Geniza Lab

Letter from Babylonia to Shelomo b. Yehuda, approximately 1026.

Letter from Yoshe’a b. Natan, probably from Bahanasa, to Nahray b. Nissim, Fustat. September 29, 1051. The letter contains many details about the last phase of arranging the linen for business: the lack in paint to paint the strings and flax growers that did not deliver the goods although they already received the payment. The writer asks Nahray to contact the special Diwan who was in charge of the linen, through Yehuda b. Se’adya (that became “Nagid” later). Yoshe’a expresses his worries for his family and their needs, and asks to deliver everything to Dihn (probably his wife’s name). (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 3, #580) VMR

Letter of condolence addressed to a certain Ḥemdat ha-Yeshivah. ASE.

Business letter, sent from Qayrawan by Nissim b. Berekhya to Barhun b. Salih al-Tahirti in Fustat, dealing with the marketing of Egyptian merchandise in the Maghreb. (Information from Gil)

Letter from Nissim b. Berekhya from Qayrawan (Ifrīqiya) to Barhun b. Salah al-Tahirti, Fustat. Mentions shipments of goods from Egypt to the Maghreb. The writer mentions his father but not his brother Yosef. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 2, #153) VMR

Letter sent from Qayrawan by Yosef b. Khalfa to Khalluf b. Farah b. al-Zarbi, probably in Fustat (Gl) (from Yosef b. Khalluf b. Farah to his brother Khalluf b. Farah‚ Ben-Sasson) dealing with goods and their prices in Palermo. Dated ca. 1030 (Goitein) or ca. 1050 (Gil) or uncertain (Ben-Sasson) (Information from Gil)

Letter from Misgavya b. Moshe to the ḥaver Yaʿaqov b. Yosef Av Bet Din, in Aleppo. Asking him to send certain liturgical poems and to help a relative of his: ʿAlī b. Faraj b. Raḥmān, who is the sender's in-law, because 'we married his daughter to the son of Maḥfūẓ b. Yosef, who is the son of my sister." At present he sends 2.5 (Syrian) pounds of mushrooms (kamāh), as nothing else was to be had. Prefaced by 14 lines of opening. See Med Soc III, p. 29, bottom, sec. 1 = III, 434, note 79. (Information in part from Goitein's index card.)

Ketubba fragment. See Goitein's index card.

Letter from Marduk b. Musa in Alexandria to Nahray b. Nissim in Fustat asking him to find a Jewish maidservant for the writer, ca. 1045-1096

Letter in Judaeo-Arabic to Hananyah ha-Kohen from "his son" Abu l-Ḥasan. After a flattering introduction, the body of the letter begins about halfway down the page. He reports that were it not for the Shaykh Abū l-Faḍl al-Dāʿī, he would have been in trouble (?) (קטע אמרנה = אמרנא) over 2.5 dinars . He was imprisoned for one day until Abu Saʿīd al-Tinnīsī bailed him out on Friday night. Abu l-Ḥasan begs Hananyah to send him his circumcision knife without delay. He sends regards to his father Abū Naṣr, to Abū l-Ḥasan and Abū l-Khayr and Abū Saʿīd and his cousin. Abu Manṣūr and his son send their regards. ASE.

Letter fragment from Yoshiyyahu Gaon to a community, approximately 1020.

Letter from a cantor of Mosul. T-S 12.257r is continued in T-S K25.209 and ends in T-S 12.257v. The letter is written in childish script, often omitting letters. The sender cites his eye illness to excuse his bad script. He travelled with a Nasi to Egypt. In Alexandria, he bought something nice for 15 dinars for his wife. Then he had some very dramatic adventures on the way to Cairo including a brush with the army and a companion detained by the (Ayyubid?) military and accused of being a Frankish spy. (Information in part from Goitein's note card and transcription.) In the handwriting of the same scribe: T-S 13J14.22 and T-S 6J5.1. The join with T-S AS 145.278 was identified by Alan Elbaum.

Letter addressed to Sar Shalom, written by a man whose wife and son had been in captivity by Edom (Christians) and who had lost all his property and had no profession, asking for bread and clothing. Possibly dated 1219. (Information from Mediterranean Society, V, p. 595, and from Goitein's index cards}

Letter in Judaeo-Arabic from a man to his brother ("ilā akhī" remains from the address on verso). When the text resumes after a large hole at the top, the writer says, "As for what you mentioned regarding my celebrating the holidays with you, you know that it is Rosh Hashanah, otherwise I would be there in place of my letter. That was my goal, but as God willed (mashallah) it is thus." He then describes his great loneliness and how much he misses the recipient, but the remainder is damaged. In the upper margin he urges the recipient to send him the waist-wrapper (fūṭa) pronto. Some lines remain on verso, including the phrase "forgive me." ASE.

Testimony reporting an event in Sunbat, a small town in the Egyptian Delta, according to which a person was wrongly suspected of improper conduct and unjustly prevented from reading the lection from the Torah. Dated Marheshvan 1402/September 1090. (Information from Mediterranean Society, I, p. 77; II, pp. 164-165)

Letter from the sister of Ismāʿīl b. Barhūn al-Tahirtī, in al-Mahdiyya, to her brother Ismāʿīl b. Barhūn al-Tahirtī, in Fustat. Dating: ca. 1020. The sister describes her extravagant grief—stripping off her clothes and fasting for two months—when she heard that her brother planned to continue traveling this winter, it seems specifically to Spain. She writes about the security that has worsened in al-Mahdiyya and about the rising taxes there. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 2, #159) VMR

Letter from a woman in al-Mahdiyya to Ismāʿīl b. Barhūn al-Tahirtī in Fustat, reporting about the family members in al-Mahdiyya and mentioning his daughter called Mawlat. Dated ca. 1020. (Information from Gil)

Long letter addressed to Mevorakh b. Seʿadya. Mentions al-Andalus, Bijāya, and Alexandria. Complains about a group of impious people. (Information from Goitein's index card.) Should be edited.

Letter from Yeshua b. Yosef from Alexandria to Yehuda ibn Sighmar of Fustat. The letter was written during the reign of Yehuda b. Saadiya, the Nagid, between the years 1064 and 1074. The letter is fragmented, but it is possible to locate references to the communal dispute surrounding the leadership of Yeshua b. Yosef and the attempt to replace him with someone else. Similarly, the letter contains pieces of information on mistreatment of Jews by the black servants of the sultan as well as on another dispute related to the payment of the capitation tax (jaliya).

Letter fragment in Judaeo-Arabic in rudimentary handwriting dealing with various financial matters. Address in Arabic script on verso. Needs further examination.