Geniza Lab

Letter from a Jewish woman, in or near Tripoli (Lebanon), to her brother-in-law, in Fustat. In Judaeo-Arabic. She is a refugee from Jerusalem who has suffered at the hands of the invading Seljuk Turks in the 1070s CE. She had to flee from Jerusalem to Tripoli, where she reports on the carnage she witnessed: ‘I was with him on the day I saw them killed in terrible fashion... I am an ill woman on the brink of insanity, on top of the hunger of my family and the little girl who are all with me, and the horrid news I heard about my son.’ She suggests it would be better to be captured since those in captivity ‘find someone who gives them food and drink’, whereas uncaptured, she and her children are starving. (Information in part from CUDL.)

Colophon for a copy of masekhet Berakhot. Dedicated to Yeshuʿa b. [...] ha-Melammed. This is crossed out. Underneath, there is a note of a sale: Yakhin b. Ḥalfon purchased it for 16 dirhams. (Information from Goitein's index card)

Letter from a certain Yiṣḥaq to the Gaʾon Sar Shalom ha-Levi b. Moshe (active 1171–95 CE) and his deputy Shelomo. In Hebrew. The sender is a newcomer in the city (presumably Fustat) and complains about the lack of hospitality. He has been traveling for 3 years and left a wife and children suffering under the rule of the Christians (ערלים). He asks for money so that he can go and retrieve his family and from there go to Jerusalem. Verso contains three lines of text, probably the address of the note (it mentions Sar Shalom), crossed out. (Information in part from CUDL.)

Ketubba fragment (right lower corner). In the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Groom: Yefet ha-Zaqen b. [...] ba-Ḥavura. Witnesses: Peraḥya b. Araḥ; Yefet b. Ṣadaqa. (Information from Goitein's index card)

Engagement deed. In the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Groom: Ṭoviyya b. Tiqva. Bride: Sitt al-Kull bt. Peraḥya, a virgin. Her paternal uncle received on her behalf 3 rings of fine gold, a ring of amber, and two silver "unbūbas." Witnessed by Avraham b. Shemaʿya he-Ḥaver; Yiṣḥaq b. Shemuel ha-Sefardi; and Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Dated: Kislev 1431 Seleucid, which is 1119 CE. This is in fact the earliest known example of such a deed, since formalising a couple’s engagement with a legal document appears to have been an innovation of the 12th century. Jewish marriage is a three-stage process: engagement (shiddukhin), betrothal (erusin/qiddushin), and marriage. Betrothal, at which the couple are declared married but do not move in together, and marriage, when the woman leaves her father’s house and lives with her husband, are both formal events requiring a written document. Engagement, however, was an oral agreement of a more informal nature. In 12th-century Fustat, Egypt, however, the Jewish community began to formalise engagements through a written deed, in order to better protect the rights of women in the partnership. The deeds mostly consist of prenuptial conditions to be imposed on the husband: where the couple would live (and who has the right to choose), the right of the woman to ask for a divorce, various restrictions on the husband’s movements, etc, and testify to the relative power that Jewish women had in the marriage agreement. (Information mainly from CUDL and some from Goitein's index card.)

Letter sent by Yiṣḥaq the Jerusalemite to an old friend, judge Eliyyahu b. Zechariah, excusing himself for traveling from Bilbays directly to Alexandria, without making the detour to Fustat to pay his respects to him on the approaching holidays. The writer asks the judge to submit the matter of an old man who was supported by his nephew and lost this support when the nephew died to the Nagid Avraham Maimonides for redress; otherwise, it will end up in the hands of the Muslim authorities. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 397; V. pp. 279, 584)

Legal testimony. Dating: Late 11th or early 12th century. Pinḥas b. [...] claims from Tiqva b. ʿAmram a ruqʿa worth 5 dinars. Tiqva is prepared to swear on a Bible. Pinḥas releases him from the claim after he undergoes a ḥerem stam in the same session. Scribed and signed by Avraham b. Shemaʿya ha-Ḥaver. Also signed by Shelomo b. Shemuel. On verso there are pen trials (or accounts?) in Arabic script with Greek/Coptic numerals. The financial dealings of Tiqva b. ʿAmram of Ashqelon are known from several other Genizah manuscripts, including T-S 8J4.14 (dated 1098 CE) and T-S 28.4 (dated 1100 CE). (Information from Goitein's index card and CUDL.)

