Geniza Lab

Decree fragment, Fatimid, 11th century. Reused by Efrayim b. Shemarya (see PGPID 1649).

Letter draft from Efrayim b. Shemarya to Shelomo b. Yehuda. Fragment: the upper part only. Dating: probably 1028 CE (Gil's estimate). The letter praises the army's victory. Written on the front and back of a chancery decree fragment (see PGPID 35179).

Draft of a letter from Ḥalfon b. Netanel ha-Levi, apparently in Damascus, to R. Ḥiyya. Dating: Ca. 1145–46 CE. India Book 4 (Hebrew description below; full English to come)

Letter from Shemuel Sidi, in Damietta, to his brother-in-law and business partner Gabriel (likely Gabriel Conforte, son of the famous David Conforte). In Ladino. See T-S 12.381 for another letter from the same Shemuel Sidi, also with a responsum on the other side. Written on Friday, the 13th of Tammuz. It is not clear where the various people are based. Shemuel's father is also in Damietta, but Shemuel's wife is in Gabriel's location. Shemuel writes: "Always write to me via Rashid to Izmir," and, "God willing, on Sukkot, you will tell me what happened the garments that I will send to Salonica, and God willing, tell me about in Izmir." Perhaps Gabriel and Shemuel's wife live in Cairo/Fustat, and Shemuel has embarked on a trip to Izmir. Shemuel reports that he is sending some clothing back to (presumably) Cairo/Fustat for his wife (? "by my sins, I left her practically naked / muy desnuda"). He mentions that he is sending a silk skirt (futa de seda) with R. Ya'aqov Sobrado (?). "Our brother" R. Shelomo al-Hanati (אלחאנאטי) and R. David Kivas (דוד כיואס) are also mentioned. Shemuel sends regards to his father-in-law, Tia Havah (or Hannah), Tio Moshe, and Menahem, and to his own "brother" יאודה מראלי. This fragment also contains a responsum regarding a Jew who had a Gentile process the parchment for Torah scrolls and tefillin but failed to mark the parchment so that he would know if the Gentile swapped it out. The responsum has been edited by Shmuel Glick of the FGP Seride Teshuvot Team. ASE.

Highly fulsome letter of praise, consisting of 12 lines of praise in Hebrew, followed by 5 lines of Arabic script containing the actual content of the letter, and closing with a further 13 lines of blessings. The whole letter has a heading בשים איל רחום וחנון. On verso the page is covered with Arabic pen trials. (Information from CUDL.) It appears that the Hebrew beginning and ending were prepared by a scribe in advance. Either the same scribe or somebody else later used the template to fill in the 5 lines of Arabic script. It is a a letter of appeal for charity. ASE. ... ويجعلك الله تعالى من المقبولين ويستجيب مني لحضرتك صالح الدعا وقد علم الله تعالى ايش نحن فيه من الضر والعري انا ومن عندي فلنا اليوم عشرة شهور قد علم الله ايش قاسينا فيها من ضيق اليد . . . . ليل ونهار على ما جرى عليا . . . . . . . . من عبدك لك دعوة في هذه الايام فاسل الله ان يستجيب مني لك . . . . . صالح الدعا

See PGPID 4726; this is an older transcription.

Calendar written by Ibn Yiju for the year September 1149-September 1150, which seems to indicate that, as before in India and later in Egypt, he planned to organize and lead a private service in Yemen.

Business letter from Yosef b. Avraham, in Aden, to Avraham Ibn Yiju, on the Malabar Coast of India. Dating: ca. 1137–40. The letter goes into detail regarding the various dealings between the two merchants. The letter contains, among the mention of many other copper items, a very detailed description of a copper lamp that Yosef asks Avraham to make for him in his copper workshop in India.

Letter sent from Fustat by 'Ayyash b. Sadaqa to Barhun b. Musa al-Tahirti, dealing with money matters and the selling of merchandise, and mentioning goods and their prices. The verso contains the address and a series of accounts in the same hand. Dated ca. 1045. (Information from Gil)

Letter from Yosef b. Peraḥya (Ibn Yiju) ha-Dayyan to his paternal uncle Shemuel ha-Melammed (who has a son named Elʿazar), in Fustat (c/o the shop of Abū l-Makārim in murabbaʿat al-ʿaṭṭārīn). In Hebrew (for the introduction) and Judaeo-Arabic. On the sender and the addressee and their family, see Goitein and Friedman, India Traders, pp. 84–89. The addressee is known from documents ca. 1152–76 CE. Apart from the elaborate opening blessings, the letter has two topics: (1) "I have great longing for you and am compelled to write to you, but you—by God, you are not seized by longing, for I am not something that is longed for, I know that myself... I write twenty letters and do not receive a single response. But what can be done? "All the brethren of the poor (do hate him)" (Proverbs 19:7)." (2) Greetings to numerous people: Abū l-Maʿālī and his son Shelomo and his mother; Abū l-Bahāʾ; Abū l-Munā; (here there are condolences for a bereavement); Abū l-Fakhr; Abū l-Makārim; Abū l-Riḍā(?); Abū Isḥāq; Abū l-Khayr; an unnamed woman; and three more women (Umm Abī l-Khayr, Umm Manṣūr, and Sitt al-Fakhr). (Information in part from Goitein's index card and various citations in the India Book.)

