 In December 1896, Cambridge University instructor Solomon Schecter, who later became a prominent American rabbi, began the first in-depth academic investigation of the documents from the geniza, and arranged to have the remaining documents removed from Cairo to various university libraries.Egypt's Jewish community is at the end of a dramatic decline, from about 80,000 people in the 1920s to less than a dozen of Egyptian ancestry now residing in Cairo.Accordingly, the Ben Ezra Synagogue functions now as a tourist attraction and museum, rather than as a functioning congregation.