are a number of quadriliterals, and in some languages also biliterals). Such roots are also common in other Afroasiatic languages. While Berber mostly has triconsonantal roots, Chadic , Omotic , and Cushitic have mostly biconsonantal roots, and Egyptian shows a mix of biconsonantal and triconsonantal roots. A triliteral or triconsonantal root ( Hebrew : שורש תלת־עיצורי , šoreš təlat-ʻiṣuri ; Arabic : جذر ثلاثي , jiḏr ṯulāṯī ; Syriac : ܫܪܫܐ , šeršā )
120-591: A quadriliteral root is actually a reduplication of a two-consonant sequence. So in Hebrew דגדג digdeg / Arabic دغدغ daġdaġa means "he tickled", and in Arabic زلزل zalzala means "he shook". Generally, only a subset of the verb derivations formed from triliteral roots are allowed with quadriliteral roots. For example, in Hebrew, the Piʿel, Puʿal, and Hiṯpaʿel , and in Arabic, forms similar to
150-408: A sequence of consonants or " radicals " (hence the term consonantal root ). Such abstract consonantal roots are used in the formation of actual words by adding the vowels and non-root consonants (or " transfixes ") which go with a particular morphological category around the root consonants, in an appropriate way, generally following specific patterns. It is a peculiarity of Semitic linguistics that
180-507: A sequence of two consonants (a relaxation of the situation in early Semitic, where only one consonant was allowed), which has opened the door for a very small set of loan words to manifest apparent five root-consonant forms, such as טלגרף tilgref "he telegraphed". However, -lgr- always appears as an indivisible cluster in the derivation of this verb and so the five root-consonant forms do not display any fundamentally different morphological patterns from four root-consonant forms (and
210-407: A strong wind'. The conjugation of this small class of verb roots is explained by Wolf Leslau . Unlike the Hebrew examples, these roots conjugate in a manner more like regular verbs, producing no indivisible clusters. Jacob Saphir Jacob Saphir ( Hebrew : יעקב הלוי ספיר ; 1822–1886) was a 19th-century writer, ethnographer , researcher of Hebrew manuscripts, a traveler and emissary of
240-488: Is a consonantal root containing a sequence of four consonants (instead of three consonants , as is more often the case). A quadriliteral form is a word derived from such a four-consonant root. For example, the abstract quadriliteral root t-r-g-m / t-r-j-m gives rise to the verb forms תרגם tirgem in Hebrew, ترجم tarjama in Arabic, ተረጐመ täräggwämä in Amharic , all meaning "he translated". In some cases,
270-421: Is a literal translation of jiḏr . Although most roots in Hebrew seem to be triliteral, many of them were originally biliteral, cf. the relation between: The Hebrew root ש־ק־ף – √sh-q-p "look out/through" or "reflect" deriving from ק־ף – √q-p "bend, arch, lean towards" and similar verbs fit into the shaCCéC verb-pattern. This verb-pattern sh-C-C is usually causative , cf. There
300-755: Is a root containing a sequence of three consonants. The following are some of the forms which can be derived from the triconsonantal root k-t-b כ־ת־ב ك-ت-ب (general overall meaning "to write") in Hebrew and Arabic: Note: The Hebrew fricatives stemming from begadkefat lenition are transcribed here as "ḵ", "ṯ" and "ḇ", to retain their connection with the consonantal root כ־ת־ב k-t-b. They are pronounced [ x ] , [ θ ] , [ β ] in Biblical Hebrew and [ χ ] , [ t ] , [ v ] in Modern Hebrew respectively. Modern Hebrew has no gemination ; where there
330-680: Is associated with the far older practice of burying a great or good man with a sefer (either a book of the Tanakh , or the Mishnah , the Talmud , or any work of rabbinic literature ) which has become pasul (unfit for use through illegibility or old age). The tradition of paper-interment is known to have been practiced in Morocco , Algiers , Egypt , Yemen and Turkey . The Talmud (Tractate Shabbat 115a) directs that holy writings in other than
SECTION 10
