Geniza Lab

Letter from Abū Yūsuf, unknown location, to Rabbi Elʿazar (body of the letter) who is likely identical with Abū l-Manṣūr b. al-Muʿallima (address), presumably in Fustat. In Hebrew and Judaeo-Arabic, with the address in Arabic script. Goitein makes much of the addressee's matronymic and also reads the address as kanīsat al-muʿallima, "literally, "the synagogue of the woman teacher" (since school often was held in the synagogue compound, the school itself came to be called synagogue)." But it is also possible that the letter is addressed to the neighborhood of the Hanging Church (Kanīsat al-Muʿallaqa) and that the addressee is Abū l-Manṣūr b. al-Muʿallim, that is, the son of the male teacher. Goitein identifies the addressee with Abū l-Manṣūr b. al-Muʿallima who (according to another document that Goitein summarizes but does not cite) volunteered to send money to Ashqelon that was collected to ransom the Jewish prisoners who been taken and the books that had been looted when Jerusalem was conquered by the Crusaders in July 1099. (Information from Mediterranean Society, III, pp. 356, 506.) As for the content of this letter: The writer is unemployed and asks for help "in this difficult year." Otherwise, the letter is almost entirely taken up with expressions of preoccupation and urgings to write. Regards to a woman named Qaḍīb, who is sick, as well as several other people. ASE