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 |
ENA NS 7.43
Letter of appeal from a woman whose husband had abandoned her with Muslims. "In this fragmentary letter a woman bitterly describes her marital misfortunes. Her husband brought her and her eight year old daughter to live among non-Jews. He then abandoned them with no food or drink. She fell ill [with pleurisy—"itbarsamt"] and was forced to turn to her gentile neighbours for assistance. Her daughter died. Deserted, diseased and bereaved, she sought release from her marriage. She was advised, "Sell your hair and ransom yourself". The iftidā' or "ransom" divorce, which is referred to here, entailed the wife's renouncing her claim to the delayed mohar payment. The purport of the advice here seems to have been that even if she would be left completely destitute and would have to sell her hair for support, she should initiate divorce proceedings and ransom herself from the marriage. This reminds us of R. Akiba's instructions to a man who wanted to divorce his wife without paying her the full ketubah settlement: "Even if you have to sell the hair on your head, you must pay her her ketubah" (M. Ned. 9:5). In the present case the wife seems to have been reluctant to do this. She wanted assistance in accomplishing the divorce without losing what was due her as divorce settlement (ḥaqq). This document is described by Goitein, in Med. Soc. 3, 272. Goitein offers a different explanation of the advice given the woman to cut her hair, viz. by cutting her hair and sending it to the religious authorities, she would humiliate herself and thereby compel them to take action on her request to perform the ransom divorce. See the reference on p. 487, n. 136, for women of the court sending their hair to an important general. The fragment is in a poor state of preservation, and some of my readings are uncertain." Information, edition, and translation from Friedman, "Divorce Upon the Wife's Demand," p. 117f. See also Zinger, "She Aims to Harass Him," and "Long Distance Marriages" (note 57).
Library: JTS
Type: Letter
Tags:
illness letter 969-1517 divorce illness: children's women's letters illness illness: women's illness: pleurisy iftida' illness: sharab appeal illness: treatment