Geonic Jurisprudence from the Cairo Genizah: An Appreciation of Early Scholarship

GEONICJURISPRUDENCEFROM THE CAIRO GENIZAH: AN APPRECIATIONOF EARLY SCHOLARSHIP1 BY NEIL DANZIG

David Kaufmann (1852-1899), one of the first scholars to purchase materialfrom the newly discovered Cairo Genizah,2 1 This paper was presented at the AAJR session in celebration of the centenaryof the discovery of the Cairo Genizah.I largely preservedthe form of the oral presentation,addingonly bibliographicreferences.(Referencesare to studies writtenin the English language,wheneverpossible; Hebrewstudies are cited either by Hebrew title in transliteration,or by English or Latin title, if provided.) The present essay is not intended to be a comprehensive examinationof the topic. While focusing on geonic literature,it also touches upon several other publications from the Genizah in the field of Rabbinic literature.For a more thoroughsurvey of the discovery of the Cairo Genizah, and the early publicationsof Rabbinicliteraturefrom its various collections, see Danzig, Catalogue, pp. 3-34. A list of abbreviationsof frequentlycited works appearsat the end of this essay. 2 The process of the "discovery"of the Genizah before the arrival of Solomon Schechter in Cairo in December of 1896 is described in various studies. See S.D. Goitein, A MediterraneanSociety, vol. 1 (Berkley and Los Angeles: Univ. of California Press, 1967), 1 ff.; S. Hopkins, "The Discovery of the Cairo Geniza,"BibliophiliaAfricana4 (1981), 137-181; C. Le Quesne, "The Geniza and the Scholarly Community,"Fortificationsand the Synagogue, ed. P. Lambert(London, 1994), pp. 237-241. See also R. Gottheil and W.H. Worrrell,Fragmentsfrom the Cairo Genizah in the Freer Collection (London, 1927), Introduction,p. xiii, n. 10. For an excellent summaryof the history of the Genizah, its discovery, and its contributionto various disciplines, see EJ, vol. 16, s.v. "Genizah,Cairo,"cols. 1333-1342. Acquisitions from the Genizah in the years preceding the formation of the famed Taylor-Schechtercollection are discussed in several sources, for example, E.N. Adler, "An Eleventh Century Introductionto the Hebrew Bible," JQR o.s. 9 (1897), 669-673; D.R. Smith, "GenizahCollections in the British

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predicted the importance the Genizah would forever have in Jewish studies. With the following aphorism penned in the spring of 1898, Kaufmannplaced Cambridge,which had just recently acquiredits famed collection of Genizah material, at the forefrontof all futureJudaic scholarship:3 n n, 11?33tn,l n a'ln Ptn ~n, nl rpo1-D'n nnrm/ ^l lrt nnr",n'T'l" fnnn ^so f: l3 ...lf: nmnl?r x5r :oNI D^rtulnnxKzp T3YSn3 fC nrtn ny3r x*?^fy 4.y^ir-nap nms hiyrmwnnmT 111OD1IX

While not speaking of geonic studies per se, Kaufmann's words certainly express the sea-change that occurred in the study of the literatureand history of the Babylonian ge'onim with the discovery of the Cairo Genizah.5 Before the Genizah, the relevant data was found in printed books and almost exclusively European manuscripts. The sine qua non was certainly the series of superb bio-bibliographical essays, "Toledot",by the traditionalistWissenschaft scholar Solomon Judah Loeb Rapaport [SHI"R] (1790-1867), such as that on

Library,"Hebrew Studies (The British Library, 1991), 20-25; S.C. Reif, HebrewManuscriptsat CambridgeUniversityLibrary(Cambridge,1997), p. 32; Danzig, Catalogue, 9-16. Despite efforts to locate genizot in other cities throughoutthe East, only the one in the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Old Cairo has afforded such spectacularresults. On these other genizot, see M. Cohen and Y. Stillman, "Genizat Qahir u-Minhagei Genizah shel Yehudei haMizrah,"Pe'amim 24 (1994), 3-35. 3 The variegated nature of material in the Genizah can best be seen by surveying the division of the Taylor-SchechterCollection (Old Series). See S. Reif, A Guide to the Taylor-SchechterCollection,Cambridge,1973 (reproduced in: EJ, vol. 16, p. 1334A); B. Richler, Guide to Hebrew Manuscript Collections (Jerusalem,1994), 217-227. See also below, n. 10. 4 D. Kaufmann,"'Or ha-Ganuz,"Ha-Shiloah2 (1898), 386. 5 The ge'onim headed the two academies in Babylonia that functionedas centers of talmudic scholarshipand legal authorityfor the RabbiniteJews of Iraq, and to varying degrees for a good part of the Diaspora, during the 7th-11th centuries;see now, Brody, Geonim.On the intellectualworld of the laterge'onim, see Sklare,SB"H.

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Sa'adya Gaon, published in 1828, on Hai Gaon in 1829, and on R. Hanan'el and R. Nissim Gaon in 1831.6 Despite our awe at how much data Rapaportcould amass in these studies, they pale in comparison with the information and new texts regarding the ge'onim that were to be found in the Genizah, especially historical data as well as works written in Judaeo-Arabic,the majority of which were never translated and never reached Europe.7 Rapaport,with all his acumen and skill, could only search in the cloudy

6

On Sa'adya, see Bikkureiha-lttim9 (1828), 20-37; on Hai, see ibid., 10 (1829), 79-95; and on R. Hanan'eland R. Nissim, see ibid., 12 (1831), 1-83. Rapaport's studies have been conveniently collected in Toledot, 2 vols., Warsaw, 1913 (the reprintis entitled Toledot Gedolei Yisra'el, Jerusalem, 1969). On Rapoport, see I.E. Barzilay, Shlomo Yehuda Rapaport [Shir] (1790-1867) and his Contemporaries,Tel Aviv, 1969 (these essays are discussed on pp. 36-41). On the importanceof Rapoport'sstudies in this area, see Cohen, "Reconstruction,"pp. 99-103; Schorsch, Text, 186. Rapaport's latercontributionsto geonic studiesare in KeremHemed,vol. 6 (1841), where he respondedat length to a critiqueby Zvi Hirsch Chajes, especially on the issue of the use of the JerusalemTalmudin early geonic codes (see Barzilay, 43, 94-98, with sources listed on 184, 199), and in his introductionto the volume of geonic responsa,TeshuvotGe'onim Qadmonim,publishedin 1848 by D. Cassel (see Barzilay,46, 200). A particularinterestin early geonic codes is demonstratedby several other mid-nineteenth-centuryWissenschaftscholars, including S.D. Luzzatto, Beit-ha-'Ozar (1846), 46b-56b; H. Graetz, MGWJ 7 (1858), 217-226; J. Reifmann, Qol Mevasser, Prague, 1859 (a prolegomenon to a planned "modem" edition of Halakhot Gedolot); and 'Arba'ahHarashim,Prague, 1860 (partof which is devoted to the She'iltot). None of these match Rapaport'sbreadthand understandingof the material. There were many importantstudies on, and texts of, the geonic period that were publishedin the last decades of the nineteenthcentury,beyond those of HarkavythatI mentionbelow. 7 From the tenth century and on, the legal monographsand much of the other literaturepenned by the ge'onim (excluding responsa and talmudic commentaries) were written primarily in Judaeo-Arabic.On this cultural phenomenon, see R. Drory, The Emergence of Jewish-Arabic Literary Contacts at the Beginning of the Tenth Century,Tel-Aviv, 1988 [Hebrew]. A general appreciationof the types of geonic literaturewritten in Judaeo-

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darkness of European traditions, far removed from the life and writings of the ge'onim and early rishonim (medieval Rabbinic authorities) of the East.8 The Genizah radically changed all that.9 With the newly acquired material at Cambridge and elsewhere, a full area of historical and literary inquiry was born.?1Many areas of Jewish Studies have benefitted from the contributions culled from the Genizah, and

Arabic and existing in Europe in medieval Hebrew translations,may be culledfromM. Steinschneider,Die hebraeischen,4Ubersetzungendes Mittelatters (vol 2, Berlin, 1893), 909-911, 932-933, 935. 8 "No less fertile was the scrutiny of well-mined traditionaltexts from the vantage point of new questions ... Rapaport's sparkling biographical essays of early medieval rabbinicluminariesdisplayed the awesome potential of the latter. In truth, much of the subsequent research into the biographies of mishnaic and medieval rabbis ...

rested ...

on little more

than poring over known traditionaltexts with new questions. Information is as much a function of interest as insight is of perspective" (Schorsch, Text, 181). 9 R. Nissim and R. Hanan'el were also subjects of modem studies by the late ShragaAbramson,whose work was largely built upon his findingsin the Genizah. See Sh. Abramson,R. Nissim Gaon: Libelli Quinque (Jerusalem, 1965 [Hebrew]);idem,PerushRabbenuHanan'el la-Talmud(Jerusalem,1995 [Hebrew]).On Abramson,see below at nn. 123-125. An earliercollection of sections of Nissim's Megiliat Setarim was preparedby S. Poznanski who, althoughhimself a scholarof the Genizah,did not rely in this case on Genizah material. See Ha-zofeh le-HokhmatYisra'el 5 (1921), 177-193, 294-301; 6 (1922), 329-350; 7 (1923), 17-46. 10 I believe that Ismar Schorsch's comments regarding the interest in Spanish Jewry among Wissenschaft scholars in the middle of the nineteenth century, apply as well to the ge'onim and "Eastern"Jewry of the Mediterraneanworld, thus laying the frameworkfor the eventual passion for discoveries from the Cairo Genizah. See Schorsch, Text, 82, 86-87, 186; cf. Barzilay, Shlomo YehudaRapaport, 52-53 for other suggestions about the reasonfor Rapaport'sinterestin the geonic period. See also Schorsch,op. cit., 171 on the expansion of the libraryof Jewish texts, including the Jerusalem Talmud, that were within the purview of literary creativity and scholarly interest,to which the Genizahmade importantcontributions.

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they continue to be nourished by the Genizah's riches.1 But no other area is so closely linked to the Genizah as that of the literatureand history of the Babyloniange'onim.12 It would be a considerable and tedious enterpriseto survey properly the vast contributions to geonic studies that derive from the Genizah, even if we limited the discussion to halakhah alone. Some of the major genres of post-talmudic legal texts published from the Genizah include several lost legal texts from Eretz Yisra'el, including the elusive Ma'asim Li-venai Eretz Yisra'el and other early compendia.13 Also 1 Published texts from the Genizah are listed throughout Sefer haMeqorot,2nd ed. (Jerusalem,1970). For a samplingof Genizahtexts published in recent years, see Encyclopaedia Judaica Decenniel Book, 1983-1992, 155-157. For items in all areas of the Taylor-Schechtercollection published through 1980, see Published Materialfrom the CambridgeGenizah Collections: A Bibliography,1896-1980, ed. S.C. Reif (Cambridge,1988). 12 "There is no exaggeration in maintaining that the discovery of the genizah by Prof. Solomon Schechter was in no other departmentso epochmaking as in the history of the geonim" (Ginzberg,Geonica, vol. 1, Preface, p. ix). But it only began with Schechterand Ginzberg,et al. An almost mindnumbing amount of information regarding all aspects of the Babylonian gaonate and the Easterncommunitiesof that period can be culled from Gil, In the Kingdom,where most of the informationis based upon data from the Genizah. The Genizah also provided importantinformationabout the all but forgotten gaonate in Eretz-Yisra'el.See M. Gil, Palestine During the First Muslim Period (634-1099), 3 vols. (Tel Aviv, 1983 [Hebrew]). The first volume appearedin an English translation:M. Gil, A History of Palestine, 634-1099, trans. E. Broido (Cambridge,1992). The Genizah is also a major sourceof informationaboutotherEasternJewish communities,e.g. Qayrawan. See M. Ben-Sasson, The Emergence of the Local Jewish Communityin the MuslimWorld:Qayrawan,800-1057 (Jerusalem,1996 [Hebrew]). 13 Publishedinitially by Lewin, Epstein and Mann, in Tarbiz, 1930-1931. See B.M. Bokser, "An AnnotatedBibliographicalGuide to the Study of the Palestinian Talmud,"Aufstieg und Niedergang der romischen Welt, 11/19.2 (Berlin, 1979) [= The Study of Ancient Judaism, ed. J. Neusner, New York 1981, vol. 2], 222-223; M.A. Friedman,"Hilkhot 'Ishut be-'Ikvot Sefer haMa'asim," Tarbiz 50 [Jubilee Volume] (1980), 209-242, with references to previous literature;idem, "Ma'aseh Gadol: Qeta' 'Hadash min ha-Ma'asim