#1732772215464360-668: Is debate about whether both biconsonantal and triconsonantal roots were represented in Proto-Afroasiatic , or whether one or the other of them was the original form of the Afroasiatic verb. According to one study of the Proto-Semitic lexicon, biconsonantal roots are more abundant for words denoting Stone Age materials, whereas materials discovered during the Neolithic are uniquely triconsonantal. This implies
390-539: The name of God . As even personal letters and legal contracts may open with an invocation of God, the contents of genizot have not been limited to religious materials; in practice, they have also contained writings of a secular nature, with or without the customary opening invocation, as well as writings in other Jewish languages that use the Hebrew alphabet (the Judeo-Arabic languages , Judeo-Persian , Judaeo-Spanish , and Yiddish ). Genizot are typically found in
420-650: The 19th century. These materials were important for reconstructing the religious, social and economic history of Jews, especially in the Middle Ages. For all practical purposes, the Dead Sea Scrolls , discovered between the years 1946 and 1956, belonged to a genizah. In 1927, a manuscript containing Nathan ben Abraham 's 11th-century Mishnah commentary was discovered in the genizah of the Jewish community of Sana'a , Yemen. Nathan had served as President of
450-663: The Academy under the revised Palestinian geonate , shortly before its demise in the early 12th century CE. In 2011, the so-called Afghan Geniza , an 11th-century collection of manuscript fragments in Hebrew, Aramaic, Judaeo-Arabic and Judeo-Persian, was found in Afghanistan, in caves used by the Taliban . In Germanic lands genizot have been preserved in buildings dating back to the early modern period and till today, dozens of genizot have been saved. Researchers began to study
480-505: The Hebrew language require genizah , that is, preservation. In Tractate Pesachim 118b, bet genizah is a treasury. In Pesachim 56a, Hezekiah hides ( ganaz ) a medical work; in Shabbat 115a, Gamaliel orders that the targum to the Book of Job should be hidden ( yigganez ) under the nidbak (layer of stones). In Shabbat 30b, there is a reference to those rabbis who sought to categorize
510-799: The attack by the Arabs of the Galilee on the Jews of Safed in the lunar month of Sivan , 1834. He moved to Jerusalem in 1836. In 1848, he was commissioned by the Jewish community of the latter city to travel through the southern countries to collect alms for the poor of Jerusalem. In 1854 he undertook a second tour to collect funds for the construction of the Hurva Synagogue in the Jewish Quarter , which led him in 1859 to Yemen , British India , Egypt , and Australia . The result of this journey
540-467: The attic or basement of a synagogue , but can also be in walls or buried underground. They may also be located in cemeteries. The contents of genizot are periodically gathered solemnly and then buried in the cemetery or bet ḥayyim . Synagogues in Jerusalem buried the contents of their genizot every seventh year, as well as during a year of drought, believing that this would bring rain. This custom
570-608: The books of Ecclesiastes and Proverbs as heretical ; this occurred before the canonization of the Hebrew Bible , when disputes flared over which books should be considered Biblical. The same thing occurs in Shabbat 13b in regard to the Book of Ezekiel , and in Pesachim 62 in regard to the Book of Genealogies ( Sefer Yochasin , a collection of tannaitic exegesis or midrash on the Book of Chronicles ). In medieval times, Hebrew scraps and papers that were relegated to
600-673: The genizah of the Old New Synagogue in Prague. By far, the best-known genizah, which is famous for both its size and spectacular contents, is the Cairo Geniza . Recognized for its importance and introduced to the Western world in 1864 by Jacob Saphir , and chiefly studied by Solomon Schechter , Jacob Mann and Shelomo Dov Goitein , the genizah had an accumulation of almost 280,000 Jewish manuscript fragments dating from 870 to
630-411: The genizah were known as shemot 'names', because their sanctity and consequent claim to preservation were held to depend on their containing the "names" of God . In addition to papers, articles connected with ritual, such as tzitzit , lulavim , and sprigs of myrtle, are similarly stored. According to folklore, these scraps were used to hide the famed Golem of Prague , whose body is claimed to lie in
