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 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 Dis-
covery 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. Got-
theil 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 exam-
ple, E.N. Adler, "An Eleventh Century Introductionto the Hebrew Bible,"
JQR o.s. 9 (1897), 669-673; D.R. Smith, "GenizahCollections in the British
2 NEILDANZIG [2]

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, 11?33tn,l n a'ln Ptn ~n, nl nnrm/ ^l lrt
rpo1-D'n n nnr",n'T'l"
:oNI D^rtulnnxKzp ...lf: fnnn ^so T3YSn3f: l3 nmnl?r x5r
4.y^ir-nap nms hiyrmwnnmT 111OD1IX fC nrtn ny3r x*?^fy

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 Geni-
zah, 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 ha-
Mizrah,"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 (repro-
duced 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.
[3] FROMTHECAIROGENIZAH
JURISPRUDENCE
GEONIC 3

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 informa-
tion 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-centuryWissenschaftschol-
ars, 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-
4 NEILDANZIG [4]
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 Cam-
bridge and elsewhere, a full area of historical and literary
inquiry was born.?1Many areas of Jewish Studies have bene-
fitted from the contributions culled from the Genizah, and

Arabic and existing in Europe in medieval Hebrew translations,may be

culledfromM. Steinschneider,Die hebraeischen,4Ubersetzungendes Mittelat-
ters (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 poten-
tial 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 nine-
teenth 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.
[5] GEONIC
JURISPRUDENCE
FROMTHECAIROGENIZAH 5

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 hala-
khah 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 ha-
Meqorot,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 Collec-
tions: 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 epoch-
making 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 mind-
numbing 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 ha-
Ma'asim," Tarbiz 50 [Jubilee Volume] (1980), 209-242, with references to
previous literature;idem, "Ma'aseh Gadol: Qeta' 'Hadash min ha-Ma'asim
Other documents randomly have
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