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published were previously unknown She'iltot;14 fragments of the Aramaic original of Halakhot Pesuqot15 (all parts of early Eastern manuscripts, some as old as the tenth, or even ninth, centuriesl6); the Metivot (a ninth-centurycompendium based upon the Babylonian Talmud with portions from the Jerusalem Talmud and geonic decisions);l7 hundreds of unpublished geonic responsa;s1 and various other texts including the so-called Halakhot de-Rav Abba19 and Li-venaiEretz Yisra'el,"Tarbiz51 (1982), 193-205. The basic corpusof these texts was reprintedin a slim volume entitled Sefer ha-Ma'asim (Jerusalem, 1971), and now in Toratan,vol. 3. 14 The majorwork in recoveringlost She'iltot remainsthe importantseries by J.N. Epstein, "SerideiShe'iltot," most of which was based upon Genizah material. See Tarbiz 6 (1934-35), 460-497; ibid., 7 (1935-36), 1-30; ibid., 8 (1936-37), 5-54; ibid., 10 (1938-39), 283-308; ibid., 13 (1941-42), 25-36 [ = idem, Studies, 378-537]. Similartexts have been publishedelsewhere, for example: Ginzberg, Geonica, 2:353-381; B.M. Lewin, "Le-heqerShe'iltot Rav 'Ahai Gaon," in Judische Studien Josef Wohlgemuth(Frankfurtam Main, 1928), Hebrew section, 32-39. On Genizah texts of the She'iltot, see also, Abramson, 'Inyanot, 319-389; R. Brody, The Textual History of the She'iltot (New York and Jerusalem,1991), 94-103, 134-158 [Hebrew].S.K. Mirsky intendedto edit an entire volume of these She'iltot from the Genizah, but the plan never came to fruition. 15 S. Poznanski, "L'Originalarameen des Halachot Pesoukot," REJ 36 (1912), 232-244; Danzig, MLHP,77-82, et passim. 16 On the approximatedating of fragmentsof Halakhot Pesuqot from the Genizah, see Danzig, MLHP, 82-83, 707. Regardingthe paleographicconsiderationsof Genizah fragments,see M. Beit-Arie, "The Paleographyof the Geniza LiteraryFragments,"Cairo Geniza Studies, 193-200; Danzig, Catalogue, 5, 31-33. 17 B.M. Lewin, Methiboth (Jerusalem, 1933 [Hebrew]). Cf. A. Marx, "Studiesin Gaonic History,III:The SeferMetibot,"JQRo.s. 1 (1889), 86-99; N. Danzig, "The First Discovered Leaves of Sefer Hefes," JQR 82 (1991), 51-136 and JQR, 83 (1992), pp. 179-180. 18 Regardinggeonic responsa,see below on the contributionsof Assaf and Lewin, et al. 19 S. Schechter, "Halakhotal Seder ha-Parshiyyot,"Festchriftzum Siebezigsten Geburtstage David Hoffnann's (Berlin, 1914), Hebrew section, 261-266; J.N. Epstein, "Halakhot de-Rav Abba," Mada'ei ha-Yahadut 2 (1927) [repr.,Jerusalem,1970], 149-161 [= Studies,pp. 555-567].

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Pirkoi ben Baboi.20 We may also include parts of talmudic commentaries (predominantlyby Hai)21 and dozens of legal monographs and other works written in Judaeo-Arabic by Sa'adya,22Samuel ben Hofni23and Hai.24Many of these were not available to the rabbis of medieval Europe and were virtually unknown outside of the Genizah.25These are the socalled "attributed"literaryworks (those which containeda title or have been identified based upon their content). To these we may add hundredsof importantbut unnamedlegal texts of the period as well as many ephemera, including scores of important letters and documents that illuminate the history of the gaonate, both in Babylonia and in Eretz Yisra'el. 20 The fragmentsof which were published originally by Harkavy,Mann, Lewin and Ginzberg. These texts were later re-edited by Ginzberg and published in Ginzei Schechter, 2:139-147, 544-573, 638-639. See also, S. Spiegel, "Le-Parashatha-Polmus shel Pirqoi ben Baboi," in Harry Austryn WolfsonJubilee Volume(Jerusalem,1965), Hebrew volume, 243-274, with referencesto previousliterature. 21 A listing of Hai's commentarieson the Talmud,including publications from the Genizah,appearsin T. Groner,A List of Hai Gaon's Responsa,Alei Sefer 13 (1986), 92 ff. [Hebrew]. 22 H. Malter,Saadia Gaon: His Life and Work(Philadelphia,1921), with detailed bibliography;supplementalbibliographythrough 1943 by Y. Werfel (= Raphael), Rav Sa'adya Gaon: Qovez Torani-Madda'i, ed. J.L. Fishman (Jerusalem, 1943), 644-657. See also, Gil, In the Kingdom, 1:343-354. A comprehensive modem bibliography on Sa'adya is being preparedin Jerusalem.On legal monographsof these ge'onim, see Brody, Geonim,249 ff. 23 Recentbibliographiesare Sklare,SBH,pp. 11-36 (includingunpublished texts, and works known from booklists, etc.); Gil, In the Kingdom, 1:355-368. 24 Hai's legal works are listed by Groner,A List of Hai Gaon's Responsa, 91-92; idem, Hai Gaon, 13-14. On Sherira and Hai, see now Gil, In the Kingdom, 2:378-400. Relatively few of Hai's legal works remain to be published from the Genizah, primarilydue to the difficulty in identifying an untitled work as Hai's as opposed to other authors (including Samuel ben Hofni) who often wrote on the same topics. 25 See above, n. 7.

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A thorough bibliographical account of these early medieval legal texts from the Genizah is beyond the scope of this paper. To determinethe Genizah's contributionto the field of "geonica", one would have to first establish a list of all texts known prior to the discovery of the Genizah and those which were known at one time (for example, those quoted by medieval rabbis) but are no longer extant, and then assess to what degree the Genizah has allowed us to retrieve lost texts and to discover new ones.26 This accounting would also have to include all published texts from the Genizah, including what is presently forthcoming. This applies especially to works by Sa'adya and Samuel ben Hofni written in Judaeo-Arabic,in anticipation of what we hope to retrieve from the immense riches of Russian Genizah material now accessible on microfilm in Jerusalem.27The Genizah also demonstratesthe wide circulation and intensive use of Rabbinic texts, including the writings of the Babylonian ge'onim, since only well-worn

26 An invaluable aid in finding geonic responsa in the previously printed collections of these texts, as well as traditionsof such as known to medieval rabbis is J. Muller, Einleitung in die Responsen der BabylonischenGeonen (Berlin, 1891 [Hebrew]). A descriptive list of printed collections of geonic responsa,includingthose publishedfrom Genizahmaterial,appearsin Groner, Hai Gaon, 173-187. The manuscriptsources of several of these collections (outsidethe Genizahmaterial)aredescribedby E. Hildesheimer,"Die Komposition der Sammlungenvon Responsen der Gaonen,"Judische StudienJosef Wohlgemuth(Frankfurtam Main, 1928), 177-272. A diferent type of listing culled from several medieval authors is appended to Ginzberg, Geonica, 1:187-199. 27 A sample of this material(specifically Karaitica)may now be found in D. Sklare, Judaeo-Arabic Manuscripts in the Firkovitch Collections: The Worksof Yusufal-Basir (Jerusalem,1997 [Hebrew]).Unpublishedworks of Samuel Ben Hofni, located in several Russian manuscripts,are mentionedin Sklare'sbibliography,above n. 23. See also, P.B. Fenton,A Handlistof JudeoArabic Manuscriptsin Leningrad(Jerusalem,1991 [Hebrew]),for an initial listing of partof the Firkovitchcollection.

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items were discarded therein.28This itself stands as important evidence of geonic influence in communities outside of iraq.29

I relinquish the task of enumerating the contributions the Genizah has made to geonic halakhah. One need only to take in hand Prof. Shraga Abramson's book, 'Inyanot beSifrut ha-Ge'onim, and the vastness of this enterpriseis made apparent.30I indeed take this opportunity at the outset to express my debt to the late Professor Abramson (19161997), n:'n 1inl:T, who revolutionized geonic studies.31 I will just mention some of the major publications in the field since the early days of the Genizah. These appearedin two major waves: the first, from the discovery of the Genizah until World War I: and the second, between the two world wars. My intention, however, is not to provide information of the kind that is known to us and available in standardbibliographies. One could profit more by perusing the recent compilation Toratan shel Ge'onim in seven volumes, in which many Genizah texts have been reproduced.32 A more sophisticated and thoughtful appreciation 28 Thus the Genizahis neitheran "archive"nor a library.On the intensive

use of Jewish manuscriptsduringthe medievalperiod, see Danzig, Catalogue, p. 7, n. 6*, and the literaturecited therein. It is a misconceptionto consider the Genizahas a repositoryfor the volumes containedin the synagoguelibrary alone, since wide use is made of any such Genizah by membersof the local Jewish community, contra H.Y. Gamble, Books and Readers in the Early Church(New Haven and London, 1995), 191-192. 29 The religious influence of the ge'onim, in and out of their designated geographical"spheresof influence"(reshuyot),has been the subjectof several studies. See now, Brody, Geonim, chaps. 3-8, et passim, and especially Gil, In the Kingdom, 1:149 ff. Aspects of the issue are also dealt with in my forthcoming book, Yahasei Erez Yisra'el, Bavel u-TefuzotBe-Tequfat haGe 'onim. 30 See list of abbreviations. 31 See Below. 32 Toratan

(see list of abbreviations);note also the brief bibliography included in Toratan, 1:43-51. Similarly,the bibliographiesof "GeonicLiter-

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of geonic literature and history, written in a superbly detailed style, can be found in Gerson Cohen's essay, "The Reconstruction of Gaonic History," published in 1972 as the introduction to the Ktav reprint of Jacob Mann's Texts and Studies (now republished in Cohen's collected Studies in the Variety of Rabbinic Cultures).33Cohen's broad and substantive review of scholarship puts modem "geonica" into the perspective of the relationship between texts, biography and history, as well as pre- and post-Genizah research. In terms of geonic history, it leaves little besides bibliographicreferences to be improvedupon. My intention, however, is to celebrate the work of the scholars themselves who published in this field with our *mtin r deepest gratitude (1i 1Xxannm i trnl oiK,rran ,w "?'T1':T;34) and to tell a bit about their individual proclivi-

ties and styles. It is my hope that, in the process, I might encourage a modest appreciation of their efforts. Many of these items were published by scholars who dedicated themselves to other pursuits as well, geonica being then more like an amusing hobby rather than a primary focus for many schulars. The variegated nature of the Genizah itself, which produced important finds in so many areas, certainly did not allow for geonica to be a scholars primary field of research. It was not until the second wave of geonic scholarship that the field coalesced into an independent and clearly defined discipline.35 Thus, the following discussion

ature"in the yearbooksupplementsto EJ are rich in publicationsof Genizah material.See EJ 1986-87 Yearbook,241; 1988-89 Yearbook,268; 1990-91 Yearbook,244-245; EJ Decenniel Book, 1983-1992, 157-160. 33 See list of abbreviations. 34 BT Horayot 14a. 35 G. Cohen aptly summarized the maturation of geonic studies: "... the changeshad come aboutthroughmethodical,painstakingresearchand synthesis by specialists and professionals ... the passing of the age of the

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focuses on scholars who not only contributedto the field of geonica, but defined the very field itself. Their names appear on dozens of seminal publications that form the basic corpus of works that are consistently consulted. Modem scholarship on the Babylonian ge'onim actually begins some twenty years before the so-called "discovery"of the Cairo Genizah, with the early works of Abraham Elijah (Albert) Harkavy (1835-1919).36 Harkavy's publications during his tenure as librarian of the Jewish division of the ImperialLibraryin St. Petersburg,mark a turningpoint in the study of geonic literature. While his work is easily comparable to the highquality efforts of Rapaport, Harkavy is the first scholar to punctuate his studies with information taken from the Genizah, even if much of his data is from Firkovitch manuscripts, the majority of which were written in Judaeo-Arabic and apparently did not come from the Ben-Ezra Genizah but from Karaite and other genizot (this is the so-called "Second" Firkovitch collection, which was sold to that library in 1864).37 An account of Firkovitch's 1864 trip to amateurbibliophile as torchbearerin this field of scholarship.The yield of the Geniza, and of course of the scholarshipthat had precededits discovery, had converted the Gaonic age from an unexploredwilderness into a jigsaw puzzle for which the missing pieces, the generalcharacterof which could now often be surmised,had to be locatedand into which they hadto be fitted.Every new scrap of informationnow had to be coordinatedwith the received body of knowledge, and the latter refined and reinterpretedin the light of the former."("Reconstruction,"125). 36 Harkavypublishedmany studies in differentfields, most of which were based upon manuscriptmaterialin St. Petersburg.See D. Maggid, "Reshimat sifrei A.A. Harkavyu-Ma'amarav,"in Festschriftzu Ehrendes Dr. A. Harkavy [Hebrew title: Zikaron le-Avraham Eliyahu], eds. D. Gunzberg and I.D. Markon(St. Petersburg,1908), Hebrewsection, ix-lii. 37 On the manuscript collections assembled by Abraham Firkovitch (1786-1874), the famous (notorious?) Karaite scholar, see M. Beit-Arie,