Bill of divorce (geṭ). Husband: Ṣedaqa b. Ḥalfon. Wife: Sumr bt. Yosef. Location: Fustat. Signed by Mevorakh b. Natan he-Ḥaver and Levi ha-Levi b. Abraham. Dated: 28 Tishrei 1492 Seleucid, which is 1180 CE. On verso the certification that Sumr received the geṭ.

Ketubba or dowry list. In the hand of Hillel b. ʿEli. Dating: ca. 1100 CE. See Goitein's index card for further information.

Legal deed. On parchment. In the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. In which Abū ʿAlī Ḥasan al-Tinnīsī (aka Yefet b. Shemarya) appoints Makārim b. Shelomo b. Yeshuʿa ha-Ḥaver known as Ibn al-Sulamī as his agent to claim what the late Ṣāfī b. Yakhin (see T-S NS 224.40 + T-S NS 184.67) had willed him and which was deposited with [...]. The name of this person was vigorously erased, and the lower part of the document was crossed out with diagonal strokes. (Information in part from Goitein's notes.)

Court record. Location: Fustat. Dated: Monday, 18 Adar 1409 Seleucid, which is February 1098 CE. Dealing with a lawsuit of Mevasser/Bishāra b. Ḥalfon against Shelomo b. Hillel, involving the proceeds of a partnership in oil sold in al-Mahdiyya, with addenda concerning the same matter in smaller script and in a cruder hand on verso. The top margin on recto mentions Bishāra and Abū l-ʿAlā, both from Aleppo, and Ibn Majjān Abū l-Surūr b. ʿAṭiyya. T-S 8J4.15 is a court record from Av of the same year, concerned with the dealings of the Aleppan trader Solomon b. Hillel. (Information from Goitein's hand list and CUDL.)

Ketubba fragment. Dating: Perhaps 10th or 11th century (Goitein just writes "old.") Vertical strip from the middle. The dowry list mentions a bed of shisham/sheesham wood (sarīr sāsim/sāsam), 6 dyed pillows, and an item called עקביה כחלי. The order: first bedding, then clothing. There are five signatures partially preserved. (Information from Goitein’s index card)

Court records. Recto: Sasson b. Natan sues Moshe b. Moshe ha-Levi known as Ibn Majān concerning the sale of goods, dated Nisan and Iyyar 1409 of the Seleucid Era (= 1098 CE). Signed by Yiṣḥaq b. Shemuel, Avraham b. Shemaʿya he-Ḥaver (descendant of Shemaʿya Gaʾon), and Netanel b. Yefet. Also mentions Abū Isḥāq b. Ṭibān. Sasson b. Natan also appears in T-S 12.1 (ca. 1090 CE), in which testimony is given regarding Sasson’s attempt to defraud with counterfeit currency, and Moses Ibn Majān features in a dispute over a Bible codex in T-S 18J5.2 + T-S 10J5.16. (Information from CUDL.) See also Goitein notes and index card linked below.

Letter from the judge Avraham b. [Mevorakh] ha-Kohen, the head of the Jewish community in al-Maḥalla, to the Nagid/Raʾīs al-Yahūd Mevorakh b. Seʿadya. In Hebrew and Judaeo-Arabic, with the address in Arabic script (including with Mevorakh's title אלוף הבינות spelled out الوف هبينوت). Dating: 1094–95 CE. Avraham congratulates the Nagid Mevorakh on his return to power (in 1094 CE) and reports that the rent for the synagogue—a government building rented to the community—had been raised by two dinars by a Jewish tax farmer leasing the building for the government. Abū Saʿīd Khalaf and Abū l-Faḍl Yakhīn, the ghulām of the Nagid, are also mentioned. On verso the remainder of the letter is followed by a list of books in the hand of Hillel b. ʿEli, with a note stating ‘owed to me by Abū Saʿd’. (Information from CUDL and Mediterranean Society, I, 379.)

