Introduction

On the heels of the recent publication of Seride Teshuvot of the Ottoman Empire Sages from the Cairo Genizah Collections at the Cambridge University Libraries , I now have the privilege of issuing this new work that features responsa fragments housed in the Elkan Natan Adler Cairo Genizah Collection at the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America . The manuscripts , published here for the first time , offer revelations that have yet to be discussed , and hold the potential to contribute to new understandings of various halakhic - historical issues . They may further help to forge a broader view of Responsa literature in general and a deeper understanding of the ways in which responsa were written in the lands of the Mediterranean basin from the early 16 century onward . A . How Research of the Classical Genizah Differs from Study of Responsa from the Later Genizah After the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947 , the researcher of poetry and liturgical poetry ( piyyut ...  אל הספר