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Egypt and Israel, and a list of manuscripts that he bought, are found in his recently located diaries and letters, which have recently been located. This material was examined by Tapani Harvianen of Helsinki and Menahem Ben-Sasson of Jerusalem, and has been found to contain important evidence that will help to determine the provenance of that collection.38 In the Judische Literaturblattof 1877 and 1878, Harkavy described in great detail a single Firkovitch manuscript that contained three unpublished works of Samuel ben Hofni: books on the laws of ;i;it, bagrut, and mazranut.39(It is sad to note that due to various circumstances one hundred and twenty years later, only one of the three, that on ;izit, has been published from this manuscript.)40This announcement was followed with Harkavy's masterful essay on Samuel ben Hofni in "Me'assef Nidahim," one of his famed series of textual studies, this one published in installments

"'Osfei Kitvei Hayad ha-Ivri'im be-Leningrad...,"Mada'ei ha-Yahadut31 (1991), 33-46; M. Ben-Sasson, "Li-she'elat Makor ha-'Osef ha-Sheni shel Firkovitch...," Mada'ei ha-Yahadut31 (1991), 47-60. 38 T. Harvianen, "The Cairo Genizot and Other Sources of the Second Firkovich Collection in St. Petersburg,"Proceedings of the Twelfth International Congress of the InternationalOrganizationfor Masoretic Studies 8 (1995), 25-36. I have been informed that Prof. Ben-Sasson's study on this topic is forthcomingin Pe'amim. 39 Judische Literaturblatt6 (1877), 107, 111-112, 116; op. cit., 7 (1878), 2-3, 11, 15, 35, 43-44, 51-52. The colophon, owner's mark and dedication that appearin this manuscriptattest to an interestinghistory, as at one point it was donated to a Karaite synagogue (these appear in the beginning of Harkavy's study). Thus its provenanceis not the Ben-Ezra Synagogue, but a KaraiteGenizah. 40 E. Tebager, Kelil Tekhelet(Jerusalem, 1992), [217] ff. The two other works containedin this manuscriptare being edited by various scholars.The work on bagrut has alreadybeen submittedfor publication.See Sklare,SBH, p. 19, n. 69. Samuel ben Hofni wrote approximatelyfifty such halakhic monographs.

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in Ha-meliz of 1879. This was followed by the 1880 reissue of the entire study in another series, Zikhronle-Rishonim vegam la-Aharonim.41 In 1883 Harkavy described a large Firkovitch manuscript containing geonic responsa; as the second in his series Zikhron le-Rishonim, he published an entire volume containing this material in 1887.42 In this publication he included the texts of four separatemanuscriptsof geonic responsa (including some responsa by R. Isaac aI-Fasi). The largest comprised 253 pages and was written in an Eastern hand of the late 11th to the early 12th centuries.43These were the first geonic responsa ever printed to have come directly from an early Eastern source. Many of the questions appeared in a less abbreviated form, and in some cases they contained the greetings and blessings that the ge'onim included in their responsa. The responsa are preserved in a purer, original Aramaic dialect, with occasional supralinear Babylonian vocalization. There is also evidence that the scribe attempted to record the identities of the original fascicles ("quntresim") of the responsa as they were sent by the ge'onim and as they were copied along the route to their recipients. Harkavy may " have exaggerated in his claim that: Ki ni'ni nm nln' 'm rwK9INKZ '131V^ 11r V Mmn=n l PInynW nmlly U pt:3'm1K3n K; but these texts, primarily by Sherira and Hai,

44"n':rny

41 Ha-meliz 14 (1879) et seq.; Zikhron le-Rishonim, vol. 1, no. 3 (St. Petersburg, 1880). both studies appear in the reprint Me-assef Nidahim (Jerusalem:Qedem, 1970). 42 StudienundMittheilungenaus der KaiserlichenOeffentlichenBibliothek zu St. Petersburg, Vol. 4 (Berlin, 1887 [Hebrew]). The earlier description: MGWJ32 (1883), 183-190, 373-378. 43 That is an estimate based upon my examinationof the manuscripton microfilm;the manuscripttoday carriesthe numberFirkovitchHeb. II.A.32. 44 Op. cit., introduction,viii. Regardingthe exaggerationof this claim, see Groner,Hai Gaon, 179-181. On the natureof the original fascicles of such responsa,see ibid., 119-124.

14

[14] nevertheless are the best examples of geonic responsa outside the Cairo Genizah, and they anticipate the finds from the Ben-Ezra synagogue. In a quickperusalof Harkavy's essays publishedfromthe late 1880's through1909 in yet anotherseries spreadamong various journals and Festschriften(.HadashimGam Yeshanim),we find references to an almost endless list of tantalizing manuscripts of geonica from the Firkovitch and Antonin collections. This material was lost and little-known before Harkavy's discoveries. Harkavy mentions, describes, and in some cases publishes the texts of many works that he identified in St. Petersburg, among which are: Hai Gaon's Book of Deeds, Anan's Book of Commandments,a fragment of the above-mentioned Pirqoi hen Baboi (which he assumed to be geonic responsa), Samuel ben Hofni's Book of Commandments,Saadya's Laws of Slaughtering,and much more.45Harkavyenjoyed a virtual monopoly over this material and published several important works in areas other than halakhah,such as 0 t,5',mt'nla;r" "51rin 1o1

NEIL DANZIG

'lniiX

(1891), in anticipation of what was then

thoughtbe the one-thousandthanniversaryof Saadya's birth.46 45 These are interspersedamong the various installments in that series,

collected and reprinted by Qedem Publishing, Jerusalem, 1970. Harkavy published the fragments of Anan's Book of Commandments,together with additionalmaterial,as an addendumto Pinsker's LikkuteiQadmoniyyot.See Studien und Mittheilungen,Achter Theil (St. Petersburg, 1903; repr., Jerusalem: Maqor, 1968). The reprint begins with a text added by Harkavy's nephew; cf. JQR 66 (1975), 109-119, and N. Allony's scathing remarksin Areshet 6 (1980), 21-23. Harkavy'searlier studies on Anan were also based upon his Genizah finds. See, for example, JJGL 2 (1899), 107-122. S. Poznanski also wrote a biography and analysis of Anan's legal code at the same time thatHarkavypublishedon this topic, but before the full publication of the latter's Genizah material.See S. Poznanski,"Ananet ses ecrits,"REJ 44 (1902), 161-187; ibid., 45 (1902), 50-69, 176-203. On Schechter's publicationfrom Anan's book, see below, n. 61. 46 Zikhronle-Rishonim,vol. 5, no. 1 (St. Petersburg,1891; the imprimatur of Hevrat Mekizei Nirdamimhas the book printedin Berlin). Regardingthe correctyear of Sa'adya's birth,see Malter,Saadia Gaon, 421-428.

FROMTHECAIROGENIZAH 15 GEONIC JURISPRUDENCE [15] I could devote a lecture to Harkavy alone, but I should move on to the Ben-Ezra Genizah, and Solomon Schechter (1847-1915).47 Even prior to his publication of several geonic texts, Schechter had already made a name for himself and for the Cairo Genizah with some of the earliest publicationsof Rabbinica from the Genizah. These included a text of Tractate Keritotfiom the BabylonianTalmudand partof Berakhotfrom the JerusalemTalmud, which he published in 1896 from items in the Cairo Genizah that were purchased by the Bodleian library before Schechter's own trip to Cairo.48 Since Schechterwas an expertin midrash,he publishedseveral pages from such unknown midrashim as Sifre Zuta in the Jewish Quarterly Review as early as 1894, and then later from the Mekhilta de-Rashbi and the Mekhilta to Deuteronomy, in

1904.49

47 Basic biographicaland bibliographicinformationcan be found in C.

Adler, "Solomon Schechter:A BiographicalSketch," The American Jewish YearBook, 5677 (Philadelphia,1916), 25-67; Bentwich,Schechter;A.S. Oko, SolomonSchechter:A Bibliography(Cambridge,1938). See also Reifs essay cited below, n. 81, and M. Scult, "Schechter'sSeminary,"TraditionRenewed: A History of the Jewish Theological Seminary, vol. 1, ed. J. Wertheimer(New York, 1997), 45-102. 48 S. Schechter and S. Singer, Talmudical Fragments in the Bodleian Library (Cambridge,1896). The manuscriptof Keritot contains a colophon that atteststo a date of 1123. Schechterclaimed thatthis was the oldest extant dated manuscriptof the Talmud(see his introduction,p. 5), butcf. Y. Sussman, Cairo Geniza Studies, 26-27. On the JerusalemTalmud fragment,cf. idem, "Ketav-yad Leiden shel ha-Yerushalmi:Lefanav u-Le'aharav," Bar-llan 26-27 (1995), 208 (the reference to Schechter [ibid., n. 18] should read 261-262). Interest in manuscriptsof the JerusalemTalmud was one of the markersof Wissenschaft scholarshipin Rabbinics. See now I. Gafni, "Bein Bavel le-Erez Yisrael...,"Zion 62 (1997), 213-242. Their interestwas piqued especially in findingthe "lost"sections. See Y. Sussman, "PirqeiYerushalmi," MehqereiTalmud2 (1993), 222, n. 8. See also above, n. 10. 49 Sifre zuta - JQR o.s. 6 (1894), 656-663; the Mekhiltas - ibid., 16 (1904), 443-452, 695-699.

16

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[16]

Although Schechter had already published almost all of its contents in installments in the Jewish Quarterly Review, his book Saadyana (Cambridge, 1903) endures as his greatest contributionto geonic studies. Less than half of the volume is actually devoted to Sa'adya and contains fragments of several of his works, including those on the calendar, polemics, legal tracts, responsa and the like; the longest of the other works is "Megillat Evyatar."50 In any event, it is a classic example of the type of material that a keen eye could find in the early days of Genizah research.51 Schechter entrusted many other items of geonic halakhah to Hartwig Hirschfeld, who worked in Cambridge,to classify the materialwrittenin Judaeo-Arabic.Under Schechter's watchful eye, Hirschfeld separated many of the Judaeo-Arabic fragments into boxes and published many of the items in a series he titled "The Arabic Portion of the Cairo Genizah at Cambridge." He published, for example, parts of Maimonides' autographof Dalalat al-Hairin (MorehNevukhim)and several importantworks by Sa'adya.52

50

Megillat Evyatarwas republishedby M. Gil, Palestine During the First MuslimPeriod, vol. 3, 391-413. 51 Schechterhad selected these items duringhis initial examinationof the materialhe broughtback to Cambridge.Thus many of these fragmentswere publishedbefore the libraryassigned them shelfmarks(see "Correctionsand Additions"at the beginning of the volume). Saadyana indeed set a standard for discovery in the Genizah (see Ginzberg, Geonica, vol. 1, Preface, p. ix), although at times it is sparse in annotation and historical orientation and several items are excerptedout of context. Apparentlythe publicationof the materialwas done in haste. The bulk of S. Poznanski's review of the book is devoted to a full annotatedindex of personal names that appear in the fragments (Schechter provided no indices at all for the volume). See ZfHB 7 (1903), 107-113, 142-147, 178-187. Schechter later thanked him. See Ya'ari, 'Igrot,45. 52 See I. Berger, Analytical Index to The Jewish Quarterly Review 1889-1908 (New York, 1966), 43. On Hirschfeld's work at Cambridge,see Reif, "Hundred,"11-12.