SECTION 20
#1732772215464660-467: The material, soon realizing that these findings could provide insight into the life of Jewish rural communities from the 17th to 19th century. The Genisaprojekt Veitshöchheim [ de ] and other researchers are dealing with the inventory, the digitization and the publication of the finds. Semitic root The roots of verbs and most nouns in the Semitic languages are characterized as
690-482: The pattern and جذر jiḏr (plural جذور , juḏūr ) for the root have not gained the same currency in cross-linguistic Semitic scholarship as the Hebrew equivalents, and Western grammarians continue to use "stem"/"form"/"pattern" for the former and "root" for the latter—though "form" and "pattern" are accurate translations of the Arabic grammatical term wazan (originally meaning 'weight, measure'), and "root"
720-635: The rabbis of Eastern European Jewish descent who settled in Jerusalem during his early life. Saphir was born in Ashmyany in the Russian Empire (now Belarus ) and immigrated to Ottoman Palestine as a child with his family in 1832. His parents, who were from the Perushim community , settled in Safed . Within a year his father died and a month later his mother died. At the age of 12, he witnessed
750-648: The same root, means "number"; and מִסְפֶּר misper , from the secondary root מ-ס-פ-ר , means "numbered". An irregular quadriliteral verb made from a loanword is: A quinqueliteral is a consonantal root containing a sequence of five consonants. Traditionally, in Semitic languages, forms with more than four basic consonants (i.e. consonants not introduced by morphological inflection or derivation) were occasionally found in nouns, mainly in loanwords from other languages, but never in verbs. However, in modern Israeli Hebrew, syllables are allowed to begin with
780-422: The stem II and stem V forms of triliteral roots . Another set of quadriliteral roots in modern Hebrew is the set of secondary roots. A secondary root is a root derived from a word that was derived from another root. For example, the root מ-ס-פ-ר m-s-p-r is secondary to the root ס-פ-ר s-p-r . סָפַר saphar , from the root s-p-r , means "counted"; מִסְפָּר mispar , from
810-518: The term "quinqueliteral" or "quinquiliteral" would be misleading if it implied otherwise). Only a few Hebrew quinqueliterals are recognized by the Academy of the Hebrew Language as proper, or standard; the rest are considered slang. Other examples are: In Amharic , there is a very small set of verbs which are conjugated as quinqueliteral roots. One example is wäšänäffärä 'rain fell with
840-546: Was his momentous ethnographic work, entitled `Even Sapir , a travel diary and vignette of Jewish life and history in Yemen. Saphir published also Iggeret Teman (Wilna, 1868, consciously titled after Rambam 's letter of centuries earlier), a work on the appearance in Yemen of the pseudo-Messiah Judah ben Shalom , and which was largely responsible for ending Judah ben Shalom's career. Saphir died in Jerusalem in 1886. Saphir
870-616: Was historically gemination, they are reduced to single consonants, with consonants in the begadkefat remaining the same. In Hebrew grammatical terminology, the word binyan ( Hebrew : בניין , plural בניינים binyanim ) is used to refer to a verb derived stem or overall verb derivation pattern, while the word mishqal (or mishkal ) is used to refer to a noun derivation pattern , and these words have gained some use in English-language linguistic terminology. The Arabic terms, called وزن wazan (plural أوزان , awzān ) for
900-542: Was the first Jewish researcher to recognize the significance of the Cairo geniza , as well as the first to publicize the existence of the Midrash ha-Gadol , both later studied with great panache by Solomon Schechter . Sapir also did extensive research and writings on Yanover , Israeli and Greek etrogs . He dedicated a collection of poetry to Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore . In the years 1833–1885, Saphir helped print
#463536