Geniza Lab

Family letter in Ladino. "To my mother-in-law in the place of my mother, after I and your daughter Rica kiss your hands: know how astonished we are that after your departure you have not sent us a single letter or an inquiry after our health, knowing how you left us heartbroken on account of your departure. If I had found someone with whom to send my letters, I would have sent you more than two letters. For this reason, we beg you, I and my wife, that with the first person who comes, please write to us of your health. Peace. Many greetings from me and from my wife to the very honorable Yosef Jayan (?) and to your [presumably here addressing Yosef] very honorable wife Doña Esther. Many greetings from my sister Qamar. [From] he who kisses your hand like your own son, ʿOvadya Dichachi (?)." ASE

Scattered names and numbers and scribbles, probably accounts, which are difficult to read but seem to be in a mixture of Ladino and Judaeo-Arabic. ASE

List of 36 names, all beginning with al-Shaykh Abū […]. Written on three vertical strips of paper. Goitein estimates the date to be from the time of the Nagid David, ca.1241, since מחרז (Muḥarraz?) appears also in T-S K15.25 from that year. Bodl. (Information from Goitein’s index card)

Letter from Tiberias, containing a legal document recording their estate in the Muslim registration of Tiberias, dated 940. Ca. 1020

Letter from Musa b. Yishak b. Hisda from Mahdiyya, to Yosef b. Ya’aqov b. Awkal, Fustat. The letter mentions details about shipments from and to Sicily. Describes how the workers on the ship had to hide merchandise in the sea when they encounter soldiers and that damaged a large amount of the goods they shipped. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 2, #190) VMR

Legal document from Fustat, Elul 5500 (1740 CE), involving the division of profits between the three partners Avraham Serrano, Moshe Meyuḥas, and Avraham Ṣadīq and a fourth merchant, Avraham Revaḥ. The four businessmen are in the גֿוהאגֿיליך trade and they supply the princes and nobles of Egypt. This may be çuhacılık, which seems to be a type of weaving, but somebody who knows Turkish ought to examine it. Verso is also filled with text, in at least different hands, apparently a halakhic discussion. It is not clear if it relates to recto. A sum in reales is named. ASE

Bill of sale for a female slave. Written and signed by Moshe b. Elʿazar. Also signed by Avraham b. Hillel b. Ṣadoq Av. Location: Cairo. Dated: 5 Kislev 1519 Seleucid, which is 1207 CE. The name of the female slave (here called Heb. shifḥa) is missing. Seller: Shemuel ha-Levi. Buyer: Ḥasan/Yefet ha-Levi known as Ibn al-Batnūnī (אלבתנוני). Price: 21 dinars. (Information in part from Goitein’s index card and from Craig Perry.)

Fragment of a letter of a cantor describing the visit of the Nagid in a town, probably Alexandria, during the holidays. The Nagid visited the synagogue of the Babylonians. 300 persons were present. Also lists prices of wheat and bread and reports that the oppressive measures had been slightly relaxed. (Information from Goitein notes and index card.)

Petition to a Fatimid caliph. Fragmentary. Possibly offering congratulations/prayers on the occasion of a new caliph coming to power (... fī ḥulūl mulk mawlānā amīr al-muʾminīn...).

Legal document, Sunday 3 Adar II 4845 A.M. (1085), Alexandria. Yehuda b. Moshe b. Sighmar appoints Eli ha-Kohen b. Hayyim (=b. Yahya) as his agent to represent him in a litigation against a business partner, Avraham Ha-Kohen b. Faraj al-Rahbi. This is three years after Yehuda had asked Eli to help him to get the money that Avraham owed him and ten years after the original deal between the two. See also Bodl. MS heb. d 65/5 (ed. Cohen in Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 56 [2013], pp. 218-263, also in Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 4, #623).

India Book 4 (Hebrew description below; English to come)

Fragment of a letter to Efrayim b. Shemarya, likely from one of the Geonim of Palestine, possibly sent in the name of Shelomo b. Yehuda, as Efrayim is titled "ḥaver" here. The letter was written after the holidays of Tishrei, and the writer reports that they did their best to follow Efrayim's request and organized a pesiqa for somebody. Information from Elinoar Bareket via FGP.

Magical spells, 1 for arousing love (tahayyuj) and 1 for binding someone's tongue (ʿaqd lisān). Probably in the hand of Abū Sahl Levi (see tag). They are written in charming style ("may the love of X settle on the heart of Y, like the shade on an apple, like rose wafting fragrance" followed by a racy blazon; the next one, "may God make you an ass").