[ 17]

FROMTHECAIROGENIZAH JURISPRUDENCE GEONIC

17

It is importantto note that Schechter dedicated Saadyana "To my master Lector M. Friedmannof Vienna ... in gratitude and admiration"(Meir Friedmann [Ish-Shalom], 18311908). Schechter greatly admired Friedmann, his teacher at the Bet Ha-midrash in Vienna between 1875 and 1879.53 But the dedication of a volume of geonica to him may nevertheless seem a bit incongruous, as Friedmann had nothing at all to do with geonic studies, let alone with the Cairo Genizah. However, Schechter also dedicated his volume of Talmud in 1896 to Isaac Hirsch Weiss (1815-1905), another of his teachers in Vienna. His connection to Israel Lewy (1841-1917), Schechter's teacher at the Hochschule fur die Wissenschaft des Juden-thums in Berlin, to whom he passed fragments of Yerushalmi for Lewy's use in his commentary on Bava Qamma, and David Tzvi Hoffmann (1843-1921), to whom he gave the remainder of his fragments of Mekhilta de-Rashbi,54 attest to Schechter's allegiance, if not devotion, to the scions of traditionalist modem talmudicscholarshipof his day. Schechteralso laid the groundwork for what he believed to be one of the basic

53 See Schechter's memorial lecture in SeminaryAddresses and Other Papers, 2nd ed. (New York, 1959), 135-143. On Friedmannand Weiss, see also, Bentwich, Schechter,36-40. 54 I. Seminars(Breslau,1895), Levy, Jahrsberichtdesjudisch-theologischen p. 20, n. 1 (reprintedat the end of Mavo u-Ferushle-TalmudYerushalmiBava Qamma Peraqim 1-6, Jerusalem: Qedem, 1970); cf. Y. Sussman, Cairo Geniza Studies, 23; D.Z Hoffmann, Mechilta de-Rabbi Simon b. Jochai (Frankfurtam Main, 1905), Introduction,ix [Hebrew].On both of these, see Danzig, Catalogue,p. 22, nn. 62, 64. RegardingLewy's seminalcontributions to talmudicscholarship,see E.E. Urbach'sappreciationof Z. Frankel,I. Lewy and S. Horovitz in Das Breslauer Seminar, ed. G. Kisch (Tubingen, 1963), 177-182. The connectionbetween Schechterand Lewy was also highlighted by Prof. Y. Sussmanin a lectureon Schechterat the Twelfth WorldCongress of Jewish Studiesheld in Jerusalemin August, 1997. See also M. Kister,Avoth de-Rabbi Nathan: Solomon Schechter Edition (New York and Jerusalem, 1997), Introduction,p. 14 [Hebrew].

18

NEILDANZIG

[18]

goals of Genizah research - to assist scholars in producing critical editions of basic Rabbinictexts, primarilyhalakhic and aggadic midrashim.The work on such editions was the common threadbetween Friedmann,Weiss, Lewy, Hoffmann, and Schechter himself.55In Genizah studies, however, the tedium of producing critical editions of known texts always took a back-seat to the quick publication of "unknown"works. The publication of these new discoveries was deemed, perhaps rightly so, to be of greater importance than that of common texts. Schechter may also have felt somewhat guilty about abandoning his great midrashic projects at the expense of toying with his new fangled Genizah. In any case, after his arrivalin New York, he was too busy to work consistently on any of these projects. Schechter was an extremely astute evaluatorof the Genizah material that passed through his hands, as evidenced by the publication of, from among thousands of Genizah letters in Cambridge,a letter written by R. Hushiel from Qayrawan,in which Hushiel's voluntary departure from Egypt is clearly indicated. This letter undermines Ibn Daud's famed story of the "Four Captives." Schechter quickly published his find in the Jewish QuarterlyReview of 1899.56 55 FriedmannSifrei (Vienna, 1864); Mekhilta(Vienna, 1870); Pesiqta Rabbati(Vienna, 1880); Tannade-vei Eliyahu (Vienna, 1902); TalmudBavli: MassekhetMakkot(Vienna, 1888). Weiss - Sifra (Vienna, 1862); Mekhilta (Vienna, 1865). Hoffmann- Mekhiltade-Rashbi (see previous note); Midrash Tannaimzum Deuteronomium(Berlin, 1900, 1909); Midrasch ha-gadol zum Buche Exodus (Berlin, 1914, 1921); Schechter- Avot de-RabbiNathan (Vienna, 1887); Aggadat Shir Ha-Shirim (Cambridge, 1896); Midrash haGadol ... Sefer Bereishit (Cambridge,1902). Schechterbemoanedthe lack of public supportfor preparingcritical editions. See Studies in Judaism, First series (Cambridge,1896), 257. On his approachto editing rabbinictexts, see now Kister'sintroductionto Avothde-RabbiNathan cited above. 56 S. Schechter, "Geniza specimens: A letter of Chushiel,"JQR o.s. 11 (1899), 643-650. Cf. G. Cohen, "The Story of the Four Captives,"Studies, p. 163. Modem scholarshave neverthelessattemptedto corroborateIbnDaud's

[19]

GEONIC JURISPRUDENCE FROMTHECAIROGENIZAH

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Schechterpublished very few of the 150,000 fragmentsthat he uncovered in Cairo and shipped to Cambridge.57Nevertheless, after reading Schechter's published and unpublished writings. I do not believe that he harbored any resentment about this.58 Schechter was a man of great humor, and was happy that the material was being published, whether by him or someone else. Schechter seems to have very carefully selected the material that he published himself, with the specific goal of overturningseveral deeply rooted assumptions about medieval Jewry. So, wrote Gerson Cohen in context of the Hushiel letter: Above all, the letter raised the possibility that a thorough examination of the Geniza would open up totally unanticipatedvistas of Jewish history. Schechterhimself seemed to take special delight in confirming this suspicion by planting periodic bombshells in The Jewish Quarterly Review. Two years after his publication of Hushiel's letter, he issued the text of "The Oldest Collection of Bible Difficulties, by a Jew", which he aptly described as "one of the most puzzling" of all the riddles

story. See Cohen, ibid., p. 191, n. 72 (to which we may add Sh. Abramson, Perush RabbenuHanan'el, 15-21). Schechterworked on a longer investigation of this topic (Ya'ari, 'Igrot, 14), but it never appearedin print. 57 S.C. Reif has written several interesting studies that relate to various aspects of Schechter's years at Cambridge as well as to the sorting and processing of the Taylor-Schechtercollection. See Reif, "Hundred,"with referencesto previousliterature. 58 The physical enormity of the Genizah lay at the root of Schechter's self-fulfilling prophecy, written already in 1898: "I cannot overcome a sad feeling stealing over me, that I shall hardly be worthy to see all the results which the Genizah will add to our knowledge of Jews and Judaism"(Studies in Judaism [below, n. 66], 29). These words were written as an honest assessment of the awesome potentialof the Genizah, not as an early apology for subsequent career choices that took him away from Genizah research. Schechter never published the some 250 items that he took on loan from Cambridge, some of which were later included in Ginzei Schechter, see below, n. 75.

20

[20] the Geniza offers. Several months later, he initiated a series entitled "Saadyana",which not only retrieved new materials from Saadiah Gaon's stormy career, but even more significantly shed new light on the history of the NEIL DANZIG

Palestinian academy .... Thus, not only individuals were

beginning to emerge from oblivion but whole communities, not the least significantof which was the one in the Holy Land itself.59 In this vein, I cannot resist sharing with you the words Schechter used to describe the items that would later become Documents of Jewish Sectaries, printed in Cambridge in 1910.60This volume contained fragments of a text that would eventually become known as the Damascus Covenant, as well as parts of Anan's Book of Commandments. In a letter to Judge Meyer Sulzburger, dated Nov. 5, 1901, Schechter wrote: Did I tell you that I have discovered large Fragments [of] Anan's (the founder of the Karatic [sic] sect) nllrtn'i o? It reads absolutely like xni:. P[lease] G[od] I intend to edit one day a volume of fragments forming my Heretics gallery which will surprise the world. By now I am keeping back the best things for America as I think such publicationwill give the Seminarya certainprestige.61

59 Cohen, "Reconstruction,"116. 60 The volume of sectariantexts was to have appearedin 1902 (duringthe same period that Poznanski and Harkavy worked in this area), but its publicationwas delayed for eight years due to Schechter'sdeparturefor New York in the Spring of 1902, and because of Harkavy'spublicationof similar texts. See Ya'ari, 'Igrot, 10, 28, 36-37, 40, 45-46, 49-50. PerhapsSchechter intendedto save this for when he would be Presidentof the Jewish Theological Seminary;see below. 61 M. Ben-Horin,"SolomonSchechterto JudgeMayerSulzberger,"Jewish Social Studies 25 (1963), 285. On the title page of this book Schechter is identifiedas "Presidentof the JewishTheologicalSeminaryof Americain New York."

[21]

FROMTHECAIROGENIZAH GEONIC JURISPRUDENCE

21

That volume did "surprisethe world," more than with Anan's book as with the strange text that was to be discovered fifty years later at Qumran.62It was this glee in finding the new and unusual that epitomized Schechter's involvement in the Genizah, from his first glimpse at the now famous Ben Sira fragment belonging to Lewis and Gibson, through the last items that he published in New York.63 Schechter was also, in some sense, a "discoverer"of the Genizah. As I have already hinted, some of the collections of Genizah materialhave major peculiarities (such as the second Firkovitch collection) or distinctive features (such as the Mosseri collection - ? nrrnnTxnn? Krinn;1ifn K).64 It is eminently clear that the Cairo Genizah was not a sealed and contained source; various materials were circulating and bought at different times from dealers throughoutthe Middle East.65Several locations outside the actual Genizah chamber

62

Regarding the "Zadokite Fragment",as Schechter called it, see L. Schiffman'scontributionto this volume, 146-155. Otherfragmentsof Anan's book were publishedby Harkavy,see above at n. 45, and by J.N. Epstein in Tarbiz7 (1935), 283-290 [= Studies,pp. 644-651]. 63 On the Ben Sira material see Schiffman's essay, 141-146. Complete transcriptionsof the Genizah fragments of Ben Sira can now be found in P.C. Beentjes, The Book of Ben Sira in Hebrew (Leiden, 1997). Regarding the original publication of these texts, see S.C. Reif, "The Discovery of the CambridgeGenizah Fragmentsof Ben Sira: Scholars and Texts," in The Book of Ben Sira in Modern Research, ed. P.C. Beentjes (Berlin and New York, 1997), 1-22. My thanksto Dr. Reif for sendingme a copy of this recent study. 64 BT Berakhot24a and elsewhere. 65 Materialsurfacedfrom the Genizah chamberand from related sources before Schechter's visit to Cairo. See below, n. 75. It is also feasible that the material ultimately coming from that chamber might have included whole manuscripts. This would account for the fact that leaves detached from otherwisenearlycomplete manuscriptshoused in variouslibrarieshave found their way into several Genizah collections, including the Taylor-Schechter collection at Cambridgeand the Adler collection in New York. The issue certainlymeritsfurtherstudy. See also Danzig, Catalogue, 18-19, 36-38.

22

[22] shared the same material. The most common sources for those early dealers were the materials buried around the synagogue and in the al-Basatin cemetery, where the overflow from the Genizah chamberwas stored.We may, therefore appreciate the nagging doubt that afflicted some Genizah scholars -

NEIL DANZIG

most notably Nehemiah Alony -

about whether

the famed Genizah chamber in the Ben Ezra Synagogue was Schechter's sole source for the huge amount of material that he retrieved.66 I believe we can put this debate to rest, as Schechter has already answered the question, itln,' rnro, in two sent from letters Cairo to his On Mathilda.67 wife, unpublished Schechter wrote: January20, 1897, I have also spent much at the dealers, for the people keep on stealing and sell it to the dealers. But by buying from them I get what is most valuable. Besher (this is the name of the beadle and the greatest thief that ever lived) betrayed a secret to me that he once buried ten bags of manuscripts in a graveyard, and means to sell them to me. He said the graveyard is very far from town. Although we have no direct evidence that Schechter himself traveled to the cemetery, it is probable that those eager to 66

N. Allony, "Genizahve-Kitvei Yad 'Ivri'im be-SifriyyotCambridge," Areshet3 (1961), 394-425; idem, "GenizatQahir u-VeitKenessetEzra Einam Zehim," Beit Miqra 23 (1978), 480-493. Allony's position was intended as a polemic against Schechter's famous descriptionof his encounterwith the Genizahchamber,see S. Schechter,"A Hoardof Jewish Manuscripts,"Studies in Judaism[Second series] (Philadelphia,1908), 1-30. Much has been written about Schechter'smonumentalefforts in emptyingthat chamber.See Danzig, Catalogue, 16-19. 67 Both are in the SchechterArchives, JTSA. On the role that Schechter's wife played in various aspects of his career, see M. Scult, "The Baale Boste Reconsidered:The Life of Mathilde Roth Schechter (M. R. S.)," Modern Judaism 7 (1987), 1-27. One of Schechter's earlier letters to Mathilde from Cairois quotedby Scult from that same archive.See ibid., 9.

GEONIC JURISPRUDENCE FROMTHECAIROGENIZAH 23 [23] sell their wares to him did indeed dig in al-Basatin during his stay in Cairo, and that Schechter combined this material with what he garnered from the actual Genizah chamber. After finishing his work in the Genizah, Schechterwrote again to Mathildaone week later, on January28: At last my work at the greatGenizah came to an end today. I have emptied all; all the rubbishdown to the groundhas been taken out so that I could examine the bottom. This was a piece of hard work - the beadle and the other scoundrelsrefusing to go so deep so that they have a place from which to provide the dealers. Tomorrow, p[lease] G[od], the last bags will arrive and Tuesday they will be sent off to England. I have examined the other Genizahs. I found almost nothing in them. The people here know so little about it, that they think the crazy English are interested in any place where there is some rubbish. I had barely a sack and a half from the other Genizahs.

