Geniza Lab

Calendar for the years 4962–4964 of the Era of Creation (= 1201-1202 to 1203-1204 CE), dated according to the Era of Creation, the Seleucid Era, the Era of the Destruction of the Second Temple and the position of the year in the 19-year, Sabbatical cycle and jubilee cycles. The calendar mentions intercalation, the length of the variable months, the type of the year, moladot of all months and days of the week of beginnings of months. (Information from CUDL.)

Accounts in a crude hand mentioning money and quantities of various commodities received from a druggist, such as tamarind, saffron, rosewater, rose preserve, and myrobalan (halīlaj). Also names such as Abū Isḥāq and Ibn Nuṣayr. (Information from Goitein's index card and CUDL.)

Accounts in the hand of ʿArūs b. Yosef. Dating: ca. 1100 CE. (Information from CUDL and Goitein's index card.)

Letter from a man, in Damascus, to his father, perhaps in Fustat. The sender expresses his longing and desperation in this foreign land, especially after the departure of Manṣūr ("the world closed itself in on me... I cry... and wish my soul would leave, but it does not"). He reports that he is revered, because he has successfully humiliated all the competing cantors, and now nobody dares to chant in his presence. (The father seems to be a cantor as well.) His father was upset that he entered the service of "someone like the ghulām"; Manṣūr will explain everything when he arrives. He was unable to send some of the goods for his brother; Ibn Abū l-Zakkār may have told him not to trust a potential bearer. He has sent with Manṣūr a mould of cheese worth 2.5 dirhams, and he has equipped Manṣūr with funds to keep the cheese well-oiled en route lest it dry out. He complains about the lack of sustenance in Damascus. He claims to fast most days out of sorrow/longing, and he repeatedly asks for prayers. He is worried that his enemies will gain the upper hand over him (he may have seen this in a dream? Verso, line 8). He describes the hospitality of his paternal uncles and their children and his maternal aunt. He asks for news of potential fiancees back home—his cousin (bint ʿamm) and Nabaʾ—since the locals in Damascus are trying to set him up with a local woman. He emphasizes that he would never get married with his father absent. He alludes to a period of a year when he had a falling-out with his father, a rift which is now healed (this may explain some of the over-the-top language of longing in this letter). He asks for some aqwāl, which should be sent to the house of the Nezer along with instructions to forward them to Aleppo should the son have traveled already. He concludes by warning his father to seal all of his future letters—"and not with a heavy seal." (Information in part from CUDL.) ASE

Family letter addressed to Bū l-Ṭāḥir. In Judaeo-Arabic. The sender plans to leave for al-Maḥalla after the holiday to retrieve some money from a dyer. He hopes to bring the blanket (malḥafa) of Sitt Suʿūd with him. He has been able to find a boat to travel in, on account of some bad thing happening with the fleet (al-usṭūl)—could the navy be commandeering (masakū) Nile boats? He instructs the children to be nice to each other, and whatever money they need, the sender will reimburse the addressee. Regards to various people, including Sitt al-Niʿam; Sitt Suʿūd; Sitt ʿAbīd; Sitt Masʿūd; and Sitt al-Khayr. Written in the last decade of Tishrei (the year is not given). (Information in part from CUDL.)

Calendar for the years 4790–4791 of the Era of Creation (= 1029-1030 to 1030-1031 CE), dated according to the Era of the Destruction of the Second Temple, the position of the year in the 19-year cycle and in the Sabbatical cycle, the Era of Creation and the Seleucid Era. The calendar mentions intercalation, length of variable months, moladot of all months, days of the week of beginnings of months, festivals and fasts, and the time and date of the tequfot. Some moladot have mistakes that appear to be caused by copying from a draft calculation of moladot. The date of the next year is given at the bottom of verso. (Information from CUDL.)

Legal document. Fragment of a ketubba, left upper corner. With ornate decorations. Dated: Adar 1817 Seleucid, which is 1506 CE. (Information from Goitein’s index card and CUDL.)

Memorandum from Yosef b. Avraham to Ishaq Nafusi. Aden, 1130s.

Legal document. Ketubba. Dating: early 11th century. Bride: Dalāl. Early marriage payment: 30 dinars. (Information from Goitein’s index card and CUDL.)

Colophon written by the doctor Yedutun b. Levi ha-Levi (likely the same man who is better known as the cantor for the Palestinian synagogue in Fustat in the late 12th and early 13th century).

Order of payment from Abū Zikrī Kohen. Munajjā is to give (the bearer?) 4 ounces of rose and lemon. (Information from Goitein’s index card.)

Book list. Location: Bilbays.