Letter from Fustat to the communal leaders of Damietta, Yiṣḥaq Beirav and Ṣedaqa ha-Kohen. First half of the 16th century. Mentions Avraham b. Shānjī and Moshe Dammūhī as well. Information from Avraham David's transcription and notes on FGP, where he also provides detailed commentary on the figures named. ASE. See also Dotan Arad's edition from his dissertation (p. 353).

Letter, faded, in Hebrew. Mentions "my brother R. Ḥalfon" arriving in the city and bad news that struck the writer to his very core, perhaps the death of another brother of theirs (see page 1, five lines from the top and then "my brother Ḥalfon was in mourning" three lines from the bottom). Needs further examination. ASE.

Letter from Dūnash b. Yiṣḥaq from Tripoli (Libya) to Yiṣḥaq b. Barhūn al-Tāhirti, Fustat. Around 1030. Describes an imagery or exaggerated event, of an attack against the ship, which the writer was traveling, before the ship entered the port of Tripoli. The attack, according to the story, ended when the attackers were defeated. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 2, #204) VMR

Hebrew poetry in honor of ge'onenu ve-nizrenu Mazliah. ASE.

Letter written by a sick man who asks the recipient to buy him a female slave, for "I have no one to give me medicine," and the children are sick (maṭrūḥīn) as well. Someone in the past told him not to buy a female slave, but now this person tells him to buy one. However, he has no way of accessing his money. Abū l-Faḍl has not been helpful in this matter. He urges the recipient (possibly his brother, since he invokes "my master's upbringing" of the recipient) to do his utmost to get hold of the 5 dinars belonging to the writer, and to go to the Rayyis Abū l-Najm and purchase a female slave with the money. At the bottom appears the signaure Shelomo ha-Levi b. Moshe ha-Shishi, but this name is not completely legible and may not belong to the letter. The handwriting of this signature may be consistent with that of Shelomo ha-Levi b. Moshe ha-Sheviʿi, who appears in T-S 16.356, a legal document dated 1120 CE. If the two are the same person (one before and one after his promotion), this letter was composed some time after 1120 CE. Verso contains several of the same phrases from recto. Information in part from Goitein's note card. ASE.

Letter from Shelomo b. Yehuda to a group of people in Alexandria, approximately 1025.

Letter from Yosef b. Araḥ to Abū l-Faḍāʾil b. ʿAmram In Judaeo-Arabic. See also T-S 13J20.8, a letter from Yosef to ("the Talmid") Netanel b. Amram (possibly the same recipient as here?). Yosef can hardly contain his amazement and dismay at what Abū l-Faḍāʾil has done with the garment, and how he must not have received Yosef's last two letters, or must not have read them properly, and how he went ahead and had the garment cut. He says nothing so grievous has ever happened before, and it might be expected from a young person, but not from an elder "who has spoken with the foundations of the world" (? wa-taḥaddath maʿa yesodei ʿolam.) There is other specialized vocabulary of the textile industry here as well. In the upper margin of recto Yosef defends himself against Abū l-Faḍāʾil's accusation of messing up a deal involving Abū Saʿīd. He sends his regards to Abū l-Faḍl and Menaḥem and Natan and Yehuda. He also encloses a letter from Ṭoviyya to Natan that he had forgotten about until now, and adds his own good wishes for the holidays, as well as his own request that Natan obtain two dirhams' worth of myrtle (? marsīn) from the Parnas or from someone else (for Sukkot?) and send them with anyone, whether a Jew or a trustworthy Muslim, or even the captain of the boat. Join: Alan Elbaum.

Half the page is taken up with a Hebrew panegyric, presumably for the physician who wrote the prescription on recto, whose name is also given in red ink: Abū ʿUmar al-Ḥakīm. In the remaining half of the page, the patient [ʿAbd?]allāh the cantor writes a message thanking the physician: "I will drink the medicine tomorrow if God decrees it." ASE

Prescription for a medical treatment containing eighteen ingredients (including myrobalan, red raisins and borage), and ending with the usual expressions of piety. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, pp. 254, 574).

Recto: Letter portion to someone close to the Nagid (mentioned four lines from the bottom), regarding the plight of an unfortunate person, possibly Abu Mansur. "Afterward al-Shaykh Abu [Mansur?] arrived... the Jews that arrived after al-Shaykh Abu Mansur . . . he has not paid anything yet." This year, "these Jews... oppressed him" (ajḥafū 'alayhi).... And he has been living here for one year.... Please consult/ask permission (tasta'dhin) from the Nagid...." Needs further examination. Verso: A compendium of biblical verses with intermittent Judaeo-Arabic. ASE.