Thus we see that Schechter certainly did obtain materialfrom other genizot while in Cairo. This explains why, upon his returnto Cambridge,he indiscriminatelyuses the term "Genizas" (plural) in a letter of thanks he wrote to the Cairo community.68 From Schechter's perspective however, this materialfrom outside the Genizah chamberproper was insignificant in comparison to the vast amount he took from the actual chamber.He thereforenever again mentioned the other sources. We can certainly vindicate Schechterfrom his attackers who claimed that he was guilty of some covert action in hiding his sources and passing the materialoff as true Genizah when it was not. And now from Schechter,we go on to his youngercolleague, Louis Ginzberg (1873-1953):69 After being hired by 68 See Danzig, Catalogue, p. 18, n. 49. The informationdiscussed here

answersthe unensweredquestionsin my earlierstudy. 69 The basic biographies of Ginzberg remain Keeper of the Law (Philadelphia, 1966); D. Druck, R. Levi Gintsburg,trans. M. Maizels (New York, 1933 [Hebrew]).

24

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[24]

Schechter to become the professor of Talmud at the Jewish Theological Seminary, Ginzberg returned to Europe during the summer months to visit his parents.70 During most of the summers between 1902-1908, Ginzberg stopped over in England to examine material in the Genizah collections at Oxford and Cambridge." In the process, he found and copied many unpublished geonic responsa. In Cambridge, he usually requested that Ernest Worman copy them out for him, a process which unfortunately led to many errors in their publication.72 These fragments formed the series "Genizah Studies," published in the Jewish Quarterly Review between 1904-1908 and reappearing in the second volume of Ginzberg's pioneering work Geonica, published in New York in 1909 (Schechter undertook the responsibility to fund the publication of these

And see now, The Responsa of Professor Louis Ginzberg, ed. D. Golinkin (New York and Jerusalem, 1996), English introduction, 1-34, with full bibliographyon pp. 1-2, n. 1. 70 Keeper of the Law, 96; Druck, R. Levi Gintsburg, 68. In Ginzberg's dictated memoirs (Ginzberg Archives, Box #16), the dates provided are 1903-1912. This is obviously incorrect,as he was already marriedby 1909, and was correctedby his son. 71 Schechter encouraged Ginzberg to go to these libraries, primarily to check the talmudic fragmentswhich Ginzbergwas preparingfor publication (see below). For this purpose, Schechterwrote three letters of recommendation to assist Ginzberg in gaining access to the material at Cambridge (to Prof. Bevan of TrinityCollege, to Mr. Aldis, and a more elaborateone to Mr. Francis Jenkinson,CUL Librarian);the letters are dated June 7 and June 9, 1903 (JTSA Ginzberg Archives, box #19). These are referredto in Keeper of the Law, 87. 72 Regarding the initial copying of these texts, see Ginzberg, Geonica, l:ix-x. The errorswere correctedby B.M. Lewin in his review of the book, initially in Rivista Israelitica 6 (1909), 171-175, and more fully in Ginzei Qedem 1 (1922), 93-103. Various corrections were suggested by other reviewers,but Lewin consultedthe manuscriptsthemselves. On Worman,see Reif, "Hundred,"12-13.

[25]

GEONIC JURISPRUDENCE FROMTHECAIROGENIZAH

25

volumes.)73 Schechter had already given to Ginzberg the Yerushalmiphotographsand hand-copies that he had collated, resulting in the publication of Ginzberg's YerushalmiFragments from the Genizah (Seridei ha-Yerushalmi).74In honor of Schechter some twenty years later, Ginzberg contributed two volumes to the series Genizah Studies in Memory of Doctor Solomon Schechter (Ginzei Schechter),75 one of 73 A collation of this volume with Ginzberg's initial publicationof these fragmentsin JQR may be found at the beginning of A. Marx's review, ZJHB 13 (1909), p. 165. It has been well known that HenriettaSzold worked with Ginzberg on the "GenizahStudies" series and subsequentlyon Geonica, as editor and translator(as she did for Legends of the Jews), althoughher name does not appearin the acknowledgments.Many insights regardingthe writing of Geonica arepepperedthroughoutSzold's poignantmemoirsandletters.See Shargel, Lost Love. A humorousrecollection of the abbreviationsof several geonic works appearson p. 147; a powerful critique regardingan acknowledgment, on p. 270. On Schechter's financial supportfor the publicationof Ginzberg'sbook, see Keeperof the Law, 93-94. 74 New York, 1909, published by the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, and dedicated to "Solomon Schechter, The Discoverer of the Genizah."Ginzbergworked off these copies, but later collated them with the originalfragments.See the English"Preface,"ibid., viii; cf. Y. Sussman,Cairo Geniza Studies, p. 23 n. 10 and p. 29. There was some deliberationas to the formatof the publicationof the fragments.See Keeper of the Law, 119-120. On early scholarly interest in the JerusalemTalmud, see above, nn. 10, 48. In the very same year, not only did the volume of YerushalmiFragments appear,but also Geonica in two volumes and the first volume of Legends of the Jews. This made quite an impressionat the time. See Shargel,Lost Love, 290, 298. 75 New York, 1929. A series of five volumes was planned,but only three The thirdwas a book of liturgicalpoetryedited by I. Davidson.The appeared. original plan was to publish the materialfrom Cambridgethat Schechtertook with him to New York (Taylor-Schechter"Loan"), as indicated in the "Foreword"to each of the volumes, but this plan changed due to the interests of the scholarsinvolved in the project.The relationshipbetween Ginzbergand SchechtersouredsomewhatafterGinzberg'sspuming of HenriettaSzold. See Scult (above, n. 67), 15-16; Shargel, Lost Love, 264, 288-289. Note also Ginzberg's later assessment of Schechter's scholarshipas quoted in Keeper of the Law, in the same passage cited in the following footnote.

26

[26] aggadic midrashim and the second primarily of geonic responsa. In the latter he also re-published much of the text known as Pirqoi ben Baboi and added a long and detailed introduction.Ginzberg was among the most productive of the early scholars of geonic halakhictexts from the Genizah.76His contributionwas not only in volume; his introductionsto the fragmentsthathe publishedare evidence of his vast knowledge in all areas of rabbinic scholarship, including aggadah and medieval halakhah,and are as importanta legacy as the texts themselves. Solomon Aaron Wertheimer (1866-1936), a Rabbi and eclectic scholar of Rabbinic texts, was one of the earliest contributors to Genizah studies. He published several slim volumes of geonic texts among his writings based on material from the Genizah.77 Before Schechter's fortuitous trip to Cairo in the winter of 1896, some choice samplings from the Genizah had already reached Europe.They were purchasedfrom several agents and booksellers, among whom was Wertheimer. Just as we now celebrate Schechter's role in discovering the Genizah, we should also mention some of the other charactersto whom we owe a debt for that discovery. There was certainly no more colorful a characterthan Wertheimer. 76

NEIL DANZIG

In Ginzberg's dictatedmemoirs (GinzbergArchives, Box #16) he laid the following claim: "I have publishedmore in the Genizahthan anyone else" (incorrectlytranscribedin Keeperof the Law, 90). 77 See P. Grayevski, Ha-Ma'alot li-Shelomoh: Ziyyun Lefi-sha'ah leNishmatha-Ran...ShelomoAharon Vertheimer(Jerusalem,1936). The above pamphletwas publishedin commemorationof the one-monthanniversaryof his death, and includes memorialletters writtenby several rabbis, as well as a bibliography. Another bibliography appears in a prospectus to republish Wertheimer's books, entitled Qohelet Shelomo... Prospect (Jerusalem, 1947/48). This resulted in the republicationof midrashictexts in 1950 and 1953, see below, n. 83. The prospectusincluded letters of supportby several rabbis in Israel: Chief Rabbi Y. Herzog, and Rabbis B. Uziel, I.Z. Meltzer, and Y.M. Harlap.

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We need not write our words of gratitude,however, since Wertheimerwrote his own "credits"for discovering the Genizah. After publishing about a dozen volumes of Genizah texts, he wrote a preface to a volume he printedin Jerusalemin 1922: -Wecn nappreciateWrhim s at binglltn m f in r'n anger o fny ily ortnoen ftnrom he discovery of h Gnizah. Eacht Dr9SVB onl) ipm lo-1ain [nim]lan= t1 1 1n? DUNT-9nn D^uTn 01W D11V VKwi n $nnK KnnU nTj1In Jnall DYy? Ooin3 '1 yl ,t1ii tw UTntl* n11X NT471" ntl3ln tl r 'lll-rnnn aitr nx *531" OI3 1 a^1 ?-1 *1,7 ziv Knnpoa nnK 478,1by, 1iTxf tr1K1 *Dly

We can appreciateWertheimer'sanger at being left to live in near-squalor in Jerusalem, being forced to sell his prized Genizah manuscriptspiecemeal over the years, while others in Europe, America,gained (if not necessarEurope, and then in America, gained fame (if from the discovery of the Genizah. Each of ily fortune) Wertheimer's sales of Genizah items often involved the very fragments which he was in the process of publishing. The proceeds of the sale financed their publication. As amply evidenced in Stefan Reif's new catalogue of Hebrew manuscripts in the CambridgeUniversity Library(devoted to manuscripts outside the Taylor-SchechterGenizah Collection), the Cambridge library purchased some fifty Genizah specimens from Wertheimerfrom 1894 to 1896.79

78 S.A. Wertheimer,MidrashimKitvei-Yad(Jerusalem,1922). He repeated

the claim in the introductionto Ge'on ha-Ge'onim (Jerusalem,1924). Note the epithet given to Wertheimeron the title page of the memorialpamphlet (see previous note): "Megalleh Genizat ha-Rambam...be-Mizraim." But despiteWertheimer'sself-promotion,few paid muchattentionto his important role in the early days of the Genizah; cf. A.B. Shurin, Qeshet Gibborim (Jerusalem,1964), 88-92. But this may have been for a good reason. See for example below n. 87. 79 These items are now listed in S.C. Reif, Hebrew manuscripts at CambridgeUniversityLibrary(Cambridge,1997), p. 32, n. 140. Specific dates regardingthe acquisition of these items are recorded, when known, in the descriptionsof these fragmentsin thatcatalogue.

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[281

These acquisitions from Wertheimer were unquestionably among the texts that piqued Schechter's interest, and he examined them with great interest during his tenure at Cambridge. Thus we must add Wertheimer'sname to that of Elkan NathanAdler, who visited the Genizah in Januaryof 1896, and to the sisters Gibson and Lewis, who met with Schechter in Marchof 1896 following their returnfrom Cairo, as influences on Schechter's decision to go to Cairo later in 1896.80 Although he did not mention Wertheimerby name, Schechter acknowledged his debt to book-dealers in a vitriolic letter he wrote to the London Times on August 7, 1897. After being attacked in print for taking credit for what should have been Adler's discovery of the Genizah (since Adler basically gave him the "key" to the Genizah) Schechter responded: "The honour of discovering the Geniza belongs to the numberless dealers in antiquities of Cairo, who for many years have continually offered its contents to various librariesin Europe." Concerning Adler, Schechter angrily wrote: "Mr. E.N. Adler spent a half a day in the Geniza. I learnt from him that he had been presentedwith some manuscriptsby the authorities.This is 'the key he gave me'...."81 As happened to all those who sought Genizah material in those days, it was inevitable that Schechter would eventually link up with Wertheimerand privately buy several items from him. One such item is a manuscriptcontaining two extensive leaves of geonic responsa. But as was his practice, Wertheimer had already hand-copied that very item before he sold 80

Along with the aggressive competition between scholars to locate and publish fragmentsof Ben Sira (Ecclesiasticus), an interest that drove much of the early interest in the Genizah (on which, see Reif's article cited above, n. 63). 81 Quoted (with some inaccuracies)by Bentwich, Schechter, 147. On the draftingof that letter, see S.C. Reif, "Jenkinsonand Schechterat Cambridge: an expanded and updated assessment,"Jewish Historical Studies: Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England32 (1990-1992), 303.

