Geniza Lab

Recto/verso: recto and verso

Letter/petition from an official to the Nagid Mevorakh. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: No earlier than 1099 CE, per Cohen, and no later than 1111 CE, based on Mevorakh's dates. Same sender, same addressee, and same subject as T-S 18J4.12. It is about the "desolation" (kharāb) of the Babylonian/Iraqi synagogue. There are two chief complaints. (1) "Members of the (larger) Palestinian synagogue had enticed many of those belonging to the Iraqi one to join their house of worship They held out lures, such as a promise that children would be able to participate more often by being called up to the Torah, since the Scriptural readings in the Palestinian rite were short (and, hence, required less preparation)." (2) "The second reason for the desolate state of the synagogue was the despotic behavior of the beadle (khādim), named al-rayyis Abū l-Ḥasan b. Ghazāl. This Abū l-Ḥasan had been lording it over the congregation, acting more like a rayyis than a beadle, giving orders, taking charge of litigations, and even forcing Mevorakh's own muqaddam (he is called muqaddam in one letter and nāʾib in the other) to cower in his presence. When requested to discharge his synagogue duties, he would brazenly retort: "even if the rayyis (Mevorakh) so commanded me, I would respond, Ί neither listen nor obey'" (lā samʿ wa-lā ṭāʿa). Living with the beadle on the synagogue premises were about fifteen of his relatives, who regarded him as the local boss (shaykh al-mawḍiʿ wa-ṣāḥib amr wa-nahy)." In the AIU letter, the sender describes what may be a further deterioration: "Only a few people... remain in the Babylonian congregation, and they are mainly indigents," as this sender witnessed for himself when he attended services on the previous Shabbat together with Ḥalfon b. Menashshe (called here Abū Saʿīd b. Abū Sahl Ibn al-Qaṭāʾif). Several additional communal officials from this period are mentioned in the letter. (Information mainly from Cohen, Self-Government, pp.254–56, and in part from Goitein’s index card.) Ed. Β. Chapira, Mélanges Hartwig Derenbourg (Paris, 1909), pp.121–30. Transcription awaiting digitization on PGP. Written on a "long daftar"–style bifolio, which is unusual for a letter, but not for drafts.