Engagement (shiddukhin) contract for a second wife. Location: Fustat. Dating: ca. 1165–66 CE, as the reshut clause invokes the Gaʾon Netanʾel ha-Levi (1160–66) and the document is written in the hand of the court scribe Shemuel b. Seʿadya ha-Levi (active 1165–1203). Manṣūr b. Makārim of Bilbays, already the husband of a woman named ʿAmāʾim, came before the court (probably in Fustat or Cairo) together with Abū Naṣr b. Abū Saʿīd, the half-brother (shared mother) of a woman named Maʿālī. Together the two men agree on the conditions for Manṣūr's marriage to Maʿālī. (1) Maʿālī will have her own apartment, not shared with ʿAmāʾim. (2) Manṣūr will not take a third wife. (3) Maʿālī will live with Manṣūr's daughter Milāḥ, likely the daughter of ʿAmāʾim (Goitein speculated that ʿAmāʾim must have suffered from a physical or mental illness preventing her from taking care of her own daughter). (4) Marriage payments: 2 + 15 = 17 dinars. (Information from M. A. Friedman's edition.)

Letter from Avraham, son of the Gaon, to Efrayim b. Shemarya, approximately 1029.

Letter from Natan b. Shemuel he-Ḥaver, in Fustat, to Petahya b. ʿOvadya ha-Kohen, in Damascus. Almost entirely in rhymed Hebrew with one sentence in Judaeo-Arabic in the margin of verso. Dated: Ḥeshvan 1453 Seleucid, which is October/November 1141 CE. Natan complains that his junior school friend has not written to him for a long time. He also conveys his greetings to Petahya's family. Natan's sons Mevorakh, Seʿadya, and Yehosef send their greetings. Natan concludes with a request for pens. Goitein summarizes this document as follows (Med Soc V, p. 294): "Judge Natan b. Shemuel he-ḥaver (Med. Soc, II, 513, sec. 18) served as secretary of the Damascus branch of the Jerusalem yeshiva, but accompanied Maṣliaḥ Gaon, when he opened a Cairene branch in 1127. In a letter from Fustat, dated October/November 1141, Natan complained bitterly about the addressee, Petahyahu ha-Kohen, a close companion of his youth, and two other friends in Damascus, from whom he had not received letters for years. True, in 1141 the Crusaders' kingdom separated Damascus from Egypt. But we know that Jews and Muslims were permitted to travel through the Christian territory, and our letter reports the arrival of a dignitary from Damascus carrying an eloquent epistle to the Egyptian Nagid written by Natan's friend Petahyahu. Natan does not complain about the Crusaders. He accuses Time: 'I complain about Time, the perfidious, the faithless, which disregards the claims of brotherhood and impedes its growing; it weakens and emaciates the love of friends. This is its character from its very beginning, incessantly urging separation, the treacherous robber! . . . It changed your relationship with me, you, my friend and beloved, whom I have reared on my knees, until I made you my equal.'"

Letter from Ḥiyya b. Yiṣḥaq to Shelomo b. Yehuda ha-Kohen (also called ha-Talmid ha-Navon Segan ha-Kohanim). In Judaeo-Arabic. The letter begins with condolences upon the death of the addressee's cousin (ibn ʿamm) Abū Isḥāq. It seems that the addressee was owed money by the deceased and that the addressee has been mistreated by the people of the Rīf, such as Ibn Yeshuʿa. The sender has paid a sum of money (brokerage? שמשאר) to Abū Saʿd b. Hiba(?) and awaits confirmation of receipt. He has received news from travelers about trouble with the judge (qāḍī) of Tyre and a certain amir (אלקטורי). The Nagid intervened to help resolve the situation. The lower part of the letter is missing.

Legal declaration, missing its beginning, inolving several Bibles (maṣāḥif), the speaker's brother Abū Saʿīd, abū l-Barakāt al-Ḥazzan, and Abū l-Makārim al-Levi. The original document is signed by Avraham ha-Kohen b. Aharon and ʿOvadya b. ʿŪlla. The addendum is signed by Shemuel ha-Levi b. Seʿadya, Elʿazar b. Mikha'el, and Mevorakh b. Natan ha-Ḥaver (active 1150–81).

Fragment of a letter from Nāshī b. Thābit ha-Kohen to Yosef ha-Levi he-ḥaver b. Ḥalfon ha-Levi (Fustat), ca. 1084-1090. Nāshī b. Thābit sends his gratitude to “the distinguished Rav”, probably Yehuda ha-Kohen b. Yosef, who was behind the assistance received by Nāshī. Nāshī b. Thābit writes that he is “sitting on coals” because he is unable to attend a wedding owing to the blockade of the town in which he lives. (Information from Goitein notes and index card linked below and Zinger, Women, Gender and Law: Marital Disputes According to Documents of the Cairo Geniza (PhD thesis, Princeton, 2014), pp. 408-410.) Arabic trials of the pen on verso.

Legal query from Shelomo b. Yaṣliaḥ to the Sahlān b. Barhūn ha-Ḥaver (titled Rosh Kalla). It is a veiled complaint about a cantor, clad in a carefully worded series of questions about the desirability of a hindrance to public prayer, especially when the latter is improperly conducted. (Information from Goitein’s index card)