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it to Schechter,but delayed its publicationuntil 1925 (in Ge'on ha-Ge'onim), ten years after Schechter's death.82 Although Wertheimer's major contribution to Genizah studies was in the area of the minor midrashim,83he also published several important geonic texts, including geonic responsa, in Qohelet Shelomo in 1899 and in Ge'on haGe'onim in 1925; a very early fragment of the geonic commentary to Mishnah Seder Toharot, from which he published variants to the printed edition in Ginzei Yerushalayim (1902); and a commentary to Tractate Berakhot, which he attributed to Sa'adya and published in 1908 and again in 1927.84 The manuscript from which he published the Berakhot commentaryalso contained several other texts, including several of the responsa that he had already printed in Qohelet Shelomo. Wertheimer's often dubious dealings with Genizah material are demonstratedby that very manuscript.When he 82 JTSA SchechterGenizah,fols. 2-3; see Danzig, Catalogue,p. 25, n. 81*. Another of Schechter's acquisitions from Wertheimer is mentioned below n. 84. 83 Primarilyin Batei Midrashot,6 vols., 1893-1897 (new editionin 2 vols., Jerusalem,1950, 1953); cf. above, n. 77. 84 Geonic commentaryto Toharot- Ginzei Yerushalayim3 (1902), 3-4. This fragment,too, was sold to Schechter.See Danzig, Catalogue, p. 36, n. 127. There are two owner's signatureson these leaves, leading us to conclude that the manuscriptitself was writtenno later than the year 980, and possibly in Eretz Yisra'el. See Danzig, op. cit., 46-47. On this commentary see below, n. 106. The commentaryon Berakhot was re-edited by Lewin and republished in OHG to that tractate, pp. 105-114 (in the "commentaries" section). On the attributedauthorshipof that work and the contents of the entire manuscript,see Lewin's remarks in his introduction,pp. 103-104. Regarding the claim of authorship,cf. M.Y. Zaks, "Perush Rav Sa'adya le-mesekhet Berakhot," Sinai 13 (1943), 49-54. There are nevertheless remnantsof Sa'adya's Mishnahcommentaryin the Genizah. See now Brody, Geonim, 268-269. Most of Wertheimer's geonic texts have been republished in Kitvei-Yadha-Genizah: Ginzei Yerushalayim,ed. A.J. Wertheimer (Jerusalem,1981).

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later decided to sell it, he tore it in two; as it was the practice of book dealers to divide manuscripts (usually in half) in order to extract several sums for the same item from different buyers.85The first half was sold to Benjamin Menasseh Lewin, who was then preparing the first volume of Otzar ha-Ge'onim (on Berakhot). The second half was sold to someone else and eventually ended up at the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati.86Wertheimer's methods were well-known as evidenced by the comments of Adolph Neubauer, the illustrious librarian of Judaica at the Bodleian library, who was himself burned by Wertheimer: "I hope that Rabbi S.A. Wertheimer will continue to bring to light interesting documents as he has done up till now, but that he remember the saying of the early Rabbis, ninn n2i r"im In ny.,"87 Certainly his physical comportment, a robust man garbed in traditional Yerushalmi attire, and his reputation as somewhat of a scoundrel, contributed to his role in the Genizah having been obfuscated, and the credit for its discovery being placed elsewhere.

Most of the work in the early years of the Genizah was centered in England, with the collections at Cambridge, Oxford, and London (the British Museum and Elkan Nathan Adler). In that heady environment, Abraham (Arthur) Marmorstein (1882-1946), reader in Rabbinics at Jews' College from 1912 until his death, published a great deal from those Genizah collections. He focused primarily on the two areas on which other scholars of the day had published: namely, unknown midrashic texts and

85 B. Richler, "Kituvei-Yad 'Ivriyim she-Nitpazlu, 'Assufot 1 (1987), 105-158. 86 Richler, op. cit., 139; Danzig, Catalogue,p. 25, n. 82. 87 JQR o.s. 8 (1896), 560.

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geonica.88Among the former,Marmorsteinpublishedan entire text of Midrash .Haserotve-Yeterot,based in part on Genizah manuscripts.89Among the latter, should be noted the geonic responsathathe publishedin the 1920's in the Rabbinicjournal Ozar ha-.Hayyim,published by Rabbi H. Ehrenreichin Deva (Transylvania) and subsequently collected into a single volume.90 Like his predecessors, Marmorstein's focus was not only on responsa.In the years 1923-1926 he publisheda series of studies, "Mitteilingenzur Geschichte und Literaturaus der Geniza," in which he included other legal texts of the geonic period, such as an Aramaiccollection of the laws of slaughtering; a Judaeo-Arabictranslationof a work he titled "Halakhot Qetu'ot"; and what he assumed to be unknown sections of a different code, Halakhot Qe;uvot.91 Marmorsteinwas quite bold in those days, publishing several pioneeringstudies on the gaonate of Ere. Yisra'el, of which very little was then known.92 These articles were published, as were the geonic responsa, during the period in which he published his major works on Rabbinic theology and numerous studies in several areas.93 88

Appreciation and bibliography in Studies in Jewish Theology by A. Marmorstein, PhD., ed. J. Rabbinowitz and M.S. Lew (London, 1950), [xi]-xlvi. The fragmentsof aggadic midrashimwere publishedbeginning in 1906 (xxviii). 89 London, 1917. A partwas alreadypublishedin ZAW27 (1906), 33-48. 90 Teshuvotha-Ge'onim (Deva, 1929). Manyof these texts were incorrectly copied, a problemthat plagued most of Marmorstein'sGenizah work. In his later years, when he was nearly blind and unable to read the material, he stoppedpublishingfrom Genizahfragments. 91 Bibliography,pp. xxxvi-xxxvii. Regardingthese "HalakhotQetu'ot," cf. Danzig, MLHP,98-104. The second and thirdfragmentsthatMarmorstein attributedto "HalakhotQezuvot"are certainly not from that book. See J.N. Epstein, Tarbiz 2 (1931), 308, n. 1 [= Studies, 336]; M. Margaliot,Hilkhot Erez Yisra'elmin ha-Genizah,ed. I. Ta-Shma(Jerusalem,1973), 56-71. 92 Bibliography,xxxii ff. 93 Especially Doctrine of Merits in Old Rabbinic Literature(1909); The Old RabbinicDoctrine of God, vol. 1 (1927); vol. 2 (1937) [reprinted1968].

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[32] No single name in Genizah studies and geonica stands out more than that of Jacob Mann (1888-1940).94 Mann devoted the entire first volume of one of his three major books from the Genizah, Texts and Studies (1931), to historical evidence regarding the geonim, including several letters that filled in some of the historical backgroundof the academies. His major works include The Jews in Egypt and in Palestine under the Fatimid Caliphs, which was his doctoralthesis (1920-22), and his masterful work on the triennial cycle, The Bible as Read and Preached in the Old Synagogue, the first volume of which was published in 1940, the year of his death, and the second volume appearedposthumously in 1968.95Mann's other studies in the field were collected and reprintedin three volumes in 1971.96 Mann stands out as the first Genizah scholar to be trainedas a historianand who wrote from that prespective. Mann was also a bona fide scholar of Rabbinics, a 'n'5n r:n,as were all the early Genizah scholars. He included in his Texts and Studies a section titled "Fragmentsof Legalistic Writings of the Gaonic Period." In that section, he published fragments which he correctly identified as Sherira's commentary to Bava Batra, Hai's commentary to Berakhot, Nissim Gaon's Mafte'ah le-Min'olei ha-Talmudand Samuel ha-Naggid's Hilkhata Gavrata. At the end of that volume, Mann also published several important booklists from the Genizah, including one thatprovides the incipits for each title.97To date,

94 See V.E. Reichert, "JacobMann 1888-1940," American Jewish Year Book 43 (1941), 407-414 (reprintedin TheBible..., 2:xi-xvii). See also, Reif, "Hundred,"16. 95 Texts and Studies: vol. 1, Cincinnati, 1931; vol. 2, Philadelphia,1935; The Jews in Egypt: 2 vols., New York and London, 1920, 1922; The Bible as Read and Preached: vol. 1, Cincinnati, 1940; vol. 2, with I. Sonne, Cincinnati,1966. 96 The CollectedArticles of Jacob Mann (Gedera,1971). 97 The booklist was subsequentlyrepublishedwith a detailed commentary by M.B. Lerer, Cairo Geniza Studies,41-55.

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the many booklists found in the Genizah serve as a crucial aid to the identificationof untitledworks.98 I now move on to the great triumvirateof geonic scholars who lived in Israel: Assaf, Epstein, and Lewin. Their combined efforts form the bedrock of modem geonic studies. Simba Assaf (1889-1953) was the first lecturer on geonic studies at the Hebrew University. His lectures, delivered over a period of twenty-seven years, were published posthumously under the title Tequfat ha-Ge'onim ve-Sifrutah.99 Primary among Assaf s many publications of geonic halakhahfrom the Genizahwere two volumes dedicatedalmost entirely to geonic responsa. The first appearedin Jerusalemin 1929 and the second in 1942. Along with these, Assaf also published Hai's Sefer ha-Shetarot (1930) based upon manuscripts from the Genizah; a collection of texts entitled Misifrut ha-Geonim (1933) mostly from the Genizah; and several other volumes of geonic texts not from the Genizah for the most part.100Besides those complete volumes, Assaf published several other Genizah texts in Tarbi., mainly halakhic works of Sa'adya and Samuel ben Hofni, as well as several old documents. I would like to focus, however, on his three volumes of geonica, publishedin 1929, 1933, and 1942. 98 We are still awaiting the forthcoming collection of these booklists

preparedby the late Nehemya Allony. 99 Jerusalem, 1967, ed. M. Margaliot. Appreciationand bibliographyin SeferAssaf, ed. M.D. Cassuto,et al (Jerusalem,1953), 7-11. 100 Sefer ha-Shetarot le-Rav Hai Gaon, Mossaf ha-Tarbiz, vol. 1. The works not from the Genizah include Siddur Rev Sa'adya Gaon (Jerusalem, 1947), in collaborationwith I. Davidson and I. Joel, the basic manuscriptfor which was not from the Genizah,but some 160 Genizahfragmentswere used in the collation of variants,etc. (see introduction,45-53). Sa'adya's siddur is an extremely common book in the Genizah. Subsequently,several scholars have filled in the lacunae from additionalGenizah fragments.See N. Wieder in SaadyaStudies,ed. I.J. Rosenthal(Manchester,1943), 245-283; idem,Sefer Assaf, 237-260; T. Groner, 'Alei Sefer 15 (1989), 33-35; Y. Brody, Tarbiz 63 (1994), 393-401.

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The 1929 volume, though primarily dedicated to geonic responsa, includes at the end several new geonic texts. These include partsof Metivotthatwould laterbe collected and edited by Lewin; and Sefer ha-Miqo 'ot, two different codes that had caught the interestand imaginationof several earlier scholars. The latter publication served as the basis for the volume devoted to that code, which Assaf published in 1947.101 What makes the 1929 volume unique is that the majority of the texts were from the Russian collections of which Assaf obtained photographs with the assistance of a Mr. Schulman of Leningrad. The photographs were officially ordered at the behest of the Hebrew University and are still found today in the Institute for Microfilmed Manuscripts in Jerusalem. In that volume, Assaf also published several items from the private Genizah collection of Jacques Mosseri, which was then located in Cairo. Mosseri was the last major player to obtain new material from the Genizah. As he described in a brief 1913 article, most of those 4,000 fragments were unearthed in his persistent attempts to scrounge for Genizah material in the neighboring area surrounding the Ben-Ezra synagogue and at the al-Basatin cemetery from 1909-1912.102 Mosseri's collection is especially rich in documentary material, leading some to suspect that it is not from the same Ben-Ezra Genizah. In the years following Assaf, Mosseri's collection retained a certain mystique about it, since the material was inaccessible after it was shipped to Paris and left to languish in boxes for 101 S. Assaf,

Sefer ha-Miqzo'ot(Jerusalem,1947). On previousspeculation regardingthis book, see Assaf's introduction.The book as we know it was only quoted by Ashkenazic rabbis. On fragmentsin the Genizah of a work similarto Miqzo'ot, possibly from an older recension,cf. Danzig, MLHP,249, n. 21. 102 J. Mosseri, "A New Hoard of Jewish MSS. in Cairo," The Jewish Review4 (1913-1914), 208-216.

