ISRAEL-ARCHAEOLOGY-JUDAISM-GENIZAH-AFGANISTAN

Academic director of the National Library of Israel professor Haggai Ben-Shammai displays a document from a collection of discarded religious Jewish writings, discovered inside caves in a Taliban stronghold in northern Afghanistan, which date back from the 10th century during a press conference on January 3, 2013, at the national library in Jerusalem. The national library recently acquired 29 items from the collection, or Genizah, which contains the first-ever documentation of the religious, cultural and commercial life of the Jewish community in that era and area. AFP PHOTO/MENAHEM KAHANA (Photo credit should read MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP via Getty Images)