Note: This database is re-populated every day at midnight, Eastern Standard Time. Information in this database may become unavalable for approximately 10 minutes while this process completes.
Regular expressions
The Princeton Geniza Project database allows for search expressions containing certain 'regular expressions'. Regular expressions are codes that can be inserted in search queries to match patterns of text.
^string | Matches the text at the beginning of the string |
string$ | Matches the text at the end of the string |
. | Matches any single character (including special characters) |
a* | Matches the sequence of zero or more of the specified character |
a+ | Matches the sequence of one or more of the specified character |
a? | Matches zero or one occurrence of the specified character |
abc|def | Matches either one of the specified strings |
[abc] | Matches any one of the specified characters |
Boolean Search
The Princeton Geniza Project database uses a boolean full-text search. This type of search allows users to combine keywords with operators to refine searches. Possible operators and examples of their use:
מולאנא מולאי | Search for rows that contain either of two words by simply typing them consecutively. In this case, the search will find documents that contain either מולאי or מולאנא. |
כתאבי +מולאי+ | Use a + sign before word to search for rows that contain all of them (in this case the words כתאבי and מולאי) |
כתאבי AND מולאי כתאבי OR מולאי | The keyword AND indicates that both search terms must be present in the results. OR matches either search term. |
כתאב –כתאבה | Use a - sign to exclude a term from your results (in this case, the search will include כתאב but exclude כתאבה) |
*כתאב ?כתאב |
Use an asterisk or a question mark as a wildcard. An asterix matches any number of characters. A question mark matches any single character |
T-S 12.829
Letter from Hayya Gaʾon (d. 1038), in Baghdad, to the brothers Avraham and Tanḥum b. Yaʿqov of Fez, in Fustat (possibly to be forwarded to Fez). In Hebrew and Judaeo-Arabic, with the address written also in Arabic script (where the addressees are called Ibrāhīm and Yaḥyā Tanḥum b. Yaʿqūb). Apparently in the handwriting of Hayya Gaʾon himself. The addressees also appear in T-S 13F2 (left margin of recto at 90 degrees), which preserves legal queries that they submitted to Hayya's father Sherira b. Ḥanina Gaʾon. Dated: 26 Adar 1318 Seleucid = 16 February 1007 CE. (Gil reads 19 Adar = 9 February.) Hayya has sent this letter with Abū l-Ṭayyib ʿImrān b. Hillel ha-Levi and has enclosed responsa for the addressees' queries. He had received a letter from Abū l-Faraj Aluf (=Yosef b. Yaʿaqov Ibn ʿAwkal) seeking a response to another legal query which never arrived. Ibn ʿAwkal also informed him in that letter of the death of Abū Yūsuf Yaʿaqov b. Nissim Ibn Shāhīn of Qayrawān. "This was one of the most distressing disasters and blows that we have suffered… and I eulogized him in our meetings and gatherings, and the community wept over him… This was a sorrow added to the sorrow over the demise of our diadem, the Gaʾon our father (=Sherira, who died approximately 5 months before this letter was written)." Ibn ʿAwkal also reported that Khallūf b. Yosef had sent 70 dinars for the yeshiva from Aghmāt (near Marrakesh), but these have not arrived, and the addressees are urged to look into the matter. Hayya asks the addressees to support the Yeshiva, as his own house and those of his family and followers have fallen into disrepair. Hayya asks the brothers for advice about whom he should rely upon in Qayrawān now that Ibn Shāhīn is dead. (Information in part from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 2, #38 and VMR; https://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/genizah-fragments/posts/throwback-thursday-study-babylonian-jewry; and Jennifer Grayson's dissertation, p. 82.)
Editor: Ed. Moshe Gil, In the Kingdom of Ishmael (in Hebrew) (1997), vol. 2.
Library: CUL
Type: Letter