In 1896, Rabbi Solomon Schechter of Cambridge University

stepped into the attic of the Ben Ezra Synagogue

in Cairo, Egypt, and there found the largest treasure

trove of medieval and early manuscripts ever discovered.

He had entered the synagogue's genizah its

repository for damaged and destroyed Jewish texts

which held nearly 300,000 individual documents,

many of which were over 1,000 years old.

Considered among the most important discoveries

in modern religious history, its contents contained early

copies of some of the Dead Sea Scrolls, early manuscripts

of the Hebrew Bible, and other sacred literature.

The importance of the genizah's contents rivals that of

the Rosetta Stone, and by virtue of its sheer mass alone,

it will continue to command our attention indefinitely.

This is the first accessible, comprehensive account of this

astounding discovery. It will delight you with its fascinating

adventure story why this enormous collection was amassed,

how it was discovered and the many lessons to be found in its

contents. And it will show you how Schechter's find, though

still being "unpacked" today, forever transformed our knowledge

of the Jewish past, Muslim history and much more.

In 1896, Rabbi Solomon Schechter of Cambridge University stepped into the attic of the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Cairo and there found the largest treasure trove of mediaeval and early manuscripts ever discovered. He had entered the synagogue's genizah - its repository for damaged and destroyed Jewish texts - which held nearly 300,000 individual documents, many of which were over 1,000 years old.

Stolen Words is an epic story about the largest collection of Jewish books in the world-tens of millions of books that the Nazis looted from European Jewish families and institutions. Nazi soldiers and civilians emptied Jewish communal libraries, confiscated volumes from government collections, and stole from Jewish individuals, schools, and synagogues. Early in their regime the Nazis burned some books in spectacular bonfires, but most they saved, stashing the literary loot in castles, abandoned mine shafts, and warehouses throughout Europe. It was the largest and most extensive book-looting campaign in history. After the war, Allied forces discovered these troves of stolen books but quickly found themselves facing a barrage of questions. How could the books be identified? Where should they go? Who had the authority to make such decisions? Eventually the military turned the books over to an organization of leading Jewish scholars called Jewish Cultural Reconstruction, Inc.-whose chairman was the acclaimed historian Salo Baron and whose on-the-ground director was the philosopher Hannah Arendt-with the charge of establishing restitution protocols. Stolen Words is the story of how a free civilization decides what to do with the material remains of a world torn asunder, and how those remains connect survivors with their past. It is the story of Jews struggling to understand the new realities of their post-Holocaust world and of Western society's gradual realization of the magnitude of devastation wrought by World War II. Most of all, it is the story of people -of Nazi leaders, ideologues, and Judaica experts; of Allied soldiers, scholars, and scoundrels; and of Jewish communities, librarians, and readers around the world.