Geniza Lab

List of daily collections in which almost all the benefactors give one or two dirhams. The lower parts of columns three and four contain accounts of expenditure on communal property in the Great Bazaar, written in Arabic characters. (S. D. Goitein, Mediterranean Society 2:490)

List of beneficiaries of community charity consisting of about 125 names, mostly craftsmen, laborers, and foreigners (from Palestine and Syria). Each name is separated by a dot. Individuals include Hassan b. Kushik, Sa‘id al-‘Aqrabani, a lacemaker (al-‘aqqada) and a pastry chef (qaṭāʾifī). There are also two Karaites: Abū l-ʿAlāʾ and Ibrahīm al-Ghazzī b. Hārūn. Ca. 1050-1070 CE. (S. D. Goitein, Mediterranean Society 1:438, 447; 2:411; 3:428) EMS

List (calligraphic) of male persons, intended recipients of charity. With one exception ('he paid 1/4 dinar') no amounts are indicated. (Information from Mediterranean Society II, p. 441, App. B 9 [dated 1040-1060])

List of 20 pledges made in Coptic numerals during 6 weeks [MR Cohen: one week skipped, hence actually encompasses a 7 week period]. Among the donors only 2 persons, father and son, were called haver, and the grandfather, too, had borne that title. Reverse side superscribed 'Received,' noting 16 items, among them '220 through the Nagid' '225 anonymous gift' but only 3 contributions from overleaf. Since 2 persons are listed as living at the Gate of the Breach, Kharq, of (New) Cairo, the list might refer to that city. MR Cohen: in right margin, many entries preceded by a final mem, in a more faded ink, presumably standing for tasallam, paid. (Information from Mediterranean Society II, pp. 496-497, App. C 70.) This document is sometimes erroneously cited as T-S NS J250.

List of ten donors, headed by the Raṣuy (see T-S K15.36), seconded by the Shāʿir (Poet, see BL OR 5566C.11 and 12), and followed by other names known from the beginning of the thirteenth century. All but the last gave 1, namely, one jug (of wine), as proved by the last contribution which consisted of 'half a jug.' Wine is required at the domestic Passover ceremony 'even from the poor' and is provided here in kind to those who had no adequate supply. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 500, App. C 88)

Lower part of a carefully written list of contributors, practically all of whom appear in earlier or later lists. The first 15 donate 2 (dirhams); 9 donate 1 (d?); 2 donate 1/2 (d); 3 no amount indicated; 4 amount not preserved. Total: 33 persons or households. The collection seems to be one made for a special occasion. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 491, App. C 51 [dated to first part of 13th century])

List without numbers of communal officials and needy persons, mostly women and foreigners, ending with 'the strangers/foreigners in the synagogue'. Recto: sums owed to or by the community. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 462, App. B 83a)

List on a small slip of paper, 22 names of indigent persons, mostly women. The first three are in T-S NS J239v (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 462, App. B 84 [dated to 1200-1240])

Accounts of weekly expenditure of a type similar to App. B 41-43, 49, and also in the hand of Shelomo b. Eliyyahu. A clean copy for three weeks, always opening with the amounts collected by two persons: first week, two laymen; second,the beadles Tahir and Mahasin; third, Tahir and the cantor Abu al-Majd. Cash was 74 dirhams in the first week, 32 1/2 in the third. Here too the standard price for bread was 1 dirham for 10 pounds, since in the second week 9 loaves of bread were resold for 7/8 dirhams. In the second week, a loan of 10 dirhams had to be taken from the judge Hananel to cover the expenses for the bread, and in the third, another loan from a different source. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 461, App. B 77 [dated to 1200-1240]).

Upper part of a twin list in the hand of Shelomo b. Eliyyahu, seemingly a draft, one list with amounts, and one mostly without amounts. The sums donated range from one-half dirham, given by the son of bell-maker, to five and one-half. The Rasuy gives one Nasiri through the judge Yehiel. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, 488, App. C 44)

List of clothes for the poor. Dated: 1451 Seleucid, which is 1139/40 CE. Four fragments altogether, three of which being in the hand of the scribe of T-S K15.48, part one. They are headed by the parnas Abū ʿAlī b. Barukh, receiving a muqaddar, and the shomer Abū l-Surūr allotted a shuqqa. All the remaining forty whose names are preserved get a jūkhāniyya. In the fourth fragment (which was attached to the others by a thread), in the hand of the second part of K15.48, a piece of clothing of the sari type, called fūṭa, is given to fifteen persons. Goitein assembled these fragments together while working on the New Series in the Taylor Schechter Collection. The type, form, and state of preservation of the paper and the arrangement of the script on it leave little doubt, however, that they form parts of one document. Words surrounded by { } in the transcription below are in Arabic letters. The Arabic final mem probably represents the word tasallam. 'paid' or 'received.' (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 448, App. B 33 [dated to1100-1140]).