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decades. Only in 1990 was the collection microfilmed and a hand-listof its contents producedin Jerusalem.103 In Assaf's 1933 volume, the majorityof Genizah fragments were from Mosseri's collection. Among the geonic texts, besides responsa, Assaf included a part of Saadya's Sefer haPiqadon, an additional leaf of Hai's Sefer ha-Shetarot, Hai's long poem on the laws of vows, and an extensive portion of a siddur that is similar to Seder Rav Amram Gaon. Assaf entitled this text ;lnip 'nI'o, and by that title the text is known today after it was re-publishedby Abramsonin Sinai, together with several additional fragments.104Assaf's volume also containedresponsawrittenby geonim of Eretz Yisra'el, pieces of various talmudiccommentaries,and other texts. The 1942 volume is titled rn i'',r?ni rrIXm nlnlrn '''1n?p: and representsthe fruit of Assafs visit to Cambridge in the summer of 1939, under the cloud of the Second World War. We all are aware of the difficult circumstances under which those Genizah scholars worked, without microfilms and photocopy machines. They traveled to libraries when the opportunityarose, and tried to put together materialscollected at various points in their careers. Assaf's volume is unique because, as opposed to all other scholars who published Genizah material and always hoped to find more, Assaf felt that with the volume that he was publishing in 1942, he was completing the task of publishing geonic responsa from the Genizah. Note the dramatictone of his words in the introduction to that volume:

103

Catalogueof the Jack Mosseri Collection (Jerusalem,1990 [Hebrew]); the history of the rediscovery of this collection is told in the preface to that volume. At least partof Mosseri's materialcame from sources thatdrew from the Ben-Ezra Genizah chamber, as evidenced by items which are held in common with other Genizah collections. See Danzig, Catalogue, pp. 19-20, n. 55. '04 Sh. Abramson,"Le-Toledotha-Siddur,"Sinai 81 (1978), 181-227.

36 ,'llrl

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NEILDANZIG

l:nn

nnsixtntryop

T3 lpT 1p2lD1"P nr K contribution As nnreain

n Kiv

= rr 17n naip?n

5xKnyin r'i

net t

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,9l3n launnr nrnunn 955inanan3m mmpnl nnvyi qnmiy : DXi 5= - -innlz nlr im qin Y nK nwxu "5in -)5 nxlu mD?lpn nilO 5 nT J 5 s .rin rI1n?-LDDUDDl 13KllS KXKOtrwn; nl15ly ,ODl'oyi Although many new responsa from the Genizah have since been published, Assaf's contribution remains today the last

published volume of geonic responsafrom the Genizah.'?1 The second of that great triumvirate is Jacob Nahum Epstein(1878-1952), whom many consider to be the father of modem philological and text-critical scholarship of Rabbinic literature.106It should be noted that although Epstein was a scholar in several areas of classical Rabbinic texts, he wrote his doctoral thesis on the geonic commentary to Mishnah Seder Toharot.'07Epstein's publications of Genizah material, more than those of any other scholar, reflect a careful methodology and deep appreciation for nuance and language. He also published midrashim: an edition of Mekhilta deRashbi which he based primarily upon Genizah material,

105 The complete volume of geonic responsathat appearedrecently is not based upon Genizah material.See E. Hurvitz, Geonic Responsafrom Manuscripts in Russia (New York, 1995 [Hebrew]);S. Emanuel,Newly Discovered Geonic Responsa (Jerusalemand Cleveland, 1995 [Hebrew]). 106 See the appreciationin Le-Zikhroshel Prof. Ya'akovNahum Epshtain (Jerusalem,1952). A bibliographyof his writingspreparedby Sh. Abramson, appearedin J.N. EpsteinJubilee Volume(Jerusalem,1950), 7-16 [Hebrew]. 107 J.N. Epstein, Der Gaonaische Kommentarzur Ordnung Tohoroth (Berlin, 1915); idem, Perush ha-Ge'onim le-Seder Toharot (Berlin, 1921 [Hebrew]).Both volumes, the first in a Hebrewtranslation,are now reprinted as, Perush ha-Ge'onimle-Seder Toharot'imMavo ve-He'arot(Jerusalem-TelAviv, 1982). The commentary was first printed in Qovez Ma'asei Yedei Ge'onim Qadmonim(Berlin, 1856), and was traditionallyattributedto Hai Gaon. See also, idem, "TashlumPerush ha-Ge'onim," Tarbiz 16 (1945), 71-134 (reprintedat the end of the 1982 volume).

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particularlyan extensive Firkovitch manuscript (the volume was completed posthumously by E.Z. Melamed), as well as Sifre Zuta, and important fragments of the Jerusalem Talmud.108Epstein's fundamental contributions to the field of geonic halakhah are also renowned. Not only did he publish new texts, but his studies were hallmarksof philological and textual editing of these works, probably beyond the scope of all previous publications in the field, such as the series of studies titled Seridei She'iltot; the publication of pieces of Ma 'asimLi-venaiEretz Yisra'el and Tereifotde-Eretz Yisra'el; and much more.'09 However, he purposely left geonic responsa to Assaf and Lewin, with whom he had a good rapport. (He also read and commented upon Lewin's own volumes of these texts.)"? Besides his own publications, Epstein set the standard as the first editor of Tarbiz, under whose aegis many such texts were published by other scholars as well. The third of that great triumviratewas inveterate publisher and gathererof geonic responsa and commentaries,Benjamin MenassehLewin (1879-1944).' 11 Lewin, who began his career 108 Mekhilta de-Rabbi Shim'on Ben Yohai (Jerusalem, 1955); Epstein's edition addedmuch to the earlierpublications,such as that of D.Z. Hoffmann (above, n. 54). Sifre Zuta- Tarbiz1 (1929), 46-78 [= Studies,pp. 141-173]. JerusalemTalmud- Tarbiz3 (1931), 15-26, 121-136, 237-248 [= Studies, 251-290]. These publicationswere also almost entirely of Russian Genizah material. 109 See above, nn. 13, 14.

110 Note especially Epstein's notes added (in squarebrackets)to the first two volumes of OHG (Berakhotand Shabbat).[Epsteinstoppedthis practice, and vol. 4 was given to Assaf for his comments.] Epstein and Lewin were friends from their student days at the University of Bern. See Assaf's appreciationof Epstein in the pamphletcited above, p. 11. Epstein published one of his very first studies in Lewin's Tahkemoni,vol. 2 (Bern, 1911). On Lewin's activities in Bern, see below, n. 114. 11 See appreciationsand bibliographyin Sefer ha-Yovel: Qovez ToraniMadda'i le-Dr. Binyamin Menasheh Levin, ed. Y.L. Maimon (Jerusalem, 1939), [1]-32.

38

[38] with his work on Iggeret R. Sherira Gaon, is best known as the editor of six volumes of Ginzei Qedem (to which he was the major contributor),and of the series Otzar ha-Ge'onim, a compendium of geonic responsa and commentariesorganized according to the order of the Babylonian Talmud, the latter 12 project left incomplete upon his death. Lewin is emblematic of the unfailing determinationof those early Genizah scholars to carry out their work despite difficult circumstances and personal and financial hardship.Lewin produced what is perhaps the most importantpractical tool for the study of geonic law, the Otzar ha-Ge'onim. Throughout his career, Lewin pursued funding from various scholars and rabbis for Otzar ha-Ge'onim, as is evidenced by the dedications and gratitude that he expressed at the beginning of most of his volumes.13 Lewin was a diffferent type of "modem" scholar than most of the others of his day (and of ours). He never held a university position, and for a time was the director of religious schools in Haifa. He was active in Jewish (mainly Orthodox) causes in NEIL DANZIG

Ginzei Qedem, 6 vols., Haifa, 1922 - Jerusalem, 1944. Otzar haGe'onim - see list of abbreviations; an additional volume on tractate Sanhedrin, was preparedindependentlyby H.Z. Taubes (Jerusalem, 1966). Lewin's work on Sherirabegan with his doctoral dissertation,Prolegomena zu einer neuen Ausgabe vom Sendschreibendes R. Scherira Gaon (published in Frankfurtam Main, 1910), followed by Charakterisikund Biographie des Rabbi Scherira Gaon (Berlin, 1911). The former was the basis for the introductionto Lewin's edition of 'Iggeret Rav Sherira Gaon (Haifa, 1921). The later was subsequentlytranslatedinto Hebrew and published under the title Rav Sherira Gaon (Jaffa, 1917). This was the first in a planned series of bio-bibliographicalessays on select ge'onim, see ibid., preface, p. II, but no more appeared. 113 C.C.A.R. [Reform] (Littauer fund, with the assistance of Rabbi H. Enelow), the HebrewUniversity, Mrs. Linda Miller, Rabbi Y.L. Maimon, the America Academy for Jewish Research (with the assistance of Profs. L. Ginzberg and A. Marx), the RabbinicalAssembly [Conservative],Rabbi Simon Greenberg(Philadelphia)and Prof. Saul Lieberman,among others. 112

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Europe (he set up a Jewish student organization, Tahkemoni, in Bern); he was a delegate to the Zionist Congress; and worked for the Mizrahi movement. Lewin had close personal relationships with several prominent rabbis, including Rabbi Abraham Isaac ha-Kohen Kook, to whom he dedicated his edition of 'Iggeret Rav Sherira Gaon, and his work was generally regardedhighly by them.114Lewin was also greatly influenced by the Orthodox historian Ze'ev Yavetz, whom Lewin admired since his youth and for whom he had worked as an assistant in Berlin in 1907. 15 114 Rabbi

Kook, then Chief Rabbi of Jaffa, contributedtwo essays to Tahkemoni,a literaryjournal published by Lewin for the student organization of Bern (1910 and 1911; no more followed). In the first of those volumes appearedthe first Genizah fragmentthat Lewin published- partof R. Hanan'el's commentary to Berakhot. Rabbi Kook later wrote a letter of congratulationsto Lewin upon his completionof the firstvolume of Ginzei Qedem (1922) which Lewin printedat the beginning of that volume (see also Kook's interestingcontributionat the end of the volume). Lewin's festschrift was editedby RabbiMaimon(above, n. 111). RabbiY.M. Harlapof Jerusalem contributeda very moving appreciation.One passage from Lewin's OtzarhaGe'onim was quoted by the famous sage Rabbi A.Y. Karelitzregardingthe measurementof an egg (Karelitz was an acknowledgedexpert in this area). Karelitzexplained his use of this source in spite of his general opposition to using sources that were found in manuscripts,for the purpose of halakhic decision-making.See Sefer Hazon 'Ish: OrahHayyim,Mo'ed, ed. Sh. Grainiman, p. 58a, sec. 39:6, where a geonic responsumis quoted from Otzar haGe'onim to 'Eruvin,par 167. Ironically, Lewin's sources for this text were two published collections of geonic responsa. The passage originatedfrom Abrahamben Isaac of Narbonne's Sefer ha-'Eshkol. See the edition of H. Albeck, 2:56-57. Karelitz's opposition to "new"sources is furtherexpressed in Qovez 'Iggerot... ha-Hazon 'Ish, ed. Sh. Grainiman(Bene Beraq, 1976), letter 32 (in this case, the Munich manuscriptof the Babylonian Talmud;I once heard that this letter was written to Rabbi M.M. Kasher). Several contemporaryOrthodoxscholarshave debatedthe intentof Karelitz'sposition. See most recently Z.Y. Lerer, Zefunot 16 (1993), 72-73; Y.S. Spiegel, Chaptersin the History of the Jewish Book: Scholars and their Annotations (Ramat-Gan,1996), 488-514 [Hebrew]. 115 A life-long friendshipensued between the two. After Yavetz's death in 1924, Lewin took it upon himself to publish the remaining volumes of

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Lewin was not the first to conceive of a "union catalogue" of geonic jurisprudence.In a letter written in 1909 by Alexander Marx to Henry Malter of Dropsie College in Philadelphia, Marx outlined a plan, as suggested by Solomon Schechter, to publish a comprehensive index to all geonic responsa, including those recently published from the Genizah and would updateJoel Muller's work of 1891.116Thatplan never came to fruition,but a few years later, Lewin envisioned a similar (and more comprehensive)project,the idea for which seems to have been conceived, directly or indirectly, underthe influence of H.N. Bialik's call for the ingathering ("kinnus") of Jewish literature.117

Yavetz's history (vols. 9-14), thus stealing time away from his own work on geonic publications. See Lewin's preface to Toledot Yisra'el, vol. 10 (TelAviv, 1932), and especially note 1. 116 Marx's letter (dated 19/11/09) is found in the Malter Archives of the libraryof the Centerfor AdvancedJudaicStudies, Universityof Pennsylvania (= CAJS). Among Malter's papers is also found one printed fascicle of Lewin's collation of "Hiddushei ha-Ge'onim le-Ta'anit" (the manuscript Lewin copied from is in the E.N. Adler collection [not from the Genizah], now underthe numberJTSA R866), coveringfolios 2-12a of the tractate.This aborted edition is alluded to in the introductionto OHG, vol. 5, and was apparentlysent to Malterfor his comments. The text was never published as such, and parts of it were incorporatedinto OHG. My thanks to Dr. David M. Goldenbergfor encouragingme to examine these archives in 1985: See also below, n. 120. Regarding Muller's work, see above, n. 26. Marx contributedto Lewin's Ginzei Qedemand passed geonic materialon to Lewin. See for example Abramson'sintroductionto Rabbi ShmuelB. Chofni: Liber ProoemiumTalmudis(Jerusalem,1990), 2-3 [Hebrew]. 117 Lewin uses the teem "kinnus"(as a verb, in the infinitive "le-khanes") at the beginning of the introductionto the first volume of OHG, to describe his project (that passage was reprintedas the credo of OHG at the beginning of vol. 8 andin following volumes). Bialik's conceptionof the ingathering of Jewish literature was all-encompassing. He first laid out his plan for the collection of aggadot in his famous essay, "Le-kinusahshel 'Aggadah," published in Ha-Shilo'ah 19 (1908), 19-24 (= Kitvei H.N. Bialik [TelAviv, 1935], 2:253-275), in the same year that the first volume of Sefer ha-'Aggadah appeared. But Bialik did not stop there; in a lecture