Letter from [Hi]llel b. Yeshuʿa to Shela b. Bū l-Khayr ha-Kohen. In Hebrew. Dating: Late, probably no earlier than 14th century. The sender had left the addressee (and someone named Yosef?) in charge of his property in Jerusalem, so that it would be ready for him upon his return, or if he wished to send something there. The purpose of this letter is to chastise the addressee, who has apparently violated the terms of the arrangement. (Information in part from Goitein’s index card.)

Letter in Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: Probably early 13th century. Might be from a family member of Sitt Ghazāl to Shelomo b. Eliyyahu (cf. Bodl. MS heb. c 28/64 + CUL Or.1080 J125 + DK 357 and ENA 2808.36). "You write to me that you are in distress from her character (akhlāq). I want you to write to me and tell me exactly what the problem is, because I don't know what the problem is. Tell me what it is so that I can take care of it for you... for you are dear to me, greater than my brother and like my father in nobility. Whatever good you treat her with, God will reward you for it and you will earn reward." Greetings to 'the dear sister,' to Isḥāq and his wife, to al-Ḥedvat (cf. ENA NS 53.5, ENA NS 58.14, T-S NS J420, T-S NS J76), Bū Saʿd, others, and Bū l-Faraj al-Makīn b. Bū l-Zakkār(?). On verso there is a calendar.

Three different text blocks. (1) Recto: qinnot. (2) Note in Judaeo-Arabic possibly in the same hand as the qinnot. Abū l-ʿAlāʾ tells "my rabbi and teacher" that he sent this quire as soon as he received his letter, but the bearer was delayed. (3) Hebrew poetry/piyyuṭ in the hand of Yehuda b. Ṭoviyyahu (muqaddam of Bilbays, late 12th and early 13th century). So Yehuda was probably the addressee of the note.

Two fragments edited by Israel Lévi (1900b), which may be considered lost. Re-edited by Bornstein (1904) 87-9. Lévi only reports having found them at the great Exposition in Paris, in the hands of a merchant from Cairo. His collection was initially deposited in the Consistoire Israélite de Paris, and then transferred, in 1945, to the library of the Alliance Israélite Universelle (AIU). Upon further searching, not found in AIU. The text of one of Lévi’s fragments was convincingly joined by Mann (1934: 273-7) to Bodl. Heb. d. 74.27 (for which he relied on Guillaume’s edition).

See F1908.44S (PGPID 30820) for description and transcription.

Appeal from the Jewish communal administration in Cairo to Egyptian Jews calling them to fast for a day in the month (Sivan) in remembrance of the events that occurred to the Jews of Ukraine in the 1648CE, September 15 1921CE – Museum of Islamic Art – in Judeo-Arabic in Rashi script. (information from Ḥassanein Muḥammad Rabīʿa, ed., Dalīl Wathā'iq al-Janīza al-Jadīda / Catalogue of the Documents of the New Geniza, 37). A full scan and an edition of this document is available in: Ḥasan and Sarrāj, Al-Janiza wa-l-maʿābid al-Yahūdiyya fī Miṣr, 147-152. Although the MIAC catalogue refers to the communal authority in general terms, it is crucial to note that in the document itself the institution making this appeal is the Beit Dīn Miṣr/בית דין מצר. MCD.

Personal letter from the head of the Babylonian community in Jerusalem (Adath HaBablim) to Mr. Yiṣḥaq Mordechai [Gabbay] seeking an explanation for why he has not been writing letters and similarly about items sent to Alexandria that have not arrived – 13 Iyyar 1922CE – Museum of Islamic Art – (number 10) – in Judeo-Arabic. (information from Ḥassanein Muḥammad Rabīʿa, ed., Dalīl Wathā'iq al-Janīza al-Jadīda / Catalogue of the Documents of the New Geniza, 52). This may be the same Isḥak Mordechai mentioned in MIAC 212. An original scan of the typewritten letter and Arabic-script edition of it appear in Al-Janiza wa-l-maʿābid al-Yahūdiyya fī Miṣr (pp. 166-169). Although the letter sender's name is not included in the MIAC catalogue it is mostly legible in the scan as "Eliyyāhū Menaḥem Shemuel Zofiēl[?]." A portion of the letterhead is in English and states "Registered by the Jerusalem Govern. under act 3939/239." MCD.

Letter from Monsieur Yosef Raḥmīn and Atūrī in the Nile textile company to the Jewish charitable society of Ḥeberāt Māzūn containing a check with the amount for six months of participation 23 April 1953CE – Museum of Islamic Art – (number 100) – in Arabic. (information from Ḥassanein Muḥammad Rabīʿa, ed., Dalīl Wathā'iq al-Janīza al-Jadīda / Catalogue of the Documents of the New Geniza, 56). MCD.