Informal note from Hillel b. ʿEli to Eli b. Yaḥya ("al-Parnas al-Neʾeman"). In Judaeo-Arabic. Asking him to look after Ṣedaqa b. Nufayʿ and his father who were local people and deserving. Verso: 8 persons donate each 1/4 dinar, presumably for the needy mentioned on recto (poor hand, but not that of ʿEli the parnas). (Information from Goitein's index card.)

Fragment on vellum listing communal officials and needy families in receipt of loaves of bread; ca. early twelfth century. (S. D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, 2:455) EMS

Official letter from the office of one of the later Maimonidean Nagids. Headed with an elaborate Emet. Perhaps instructing Avraham ha-Zaqen to help the bearer of the letter who is a deserving man from a good family; he should receive charity without knowing who the giver is. On verso there is a note in Judaeo-Arabic and Greeek/Coptic numerals concerning a qāʿa.

List in same large characters as T-S 16.209v, mentioning everybody by his first name or otherwise abbreviated. At bottom, a line followed by 'al-shamiyyin b' no doubt meaning that this collection was made on a Monday morning in the synagogue of the Palestinians. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 475, App. C 10 [1st half of 11th century])

List of 24 persons to be solicited for contributions, headed by the judge and overseas trader Abu al-Mufaddal and the banker Abu Ishaq b. Tiban. Abu al-Mufaddal might refer to the scholarly merchant Nethanel b. Yefet, a nephew of the Nagids Yehuda and Mevorakh, who bore the same by-name. He was believed to be very influential with the viceroy al-Malik al-Afdal. He signed documents in 1098 and died in or shortly before 1121. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, pp. 477-478, App. C 18)

List of sums promised or paid (the entries crossed out), ranging from 1/8 to 6 1/2, mostly in fractions, wherefore in cases in which exactly 1 or 2 dirhams were given the word sawa, 'exactly,' was added. The mother of the writer gives 2 dirhams, and in 3 instances the entries consist in balances owed to the contributors. The list probably represents school fees pledged or donated for needy children. On the reverse, notation of prices obtained for 4 books, e.g. Guide of the Perplexed, 30 dirhams, with 2 dirhams for brokerage (see Goitein, Kiryat Sefer 44 [1969], 125-126). In the hand of Shelomo b. Eliyyahu.

Goitein describes this list as: 'Distribution of about 430 loaves of bread, weighing 450 pounds, to 104 households on the Friday before the Fast of Av (which fell on Sunday).' It appears on close inspection that the scribe originally wrote sitta, 'six,' making 6 1/2 qintar, or 650 pounds, then changed the word to the numeral 4 (Hebrew letter dalet), thus making 450. The page is folded down the center, making a bifolium, with holes for the binding string down the center, indicating that this page was originally bound in a scribe's notebook. There may have been at least one intervening page between columns. This would account for the discrepancy between the stated number of pounds (loaves) and the computed total. The names indicate this list comes from around the same time as T-S Misc.8.9 and others catalogued in Goitein, Mediterranean Society, II, Appendixes B 19-23, translated in Cohen, The Voice of the Poor in the Middle Ages, nos. 59-64, dated ca. 1107. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, 442, App. B 17 and from Cohen)

Lower part of a list of contributors, with 21 persons to be solicited, each carefully described by his family name or profession or both. With three exceptions (including two names written on the margin), all names are preceded by a stroke, indicating perhaps that the task of soliciting the persons concerned had been assigned. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 485, App. C 34)

Fragment of a list of recipients of alms, similar to Bodl. MS heb. c28.24, in the hand, it seems, of the judge Yeshu'a ha-Kohen b. Yosef of Alexandria (dated documents 1028 through after 1062). (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 454, App. B 55 [dated to 1040-1080]).