GEONICJURISPRUDENCEFROMTHE CAIROGENIZAH

[41]

41

In 1917, Lewin began gatheringthe materialhe needed for the series. The major obstacle withholding its publication was lack of funds. In 1922, as director of religious schools in Haifa and signing his name as n"K nlrl ;nm:, Lewin wrote to Henry Malterof Dropsie College in Philadelphia: , 1Kt3in ot 2yup l n= pplTDv 1113 ,1o

l1 1fVln Dt

IK lI1m

1T ' Dnn

" own pleas forfun d ingK o f the 'onim in for the upkeep theirK ny yWhile Lin ondon ipn1922, Lewin repeatedhis academies.1 Lewin ends the letter: by

YSib

=ilb

yformat.Se

. ml-I "nI ,3? l2K= DlKln ^r Xljpn Lu'533 Kuny nT h 29 (1914), 413-427 (=nK tvei, 30-321. Ha-hlor

H

1 T31KtyKnllv1 1b5n a31 'n1'.8lllnK;l D3l ,Ml novn

an

Inwr Tlnin'l

-

nsv n3 nX

"anl8; l:l" 5?yl 1331 lDK IlSf :171: l,llnl til"53 '; Pl3^ 118,vtonl233,;x1333

X3n 1257Yy

Lewin's style smacks of the saccharine rhetoric used by the ge'onim in their own pleas for funding for the upkeep of the in London in 1922, Lewin repeated his academies. 1 While a

entitled "Ha-Seferha-vri" which he delivered in Vienna in 1913, he called format. See Ha-Shilo'ah 29 (1914), 413K27 (= Kitvei, 304-321). His plans not only included anthologies of texts; he also commissioned a comprehensive index to all Wissenschaft literature (the work on which had already begun), and drafted a plan for a fifty-three (!) volume work on Jewish history, thought and literature, all to be based upon modem scholarship. See B. Dinaburg, "Tokhniyyot shel Bialik," Kenesset 9 (1945), 10-21. For a

historicaland culturalperspectiveon Sefer ha-'Aggadah,see now M.W. Kiel, "Sefer ha'Aggadah: Creatinga Classic Anthology for the People and by the People,"Prooftexts 17 (1997), 177-197. 118

CAJS, Malter Archives.

119 Lewin's ornate

literarystyle is common to all the introductionsin the various volumes he published,and is very differentfrom the dry "academic"

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plea to Cyrus Adler, President of the Jewish Theological Seminary and Dropsie College, telling him that he had already ordered the type and the printing press, and that he hoped that, with further funding he could order the paper and begin printing the first volume.'20 These pleas apparently resonated with his friends in the United States. That year, Malter and Alexander Marx lent their support to Lewin and the "Committee on the Publication of the Geonic Literature" was formed. In a typescript letter circulated in America (signed by I. Davidson, L. Ginzberg, J.Z. Lauterbach, H. Malter, J. Mann and A. Marx), the sum of ?50,000 was sought to fund the entire series of the planned volumes of Otzar he-Ge'onim.121 At the same time, a broadside was printed in German in the resort city of Karlsbad (Czechoslovakia), signed by some twenty rabbis (and again by Henry Malter), in support of Lewin's project, telling particularly of his need to buy typesetting and printing equipment for his work.122 Lewin's project was viewed as a vehicle to further talmudic studies as a whole, and he used his position of general communal and religious involvement, along with his scholarly contacts, to assist him in gamering support for this work. His efforts proved successful, but it took several more years until the first volume finally appeared in 1928, with Lewin having set the linotype with

styles of Assaf, Epstein and others. On the financesof the geonic academies, including the desperate letters written to several Ciasporan communities, see Gil, In the Kingdom, 1:140-144, with references to the publications of those texts. 120 121

CAJS, Adler archives.

JTSA, GinzbergArchives, Box 19. The funds were to be sent to Marx. 122 JTSA B (NS) H737. This appears to have been printed during Lewin's visit to Karlsbad in the summer of 1923. See his addendum to Ginzei Qedem, vol. 1 (1923), 50. Most of the volumes of OHG and Ginzei Qedem state that they were set with this special typesetting equipment purchasedfor OHG.

[43]

FROMTHECAIROGENIZAH JURISPRUDENCE GEONIC

43

his own hands.123Subsequent volumes appearedat about the rate of one per year, until his death in 1944. Lewin's unfailing devotion to r:'lKn t rmnn,as well as his genuine purity of heart and soul, is evident in each of his publications. I have so far avoided necrologies in this tribute to these great scholars, but allow me to quote a few words from the beginning of the introductionto Otzar ha-Geonim to Bava Qamma. Lewin, who was already dying of a terminal illness, writes of himself: '1X; 4Z'1D5 U NT '-p7'lXl C1D10 l'D1?Y' ,t7p7T3 '7- 7l1UM171n ,Q'pYXl1N Innn 5v ;r-t."''r nIa, 03:1, inn nni n iro tnf=yn n-iln 5r .nClKX71 DSi3KX

In a review of that volume published the year after Lewin's death, Abramson described Lewin as one by ntD3 nr ~or n,loX1,nlSX

y ,r plX;,

n PO.124

Perhaps it is in that merit

that his enterprise has withstood the test of time and remains, although incomplete, the basic tool for research in geonic halakhah. Although I must leave the list of scholars incomplete as I end this tribute to geonic scholars of previous generations, their circle is somewhat closed by Professor Abramson. He was a protege of Lewin and a student-colleague of Assaf and Epstein. Abramson contributedsome notes to the final volumes of Otzar ha-Ge'onim and was entrusted to continue the project for Bava Batra - an endeavor that

123 Lewin experimentedwith various formats of presentingthe material, as demonstratedby Abramson.See Sinai 14 (1944), pp. 208-212 (= idem, 'Inyanot,243-247). 124 Qiryat Sefer 21 (1945), 238 (= 'Inyanot,p. 255). Lewin died after he had preparedthe sixth volume of Ginzei Qedem for publication,but before it went to press; it appearedin honor of the thirty-dayanniversaryof his death.

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unfortunately he did not pursue.125He was also entrusted by Epstein, in the latter's literary testament, to complete the edition of Mekhilta de-Rashbi, together with E.Z. Melamed, a request that was also declined.126It is our great loss, as everything that Abramson published has profoundly enriched our understanding of Rabbinic texts, especially in the field of geonic literature. With his recent passing, the glorious generation of Assaf, Epstein, and Lewin comes to an end; a great void is felt in geonica and Genizah studies. 27 In this centennial year of the discovery of the Genizah, we must pause to celebrate not only the material finds that came from the Cairo Genizah, but also the efforts of those scholars who toiled to locate, purchase, identify, copy, and

125 Abramson'snotes

appearedin OHG, vol. 11. Abramson'scollation of Genizah fragments of geonic and other commentaries on Bava Batra was subsequently published in Sinai 23 (1948), 57-86; Sinai 25 (1950), 259-271; Perush Rabbenu Hanan'el, 249-312. Lewin's material for two of the planned subsequent volumes of the series, Bava Batra and Hullin, languished for many years in the library of the Heichal Shlomo Synagogue in Jerusalem.A. Kimmelman,in his index to geonic sources on the Talmud (Shenaton ha-Mishpat ha-'lvri 11-12 [1984-1986], 463-587) included all references to the texts copied by Lewin for those tractates;see pp. 472-473, 543-556, 565-576. A currentattemptto collect geonic texts in the style of OHG has been published by Y. Cohen, Ginzei ha-Ge'onim 'al MesekhetBava Batra, 2 vols. (Jerusalem,1995; on chaps. 1-3). However, in no way does it meet the standardsset by Lewin. 126 See the preface to that volume (above, n. 108), p. [7]. Abramsonwas Epstein's disciple; see above, n. 106. Abramsonalso assisted Assaf. See the prefaceto Assaf s 1942 volume of geonic responsa. 127 Abramson's incomparablework in the field of geonic literature,although often lacking in rigorousorganization(thus making it dauntingto the uninitiated),is a paradigmof eruditionand scholarship.His contributionsto the field are enormous and merit a complete and thorough treatment in themselves. See now the bibliographyof his writingsin Le-Zikhroshel Shraga Abramson(Jerusalem,1997), 26-66.

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FROMTHECAIROGENIZAH GEONIC JURISPRUDENCE

45

publishthis material.It is upon the fruitsof theirlaborthat we hope to buildin the next centuryof geonicaandGenizah research.128

128 As part of the celebrationof the centennial of the "discovery"of the

Genizah, together with the accounting of the bounty the Genizah has bestowed upon us, we must note the frustrationsthat still make Genizah research difficult and thus, the domain of relatively few scholars. Despite complete access to most collections (made greatly easier with the arrivalof microfilming after World War II) - now including materials previously hidden behind the "Iron Curtain" - the delays in cataloging Genizah collections continue to hinder scholars.To a large degree, the clarion call of M. Zulay in 1949 for an internationaleffort to classify and publish Genizah material in all areas fell upon deaf ears. See M. Zulay, "Bein Genizah Li-Genizah,"Lu'ah Ha'aretz 5710 (1949-1950), 110-126. Only in the very recent past have catalogues of majorcollections been appearing:parts of the Taylor-Schechtercollection; the Mosseri collection, and now, of Rabbinic materialin the ENA collection. It is my hope that these efforts will continue until all materialin all collections properlycataloguedand the materialtherein made accessible to scholars.

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ABBREVIATIONS Sh. Abramson, 'Inyanot Be-sifrut ha-Ge'onim, Jerusalem, 1974. N. Schechter Bentwich, Bentwich, Solomon Schechter: A Biography, Philadelphia, 1938. R. Geonim Brody, The Geonim of BabylonBrody, ia and the Shaping of Medieval Jewish Culture, New Haven and London, 1998. Cairo Geniza Studies Cairo Geniza Studies (Te'udah 1), ed. M.A. Friedman, Tel-Aviv, 1980 [Hebrew title: Hiqrei Genizat Qahir]. Cohen, Reconstruction G. Cohen, "The Reconstruction of Gaonic History", Studies in the Variety of Rabbinic Cultures (Philadelphia and New York, 1991), pp. 99-155. N. Danzig, Catalogue Danzig, A Catalogue of Fragments of Halakhah and Midrash from the Cairo Genizah in the ElkanNathanAdler Collection of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, New York and Jerusalem, 1997. (All references are to the Hebrew introduction.) N. Danzig, Introductionto Halakhot Danzig, MLHP Pesuqot, New York and Jerusalem, 1993 [Hebrew]. EJ Encyclopaedia Judaica, Jerusalem, 1972. J.N. Epstein, Studies in Talmudic Epstein, Studies Literature and Semitic Languages, ed. E.Z. Melamed, vol. 2/1, Jerusalem, 1988 [Hebrew]. Abramson, 'Inyanot

[47]

GEONICJURISPRUDENCEFROMTHE CAIROGENIZAH

Gil, In the Kingdom Ginzberg, Geonica Groner,Hai Gaon JTSA

Keeper of the Law OH"G

Reif, "Hundred"

Schorsch, Text Shargel,Lost Love

47

M. Gil, In the Kingdom of Israel, 4 vols., Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, 1997 [Hebrew]. L. Ginzberg, Geonica, 2 vols., New York, 1909. Groner, T., The Legal Methodology of Hai Gaon, Chico, Ca., 1985. Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, New York. E. Ginzberg, Keeper of the Law: Louis Ginzberg, Philadelphia, 1966. B.M. Lewin, Otzar ha-Ge'onim, 13 vols., Haifa, 1928; Jerusalem, 1944. S.C. Reif, "One Hundred Years of Genizah Research at Cambridge," Jewish Book Annual 53 (1995-1996), pp. 7-28. I. Schorsch, From Text to Context, Hanoverand London, 1994. B.R. Shargel, Lost Love: The Untold Story of Henrietta Szold, Unpublished Diary and Letters, Philadelphia, 1997.