Geniza Lab

Awaiting description - see Goitein's index card.

Court record written by Yefet b. Ṭoviyya. In which Yefet and Yosef b. Binyamin the banker, as guardians of Avraham b. Shemuel ha-Sefaradi, collect a debt that was owed by Shemarya b. Shelomo to the late Shemuel. Dating: 1020–30 CE. (Information from CUDL and E. Bareket, Shafrir misrayim, pp. 207, 208)

Letterbook of Alpalas y Costa, preserving mainly (or entirely?) letters addressed to Daniel Bonfil in Livorno. Dating: 5841 AM, which is 1721 CE. Mentions Ancona several times.

Recto: Marriage contract (ketubba), with an ornate heading. In the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Location: Fustat. Dated: 1125 CE. Groom: the poet Yehoshuaʿ b. Shemuel b. Yehuda. Bride: Sitt al-Ahl bt. Yefet.The bride undertakes to honor her father-in-law and to obey his instructions. Interesting details of trousseau. Grand total of payments: 185 dinars. On verso, there are two legal records that were added later, also in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. (A) Mubāraka, the mother of Sitt al-Ahl, gives her daughter two ornaments worth 6 3/4 dinars as a gift. They are added to the marriage portion. (Dated: 1126 CE.) (B) After Sitt al-Ahl's hubsnand had taken a solemn oath to divorce her, he retreated. Consequently, the bill of divorce is written and, after its being torn, a new wedding ceremony is held. (Dated: 1132 CE.) (Information from Goitein's index card and CUDL.)

Deed of release. Written and signed by Ḥalfon b. Netanel ha-Levi. Location: Probably Bharuch, India. Dating: First third of Ṭevet 1445 Seleucid, which is 29 November–8 December 1133 CE. Isḥāq b. Makhlūf al-Nafūsī acknowledges that he received money and goods (pearls and coral) from Barakāt b. Mūsā al-Ḥalabī. Witnesses: Ḥalfon b. Netanel ha-Levi; Avraham b. Shemuel. The validation (qiyyum) is written on a piece of paper pasted on top of the original piece, and it is not signed. India Book 4 (Hebrew description below; full English to come)

Awaiting description - see Goitein's index card.

Replacement ketubba drawn up in Safed in February 1539 (23 Adar 5299) for Moshe b. Yosef ʿAynos (? עיינוס) and Doña Hora Buena bt. Barukh Shabīb.

Awaiting description - see Goitein's index card.

Letter from R. Azarya Zeevi of Jerusalem to R. Yizhaq Castro in Egypt, 1640. Should be read together with AIU VII.D.102—same writer and same addressee. This letter contains a lengthy and convoluted account of the exchanges and transfers of a certain sum of money and how Azarya bested their enemy who had other designs on the money. There is a great wealth of information here about market values of different curencies. People mentioned: הר"י אפמאדו (also mentioned in the other letter, identity unknown, appears to be the same "enemy" alluded to at the beginning); הר״מ זגאן; Yaʿaqov Yaʿish; the writer's father Yisrael Binyamin Zeevi (d. 1688 after an illustrious career in Alexandria and Jerusalem); Zerahya Gota (from Istanbul, a student of Yosef de Trani. In the 1630s he was known as one of the sages of Jerusalem and Hebron. Later he lived in Rashid and then Fustat/Cairo); Yizhaq Baso; Eliyya Ovadya; Shelomo Barukh; Yaʿaqov Levi; Mordekhai Kohen; Azarya b. Vilisad (? וילייסיד), also mentioned in the other letter by Zeevi to Castro, a sage who moved from Istanbul to Jerusalem in the first half of the 17th century. As for the writer and addressee: Azarya Zeevi died after 1652 CE. He is mentioned by David Conforte, who knew him personally, in Qore ha-Dorot. He was the son-in-law of Shemuel Ibn Sid (=Shemuel Sidi?). He was among those taken captive by the Bedouin Shaykh Muhammad Ibn Farukh in 1625/6 (see Horvot Yerushalayim, printed in Venice in 1636). ENA 1846.3–4 is a letter that Azarya Zeevi later received from Avraham Yachini (the Sabbatean?) from Istanbul. Evr. II A 1804, an anonymous letter sent to a certain Moshe, mentions a "R. Azarya." Yiṣḥaq Castro: The son of the better-known R. Yaʿaqov Castro. Conforte wrote about him too in Qore ha-Dorot. He is later mentioned in a legal document in the year 1650/1 CE in BL OR5561.b14. Denominations mentioned: sharifis (=ashrafis from the mid 15th century); arayot (=European coins used in the east, Löwenthaler in German); ibrahimis (=coins minted by Avraham Castro in the first half of the 16th century); gerushim (=sometimes identical with arayot, sometimes identical with reales, apparently); zecchinos (Venetian sequins); and reales (Iberian coins from the 14th century); muayyadis (Ottoman coin named after the Mamluk sultan al-Muayyad Shaykh, current in the 15th and 16th centuries). Information entirely from Avraham David's transcription and footnotes.

Calligraphic letter in Judaeo-Arabic, with wide space between the lines, probably a letter of recommendation for a certain [...]n b. Ṣedaqa who comes from an important lineage but who has been afflicted by the vicissitudes of fate. Several biblical verses and Talmudic dicta are cited. ASE.

Letter from Barhun b. Ishaq Tahirti (Mahdiyya) to Nahray b. Nissim (Fustat) June, 1047.

Awaiting description - see Goitein notes linked below.

Recto: Document in Arabic script. May be part of the same document as T-S 20.75. Verso: Hebrew treatise.

Letter from Yosef b. Musa al-Tahirti from Mahdiyya, to Nahray b. Nissim, Fustat. Around 1058. Mentions several goods including silk, copper, and seashells. Mentions family matters. The writer is concerned about family members and especially about girls that became orphans. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, vol. 3, pp. 215-224, #367). VMR

Recto: Letter in Arabic from Ibrahim b. Muhammad. Between the lines of recto, and verso: Treatise on the ‘people of the land’, with numerous biblical quotations on the wise, the fool, the ʿAm ha-Areṣ, and offerings, as well as quotations from the Talmud. Information from GRU catalog via FGP.

Bill of release, dated 1066 in Fusṭāṭ (29 Kislev 1377), in which Natan ha-Kohen b. Yeshuʿa gives a bill of divorce to his fiancée Sittān bat Yaḥyā, and she releases him from any claim. The release is given to Yefet who serves as a proxy to take the document to Tyre. Signed by Shemuel b. Yizhaq, Ḥayyim b. ʿAmmār, Faraḥ b. Yosef, […] b. Naʿm, Moshe ha-Levi b. Shela, Elʿazar Ibn ha-Shofeṭ, […] ha-Levi b. Ḥalfon, and Yehuda b. […]. Information from GRU catalog via FGP.

Awaiting description - see Goitein's index card.

Recto: fragment from an Arabic chancery document. Probably part of the same manuscript as T-S 20.70. Verso: Draft sermon or ethical work, citing the Song of Songs and other biblical sources, with many additions and deletions. Information from GRU catalog via FGP.

Letter from Yaʿaqov b. Ismail al-Andalusi to his partner Yoshua b. Natan in Fustat. Dated ca. 1050. (Information from Gil)

Detailed letter sent from Sicily (Gil) by Yaʿaqov b. Ismail al-Andalusi to Yosha b. Natan in Fustat, dealing with business matters and mentioning a Rabbinical responsa by Masliah b. Eliah. (Information from M. Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 3, p. 904 and from M. Ben-Sasson, Yehudei Sitzilya, p. 259)