By Marcia Montgomery
Associate Editor
What happens when a Jewish community’s genizah runs out of space? Is it really that important?
It is a prohibition to destroy books that contain God’s Hebrew name, and it is a nearly universal practice across denominations to bury worn out sacred books such as Jewish prayer books, books of Scripture and certain ritual items such as tefillin, mezuzah scrolls and Torah scrolls in a genizah. Rabbi David Glickman of Congregation Beth Shalom explained.
“The word ‘genizah’ is a Hebrew word that means ‘hiding place,’ ” he said. “A genizah is simply a place to bury worn out sacred books, but before the printing press, communities would throw away all kinds of Hebrew-written material. There was a giant genizah in Cairo that was discovered in the 19th century. It became the basis for one of the greatest Jewish discoveries to learn about Jewish history in modern times.”
Nearly every Jewish community has its own genizah, and while most genizahs are in cemeteries, the Cairo Genizah was attached to the synagogue. Much can be learned from a genizah about the rituals, customs and beliefs of a Jewish community.
“[The Cairo Genizah] became the source of a treasure trove of historical documents,” Rabbi Glickman said. “And the legend of the Golem is connected to the genizah of Prague during the 16th century.”
For the last 20-plus years, Kehilath Israel Synagogue has maintained a communitywide genizah at its cemetery on Blue Ridge Boulevard, but it is now completely full. The Rabbinical Association (RA) was approached in 2017 and asked to find a solution for constructing a community genizah, said Annette Fish, Rabbinical Association administrator and program director.
Numerous options were explored to find a proper burial space. Two private Jewish cemeteries offered space, but because of their distance from Overland Park, the RA worried they would not be easily utilized by the community. Rabbi Glickman spoke with Beth Shalom’s cemetery committee to see if there was real estate that could be donated for this project.
In response, Congregation Beth Shalom donated land the size of several graves in its Mount Carmel Cemetery and provided labor from its own cemetery staff to dig the graves and help with the installation of a new genizah vault or crypt.
The RA submitted a grant request to the Menorah Heritage Foundation during its 2017 grants cycle for the “construction” of the genizah on cemetery lots donated by Beth Shalom and for preparation of guidelines for use by the community, said Menorah Heritage Foundation Executive Director Rita Cortes.
“The grant was made within our annual budgeted grantmaking for the Jewish community. I don’t know if there were other funders. In the case of this project, due to its one-time nature and modest cost, we coordinated with our funding partners in the Jewish community (Jewish Federation and Jewish Community Foundation) to simplify the funding process for the RA through one funder rather than applying to all three of us,” Cortes said.
A Jewish community can produce an inordinate amount of material for a genizah: from synagogues, from people’s homes or from the homes of deceased relatives.
“This is a Jewish custom that is ingrained deeply into the Jewish psyche even among the least ritually observant who may not have other practices,” Rabbi Glickman said. “It is surprising how often people come to a synagogue or Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy with old prayer books or ritual objects to properly dispose of them. Because HBHA is centrally located, they end up being the recipient of much of this material.”
It is common to construct a simple structure with a slot that empties into a below-ground grave, Rabbi Glickman said. The grave is lined with concrete to prevent the earth from falling in, and then above ground there is a mailbox-like structure for dropping materials into the crypt. Objects were mounting up until about a year ago when a large number of sacred materials was taken to the Mount Carmel genizah for burial.
“Rabb Avi Weinstein [head of Jewish studies at HBHA] organized it, and he actually wrote up guidelines for us for what requires burial so [the new genizah] won’t fill up too quickly, because there’s a lot of variety of opinions about what needs burial and what doesn’t,” Rabbi Glickman said. “This genizah can hopefully last the community at least 40 to 50 years.”
For information about communal drop off, contact Fish at the RA, or 913-327-4622.
