Geniza Lab

Letter of a son, Yiṣḥaq b. Yaʿaqov, to his father, Yaʿaqov b. Yiṣḥaq, containing 20 lines of polite phrases in Hebrew, another 6 in Arabic, and 3 announcing that he was unable to locate a certain person in the ministry of finance (dār al-zimām) in Cairo; he was told that the official left to visit his father in Dalāṣ. There are also some self-pitying lines about the writer's illness and unemployment. In a postscript the writer asks 'to close the account' and regrets to be unable to travel as he had no weapons to fight with. The writer may have reused a sheet of Arabic accounts, the beginnings of ~8 lines of which are visible on verso. Information from Goitein's note card. ASE.

Letter from a man of communal standing, perhaps Daniel b. Azarya (1051-1062) bestowing the title 'Hod Ha-Zeqenim' upon the worthy elder and physician Avraham Ha-Kohen, ca. 1055. The author refers to his own decree to the Jewish community on recto, line 14: “I issued the decree (nishtevan) to my lord the Shaykh Abu l-Faraj, may God bless him, and he read it, and proclaimed it to the [congregation]."

Letter from the wife of Wahb, Tiberias, to her brother Khalfa b. Ibrāhīm al-Ṭabīb b. al-Ṭabarī, Fustat, eleventh century. She dictated the letter to her son Mubārak b. Wahb, who has an excellent hand. She refers to herself in the letter as Sitt Wahb, interestingly spelled סיד והב. She sends condolences to Khalfa on account of the tragic news of Abū l-Ḥasan and Bint Abū ʿAlī (presumably they died). Her brother had inquired about economic conditions in Palestine, and she reports that bread is a raṭl for a dirham and everything is cheaper in Tiberias than in Ramla. She encourages him to join her in Tiberias but exhorts him to bring Sitt al-Dār with him, for she has no one in the world except God and him. His letters are to be addressed to Sitt Wahb in Sūq al-Yahūd. She mentions some textiles. Her sister (or possibly Mubārak's sister) Umm Bundār sends her regards. Information from Gil. ASE.

Hebrew piyyut.

Letter of appeal to Avraham Maimonides, begging for financial assistance, mentioning an old man who is sick and the plight of at least two daughters. Avraham Maimonides then wrote four lines, now quite faded, underneath the letter. ASE.

Legal fragment from Fustat, involving the business dealings of Mūsā b. Abī l-Ḥayy among others, dated [Iyya]r 1089 CE (1400 Seleucid). The month could also be read as Adar, but the body of the document mentions something that happened in Nisan of the same year (482 Hijri). The reshut of the Nasi David b. Daniel is invoked in lines 4-7. Protagonists/testifiers named include: [Abu Ishaq?] Avraham ha-Levi b. Ṭoviya ha-Levi, Abu ʿImran Moshe b. Abī l-Ḥayy, Abu ʿAlī [Ye]fet ha-Kohen b. Salma (?) al-Dallāl. ASE.

Letter from Moshe b. ʿOvadya, in Aleppo, to a Nagid, in New Cairo, who receives 20 lines of eloquent Hebrew praises but does not appear to be named (he may be identifiable on the basis of the titles, or if the writer or other people mentioned in the letter prove to be dateable). The writer also conveys his longing for a R. Moshe and for the entire community of Cairo. When the Nagid's third letter arrived in Aleppo, the "season/period" (epidemic?) had already begun in Aleppo and numerous Jews died, including R. Avraham ha-Dayyan the author of Etz Hayyim. Trade came to a standstill. Then the rains began: four months in which they did not even see the sun, and two-thirds of Aleppo "fell" (flooded? buildings collapsed?). Now it is the period of the capitation tax. For all these reasons, the writer was not able to respond sooner. The writing now becomes messier and somewhat trickier to understand. Possibly someone named al-ʿAjami and his son were in Damascus for 10 days, and the "deputy of al-Sham" confiscated all their property, amounting to 1000 dinars. Furthermore, a Jew from Aleppo who was in Damascus at the time reported that someone got their hands on all the money and all the books that Avraham ha-Dayyan had left in the possession of his daughter (possibly her husband was the villain). The writer plans to send another letter having to do with legal/judicial matters (?) so that the recipient can advise him. Noaḥ ha-Levi b. Shemuel ʿAḍʿāḍ added a postscript stating that he was present when this letter was being written and that he sends his respects. ASE.

Original use: Letter from Eliyyahu b. Shelomo Gaʾon to David b. Yeḥizqiyya Rosh Ha-Gola. Dating: ca. 1046. In Hebrew. Published by Gil, Palestine, vol. 3, doc. 416. The transcription below is from Mann, who only edited BL OR 5546.1.

Legal document, deed of acknowledgment, concerning an inheritance dispute between Jamīla bt. Lāḥiq the veterinarian and her brother. Contains three testimonies at the bottom. The document is dated to the first half (niṣf al-awwal) of Rabīʿ II 467 H, which is right after the shidda ʿuzmā (454 - 465 H/ 1062 - 1073 CE), testifying to the restoration of legal and administrative order in the Fatimid empire following the massive famine period. Needs further examination.

