In 1896, Rabbi Solomon Schechter of Cambridge University stepped into the attic of the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Cairo, Egypt and found the largest treasure trove of medieval and early manuscripts ever discovered. R. Schechter had entered into the synagogue’s genizah-its repository for damaged and destroyed Jewish texts-which held nearly 300,000 documents, many 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.