Les genizoth alsaciennes, une source inestimable pour l’étude des communautés juives disparues

Abstract

A genizah is a ritual depository for Hebrew writings containing the name of God, as well as for all worn-out ritual items that it is forbidden, by Jewish law, to throw away. These writings and objects are rather relegated to a hidden place inside the synagogue. The genizah found in the autumn of 2012 under the attic floor of the synagogue of Dambach-la-Ville, during construction work, is a great discovery given its size, its diversity and its age. It covers a period of more than five hundred years, from the fourteenth to the nineteenth century. The purpose of this article is to study the questions relating to the identification of such fragmentary remains and to demonstrate how these modest scraps may be used as a complementary source to traditional archives, thus allowing us to gain more knowledge about the daily life of a small community in the Alsatian countryside that vanished after the Shoah.