Geniza Lab

Letter from Yeshu'a ha-Kohen ha-Ḥaver, an official in Alexandria, to Nahray b. Nissim. Yeshu'a writes to raise money to free three Jews held by Italian merchants. The merchants had acquired their human cargo from Rum (Byzantine) pirates. The pirates had beaten and almost killed their captives. Jewish communities in Egyptian port towns bore the brunt of these expenses. Charitable collections were often held throughout the Jewish communities of Egypt to help free co-religionists captured in wartime or in acts of piracy. (Information from CUDL)

Letter from Yosef b. Yaʿaqov b. Yahaboy, probably in Amalfi, to a partner, in al-Mahdiyya. Dating: ca. 1040. Describes a long sea voyage that lasted about 70 days on board a Christian ship. The journey probably started in Alexandria and went through Constantinople, Crete and Amalfi. Yosef b. Yaʿaqov b. Yahaboy asks his partner to sell some flax and indigo and instructs him what to do with the money that he will receive. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 4, p. 390.)

The frontispiece and the first daf of the Sabbioneta Kiddushin (printed Elul 5313 = 1543 CE), under the rule of Vespesiano Gonzaga and in the Hebrew press by then owned by Tobias b. Eliezer Foa. Apart from intrinsic interest, there are several annotations on the frontispiece. At the top is a signature. Below is a short book list, naming twice a work by the מהרימ"ט = Joseph Trani (ca. 1569–1639), the book עדות ביהוסף, and תשובות הרא״ם = the responsa of Eliyyahu Mizrahi (ca. 1455–1526). Below the lovely illuminated capitals is an ownership note: הצעיר יצחק סורבונה (?). At the bottom adjacent to the printing information appears to be the name Thomas spelled according to its French pronunciation and given a typically Jewish honorific: כה״ר טומה. On verso, there is rudimentary alphabetical practice and a line in cursive Hebrew script, perhaps Ladino (לאש . . . אינטרא. . . .).