Letter of appeal for charity. In a mixture of Judaeo-Arabic and Hebrew, in a crude hand. (Information from CUDL.)

Recto: calendar for the year 5008 of the Era of Creation (= 1247-1248 CE), year 11 of the 19-year cycle 264. The calendar is dated according to the Era of Creation, the Seleucid Era, the Era of the Destruction of the Second Temple, the Era of the Exodus and position of the year in the 19-year and the Sabbatical cycles. The calendar mentions the intercalation, length of the variable months, the calendrical type of the year, moladot of all months, days of the week of beginnings of months, days of the week and dates of festivals and fasts, the date and time of the tequfot, as well as the time when prayers for rain begin. The sign ‘//’ is used for zero. Verso: calendrical texts written indifferent directions including 1) a chronology from Exodus to the year 5008 of the Era of Creation; 2) two calculations of molad Tišri of 5009 of the Era of Creation; 3) at the bottom of verso, written transversely a calculation of moladot of all months and the four tequfot for the year 5009 of the Era of Creation and molad Tišri of 5010 of the Era of Creation; 4) a separate calculation of molad Tišri of 5010 of the Era of Creation. All moladot on recto and verso are 12 hours higher than the correct values. Tequfot and days of the week of beginnings of months for 5009 of the Era of Creation are crossed out. There is also Arabic script and Rūmī (Greek/Coptic) numerals in different places on the page. (Information from CUDL.)

Letter sent from Alexandria to Avraham ha-Rav ha-Sefaradi. (Perhaps the same Avraham ha-Sefaradi as in ENA 2558.13, who corresponded with the Nagid Yehoshuaʿ Maimonides in the first half of the 14th century.) In Hebrew. The sender conveys the plight of a woman who is his neighbor, presumably urging Avraham to intercede. This woman comes from a distinguished, educated, and wealthy family from Barcelona. After she had been a widow for 12 years, a man named Yosef arrived from "the city of Castile" (Toledo? or does it just mean "one of the cities of Castile"?). He said that he was a great sage and physician, and the widow's parents delightedly took him as their son-in-law. It turned out that he was a liar, a fraud, an ignoramus, and a great heretic ("Who commanded us to wear tzitzit? Who commanded us to put on tefillin? God did not command these things.") Her parents are inconsolable; she is their only child. The husband has already swindled them out of 500 pieces of silver. He does not even give her food to eat. The pair have since gone to Fustat. ASE.

List of receivers of alms containing rare names, women and foreigners. The Hebrew alef evidently stands for ūqiya, ounce. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 462, App. B 83b)

Legal document signed by Sahlān b. Avraham. There are numerous citations in Bareket's publications. Awaiting fuller description.

Recto: two alchemical recipes, the first on the use of a water derived from a preparation of tutty (an oxide of zinc), which is left overnight to congeal into a stone; the second deals with a preparation with tartar (potassium tartarate) white sal ammoniac (in transliteration from Arabic here), copper, sulfur, salpeter (nitre, mineral of potassium nitrate), sea salt, and white copper, mentioning the use of a waterproof glass container and another vessel isolated with the clay of the sages (Ar. Ṭīn al-ḥikma, Lat. argilla philosophorum, lutum sapientiae). Verso: instructions for the production of an amulet for a barren woman, with magical characteres and two small Stars of David, and instructions for the production of an amulet for avoiding dangers on the road. All this is written in a late Ashkenazi hand. (Information mainly from CUDL.)