genizah

1. (Jewish law) A depository where sacred Hebrew books or other sacred items that by Jewish law cannot be disposed of are kept before they can be properly buried in a cemetery.Examples: "The Cairo Genizah was discovered in 1896."; "In the year 1870 the Russian Minister of Public Worship purchased from the well-known Karaite traveller and archaeologist Abraham Firkowitsch his collection of Samaritan MSS. for the Imperial Library of St. Petersburg. It consists almost exclusively of fragments, this circumstance arising from the fact that the collector during his stay in Nablus and Egypt completely ransacked the Samaritan Genizoth (that is to say, the garrets and cellars of the synagogues whither their worn-out books were conveyed), thus acquiring several fragments of Samaritan Pentateuch rolls— […]"; "Unfortunately, too, the fragment begins in the very middle of a sentence, as do most of these Genizah fragments. It is evident that the leaves come from a large volume, as each drug was numbered."Jewish