We have posted several times about Genizas — depositories of worn out or disused ritual and other objects which for religious reasons cannot simply be thrown away.
Sometimes they are buried in Jewish cemeteries; often they are hidden away in the attics or walls of synagogues.
One of the projects we have highlighted is the “Secrets in the Attic” project carried out by the Prague Jewish Museum (JMP), which has had exhibitions and also has an informative web site.
Since the 1990s, researchers from the JMP surveyed geniza sites in a dozen synagogues in Bohemia and Moravia and obtained more than 3,000 finds, the oldest from the 16th century and the most recent from the 19th century.
The Museum made a film about the work and the material found, and it is now viewable with English language subtitles.
Take a look!
Access the Secrets in the Attic web site
See our June 2023 post about the project and its web site
See our 2022 post about one of the project’s exhibitions
See our post about a Geniza project in Germany