Geniza Lab

Legal document involving a dispute between Abu Saʿd Kohen, Abū l-Makārim, payments in installments, and the sale of cheese. One of the parties resorted to the Muslim courts ("al-goyim"). The sum at stake is a matter of 12 dinars. Join: Oded Zinger.

Small fragment mentioning Yehuda, Eliyyahu, and Ovadya.

Fragment of a legal document. Yehuda takes an oath.

Recto and first line of verso: Hebrew letter to Gabriel Conforte. The author of the letter mentions a number of books he has received, among which the responsa of David ben Solomon ibn Abi Zimra (fl. 1513-1573). Remainder of verso: Ladino letter, perhaps the response to the Hebrew letter. Information from FGP.

Late, probably accounts.

Sums in mysterious symbols.

Fragment of a Judaeo-Arabic letter, mentioning al-jamāʿa al-muqaddasa.

Fragment of a Judaeo-Arabic letter.

Fragment of a Judaeo-Arabic legal document, mentioning an Abū l-Maʿālī.

A love spell/amulet for {Ḥayyim the son of ʿAzīza} and {Senyora the daughter of {Ashkenaz and {Sara the daughter of {Senyora and {Ḥayyim the son of Esther and {Avraham the son of Ḥava and {Yāqūtī the son of Ḥava}}}}}}. The genealogy seems highly ambiguous, and even the names of the would-be lovebirds, since the brackets could be placed practically anywhere. ASE.

Account in Judaeo-Arabic. Among the items sold: a gold seal or ring (khātim dhahab).

Small fragment of a Judaeo-Arabic letter.

Late account in Judaeo-Arabic, listing many materia medica and chemicals: tamarind (tamr hindī), arsenic (zarnīkh), chicory seeds (bizr hindibāʾ), barberries, cloves, chebulic myrobalan, mercury (zaybaq), mouse poison (samm faʾr), kohl, etc.

Letter in Judaeo-Arabic dated 5 July 1836 (20 Tammuz 5596), from Rashid, addressed to Moshe Bunān, Fusṭāṭ. The address is in Arabic (al-Muʿallim Mūsā Bunān. . .). Verso also contains numerous lines and dots.

Late certificate in Hebrew, probably issued in Fusṭāṭ, attesting that R. Yiṣḥaq known as Hoja (?) Shtiwi, who has since moved to Alexandria, has been examined and is an expert in kosher slaughter and the checking of the lung.

Late account in Judaeo-Arabic.

Psalter in Old Church Slavonic. Floral capitals. Dating: Perhaps 15th century. This section includes Psalm 11:3–7.1 in the Tarnovo recension of Old Church Slavonic. The manuscript is most likely of Wallachian or Moldavian origin, more likely the latter given the internal disputes within the Wallachian Kingdom and the concomitant golden age of Stephen the Great in Moldavia. It is possible that this manuscript made its way to Cairo via travelling monks who were headed towards St. Catherine's Monastery. The script is Uncial (Ustav) given the geometrical letter-forms, the religious nature of the content and the paucity of abbreviations, but there are elements of semi-uncial (polu-ustav) script. Information kindly provided by Elisaveta Musakova of the Bulgarian National Library, Peter Toth and Ilia Curto Pelle.

Recto: A few lines of an Arabic document, probably a letter. Verso: The introduction to a Judaeo-Arabic treatise, either identical with or merely citing Yaḥyā b. Dāwud's Kitāb al-Ibāna ʿan Ḥurūf [...] al-ʿIbrānīya. This was underlined in red, presumably in modern times.

Fragment of a betrothal (erusin) document, scribed and signed by Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. The groom is the son of Binyamin ha-Levi.

"The three fragments known as JRL SERIES A 1053, JRL SERIES B 2699, and JRL SERIES B 2977 are from three copies of another invitation, printed in French, to the wedding of Mr. Moise Mosseri (c. 1855-1933) and Miss Henriette Nahmias (1868-1943). The Mosseris were a famous Cairene banking family,[2] which may give a sense of who could afford to have invitations professionally printed in the late nineteenth century. French documents are also rare in the Genizah,[3] but someone – a young Mosseri being the likely culprit – has re-used the back of these invitations to practice the Hebrew alphabet." Nick Posegay, FOTM June 2020.