Recto/verso:
Section:
Letter from an unknown man to Rachel Zussman. In Yiddish. "The letter is short and touches upon a relative’s illness and minor business matters. Verso contains a note, perhaps in the hand of Moshe, Rachel’s son, whose job it was to forward her letters on to Venice. It is likely, therefore, that this is a reply to Rachel from her correspondent, the Venetian rabbi Jacob Katz. The fact that this letter, Rachel’s note for Rabbi Katz and a letter from Moshe himself were all found in the Genizah, indicates that they probably never reached their destinations. We can only speculate about the reasons for that. But perhaps it is the son’s negligence in these matters that causes Rachel to scold him in another letter: הקב’’ה זול דיר עז מוחל זיין דז דו מיך האשט אוזו מצער גיוועזן (‘may God forgive you that you made me so sad’), before adding a somewhat more enraged איך וויל דיך שטראפן אי איך שטירב (‘I want to punish you before I die’)." Information from Esther-Miriam Wagner, "Vis, liber zun, ikh hob dir vil brif geshribn: Yiddish letters in the Genizah." [Genizah Research Unit, Fragment of the Month, October 2009]. https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.55277