See also BL OR 5547.3. Recto: two blocks of text in Arabic. The bottom one at least is a medical prescription (يوجذ على بركة الله وعونه) using ingredients such as chebulic myrobalan (اهليلج كابلي) and lavender (اسطوخوذس). Verso: upper block of text is Judaeo-Arabic and Hebrew, giving detailed instructions for how a cantor should recite certain verses and prayers. Lower block of text is another Arabic technical text, conceivably from a work on alchemy, as in the verso of BL OR 5547.3 (by the same writer).The overlap of the Hebrew script with the Arabic technical passage (see the title of the section, باب אל...) suggests that the same writer is responsible for the the entirety of verso. ASE.

See also BL OR 5547.2. Recto: technical instructions in Arabic. Verso: the upper block of text appears to be technical instructions in Arabic for an alchemical recipe. The lower block of text is in Hebrew, but the content remains opaque. The whole fragment requires further examination. ASE.

Memorial list of the Gaonic family of Evyatar Ha-Kohen, headed 'principals of schools' but including also names of people that were no Geonim, ca.969-1021. (NB: This dating seems erroneous, as the list includes Maṣliaḥ Gaon, who was in office 1127–39.)

Memorial list, probably. See Goitein's index card for a reference to Mann.

Letter about the birth of David, the grandson of Maimonides, early 13th century (ca. 1226).

A list with details about the family of R. Avraham b. Maimonides, including a note on the birth of R. Avraham II. (Information from Goitein’s index card)

Letter fragment. In the hand of Abū Zikrī Kohen (according to Goitein's notes). Mentions Sayyidnā, al-Shaykh Maḍmūn, Ismāʿīl al-Majjānī; the kārim fleet (which travelled between Egypt and India); a letter from the sender's in-law Maḥrūz in Sawākin about 3,000 loads. A complete list of the Jews who left with the kārim is Maḥrūz [b. Yaʿaqov], Zikrī b. Sar Shalom, Ibn al-Dabbāgh; al-Maḥallī; Ibn Junūn(?); Nahray; and Ibn al-Baqqāl.

Contributors list, probably. Giving 2: Abū l-Makārim b. Nissim; Amīn al-Dawla. Giving 1: Abū Subḥī(?) b. Ghulayb; Abū Naṣr b. Faḍlān; Abū Naṣr al-Mūrid; Banīn b. Dā'ūd; Abū l-Barakāt al-Mūrid; Abū Zikrī al-Ṭabīb; Makārim b. [...] al-ʿAṭṭār; Abū Zikrī al-Kohen; Abū Zikrī b. Yaḥyā; Yūsuf al-Qāʿa; the al-Amshāṭī sons; Abū l-Ḥasan al-Wazzān; Mufaḍḍal b. Ḥubaysh; al-Kohen al-Siqillī; Abū l-Wafā' al-Dallāl; the shop of Muslim; Abū l-Riḍā al-Ṭabīb; Ibn Mardūk al-Kohen; Futūḥ al-Ṣayrafī; Abū ʿAlī b. al-Ḥaver; Abū Naṣr b. Ṭarab(?).

Account of the qodesh, ca. September 1201. This is an accoutning written on both sides of a single leaf, detached from a notebook. The peculiar thing about this document is that it shows the existence of two separate lists, of inhabited apartments and of empty ones. The latter have their rents listed, in order to compare the actual with the budgeted revenue. There is also a third class, of people who live in their apartments without paying rent. This is extremely unusual in the accounts of the qodesh and can only be explained by the extraordinary conditions of distress at the time. Seven apartments are listed as occupied rent-free; among them, that of R. Anatoli, whose rent was in any case reduced to five dirhams, as against 52 dirhams that he still paid three months earlier. Among the people exempt from payment are "a poor woman" and some scholars, one of them styled al-khaver. The total sum counted on as revenue was 336.5 dirhams, whereas the actual income was only 171, i.e., a little more than half. (Information from Gil, Documents, pp. 386 #102)

List of 20 persons receiving each a wax candle. On verso there is a note (an excerpt from a legal document?) to the effect that "whatever he can liberate from the property of the aforementioned Abū l-Ḥasan, he should send it to him in Egypt (al-diyār al-Miṣriyya), and he is exempt from its darak (ownership guarantee?), and the responsibility is upon me concerning whatever he sends of that with the aforementioned appointee (muwakkal) Yeshuʿa." (Information in part from Goitein’s index card)

List of prisoners imprisoned for nonpayment of the capitation tax. Fragmentary. twenty-four names preserved, with sums representing the amounts still due, to be provided by public or private charity. At least three people, the cantor Saʿdān, Ḥasan the Persian, and (Yaḥyā) the son of the Tiberian, recur in B 4–5 with the same sums. (Mubārak), the son of the female physician, also recurs in B 8 and 59." (Information from Goitein, Med. Soc. II, Appendix B, #58.)