Geniza Lab

Medical treatise in Judaeo-Arabic. Mentions a plant that grows in the environs of Jerusalem.

Recto: Letter in Arabic script. Three and a half lines remain. Needs examination. Verso: Informal note from Sitt Abū l-Ḥasan to Ṣadaqa, asking him to [...] for the old woman by coming up to Cairo tomorrow.

Fragment of a late letter in Hebrew signed by Seʿadya b. Moshe ha-Dayyan. See Arad, D. (2008). Syria’s links with the Jews of Cairo in the 15th and 16th centuries. [Genizah Research Unit, Fragment of the Month, August 2009]. https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.48227

Small fragment of a ketubah.

Recto: Letter or essay regarding the proper authorities to consult when learning the art of ophthalmology; the author of this fragment seems to be a partisan of using ʿAlī b. ʿĪsā's handbook Tadhkirat al-Kaḥḥālīn, and "the big books" must only be consulted from time to time. Verso: Pen trials in Hebrew script.

Fragment on geometry, with several figures. On verso also Arabic script. (FGP)

Fragment of a ketubba for the remarriage of a divorced couple (מחזיר גרושתו). Groom: Shelomo b. [...]. Bride: Ghāliya bt. Peraḥya. Written by Yefet b. David (active 1014–57 CE). AA

Fragment from the bottom part of a ketubah. The groom's name [...] b. Shemuel, and the bride's Jamila. Only part of the signatures have preserved: [... b. S]'adan, Ghalib Hakohen, [... b.] Nissin, Aharon b. B[...], [...] b. Zadoq. AA

Bifolio. A draft or copy of an Aramaic deed of gift given to a woman named Karima. On the left side and verso an Arabic list - needs examination.

Late letter to Avraham Ardity. Very hard to read. Izmir is mentioned. Also mentioning R. 'Amram. AA

According to FGP it is a poem with end rhyme referring to `thousand shoes and `two brass lamps' but it might be also a fragment of a list of items.

Letter from Barakāt b. Sason to ʿImrān b. Benaya, in al-Maḥalla (אלמחללא). In Judaeo-Arabic, with some unusual orthography (including ש for ס and ת for ד and interchange of ה and א). The letter deals with business matters, including a press (miʿṣara). Refers to people who are traveling to the Fayyūm and wish to travel onward to Qūṣ (קוס), an idea to which the sender objects. At one point he addresses a remark to Ḥārūn b. Isḥāq. AA. ASE.

List of commodities and quantities (FGP)

List of commodities

Letter fragment from Daniel, the Nasi of all Israel, Rosh Yeshivat Ge'on Yaʿaqov addressed to Mevorakh b. Saadya. Nothing apart from the first line of the letter and the address is preserved. Goitein deduces that it was written before 1063 CE (and adds: how interesting!).

two specimen contracts for unequal partnerships (FGP)

Pages (a) through (c): Distribution list for clothing (al-kiswa). Dated: Ṭevet 1488 Seleucid, which began on 5 December 1176 CE. The last but one numeral of the date is not fully visible, but its reading is ascertained by the many names in common with the lists A 25–36 (1181–84 CE). Distribution of about 110 pieces of clothing (40 muqaddar, 49 ordinary, and 15 small jūkhāniyyas, the rest illegible) to community officials and/or their dependents and to needy persons. At the head of the list at least five cantors and three shomers. One beadle of Dammūh is listed at the beginning of the list (p a, l. 5), another at the end (c, l. 6). Almost all the males receive a muqaddar, all but one of the females (p. b, l. 2) a jūkhāniyya. Males receiving a muqaddar: p. a, l. 8 (written above the line), p. b, ll. 1, 6, 18. Various members of the same household each get a piece of clothing: Sālim, the porter, a jūkhāniyya (p. a, l. 8) his wife, a jūkhāniyya (p. a, l.13); Abū l-Majd, the milkman, a muqaddar (p. a, l. 16), his son, a small jūkhāniyya (p. c, l. 3); Maḥfūẓ, the beadle and his son, each a muqaddar. Still, such occurrences are far rarer than one would expect. The conclusion to be derived from this and related documents: normally, only one member of a household received a new piece of cloth at each distribution. Page (d): "Dirhems expended." After the first item, "the judges," is left a blank space. Al-Najīb (the parnas) follows with the number 20 after it and l. 12, Abū ʿAlī the parnas, with 12. The remainder: 6 receive 3 dirhems; 4 receive 4 dirhems; 7 receive 5 dirhems (including "the widow of the man from Tyre; a foreigner"); 2 receive 6 dirhems; 2 receive 8 dirhems (including "the widow of the man from Haifa"). As other lists show, the cash was given as a partial compensation for clothing. Thus the two parts of the manuscript actually form one record. (Information from Goitein, Med Soc II, Appendix B, #71 (p.459).) The recipients also include one female slave and three women who are freed slaves (per Goitein's index card).

Letter written in a mixture of Judaeo-Persian and Arabic in Arabic script. Only partly legible. The fragment is labeled "L8" in Shaul Shaked's (unpublished) classification of Early Judeo-Persian texts. OH

List of items, including list of books, among them responsa by R. Yehuda Rosh Haseder.

Recto: Distribution list for cash and wheat for the poor of the Rabbanites, administered by the ḥaver (al-ḥibr) [...] and Yaʿqūb al-[...]. This is a massive document, written in Arabic script, possibly in imitation of a chancery document, quite unlike the other known distribution lists from this period. About 55 lines are preserved, listing dozens of alms recipients, many of them blind. This document was subsequently cut up to form (at least) 3 folios, which were then reused for a halakhic text in the hand of Efrayim b. Shemarya. Merits further examination. ASE