Geniza Lab

Letter in Arabic script conveying a request not to keep back a man who is 'one of the peasants of my brother' (wa-huwa min fallāḥīn akhī), who was was dāmin al-dukkān, and wanted to travel to his place, Kalabshā (in Nubia, near Aswān). (Information from Goitein's index card and Marina Rustow.)

Letter from Yeshūʿa ha-Kohen b. Avraham ha-Galili, in Shubra Damsīs, to Efrayim b. Meshullam (judge, active 1142–54). Dated: 1142 CE (month of Av). The writer sends greetings in the name of his two sons. He encloses a letter from Rabbenu Zakkay for Efrayim, as well as another letter from R. Zakkay and a letter from himself to be delivered to the Nagid, whether by Efrayim himself or by the bearer of the present letter. The bearer is a worthy man and has with him a sick girl whom he "wishes to treat," and the bearer himself is also chronically ill and weak of sight. (S. D. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 2:513; Norman Golb, “Topography of the Jews of Medieval Egypt,” JNES 33 (1974), 141. See also Goitein's index card) EMS. ASE.

Petition from Yefet ha-Melammed the schoolmaster to Avraham Maimonides; the latter's answer is on verso, lines 18–26. Yefet writes that he is ill and losing his vision, and consequently has been unable to pay his rent (?) which has accumulated in arrears of six dirhams. Avraham grants him the money. (Information in part from Mediterranean Society, II, pp. 37, 529, and Goitein's index cards.) Many of the specifics of the writer's financial situation are lost. There is an ambiguity as to whether "ujra" here means rent or wage/tuition. In "Side Lights on Jewish Education" (p. 96), Goitein prefers the latter: "The community paid for [the tuition of] the sons of those who were impeded by any reason to go after their usual professions (munqaṭiʿ)," referring to recto, lines 9–11. In this reading, the word munqaṭīʿ refers not to the writer of the letter but to the parents of his pupils who have been unable to pay him. "[This] teacher receives 1 dirham per pupil and week, probably for special reasons," referring to recto, lines 13–14 and 17–19. Yefet has evidently continued to work despite his condition, but has not received the wages officially due to him from the community. He thus writes with a description of his current plight (shidda) to expedite the payments. ASE

Letter from a father to a son, containing detailed instructions concerning items that the sender sent and that the addressee should purchase. Gives specific quantities together with or underneath each item. Verso contains what is presumably the reply from the son to the father, but without information about commodities, only a report on the sender's dire gastrointestinal illness. "Do not ask what happened to me on Sunday when I (or: you) traveled. There came over me [...] from 20 directions, diarrhea and vomiting and more (ishāl wa-istifrāgh wa-akthar). No one thought I would live, but thank God that everything ended well, and I am doing well, thank God." There are also a couple lines of accounts in Arabic script and Greek/Coptic numerals. ASE

Letter from Shelomo b. Eliyyahu to his father-in-law Abū l-Faraj. The addressee's daughter Sitt Ghazāl is well. Shelomo writes that when two letters went unanswered, he immediately assumed that Abū l-Faraj was ill. (There is probably more to this than mere preoccupation: see the discussion of Abū l-Faraj's deliberate cutting-off of correspondence with Shelomo in Krakowski, Coming of Age.)

Reuse: Letter sent to Shelomo ha-Nasi. In Judaeo-Arabic. The sender asks him for help on account of his illness, poverty, and "hot bedbugs. May God never afflict our master with distress, and may he afflict my state on all those who hate you." On verso there is a postscript mentioning Alexandria and family members being left in prison. (Information in part from CUDL.)

Letter of appeal addressed to Shelomo ha-Nasi. The writer asks for assistance after having been arrested. He suffers severe poverty and illness and bedbugs (al-baqq). "May God spare you such a trial, and may God place all whom you hate in my situation."

Letter from Abū Naṣr b. Avraham, in Alexandria, to Ḥalfon b. Netanel ha-Levi, in Fustat. In Judaeo-Arabic. The letter contains information about trade in silk and pearls. In addition, Abu Nasr reported how he acted in regard to a precious headgear given to him by Yehuda ha-Levi, the Spanish poet. The letter also transmits news from Spanish travelers about the passing away of two great Spanish Rabbis. The letter was written in the 12th of November 1141. (Information from Frenkel.) "I and every human being in the house was ill for forty days. I have not left the house. . . . Your letter arrived in which you asked me to deliver the bales of silk to Abū ʿUmar Ibn al-Bahgdadī al-Laffāt. However, he has not received a thing, for I have nobody who could carry them to him; my brother Abū ʿUmar is ill since his arrival from Cairo and I have nobody able to act for me, for Abū l-Najm (the writer's factotum or partner often mentioned) and his son are ill also. I ask God to turn the end to the good." At the end of the letter: "As soon as I gain a little strength, I will not stay in this city for one hour." See Goitein's note card #27107, and Med Soc V, 103.

Letter from Yehuda b. Aharon b. al-ʿAmmānī, in Alexandria, to Abū l-Majd Meir b. Yakhin (Thābit), "the Glory of the Cantors," in Fustat. Dated: 14 Iyyar, 1216 CE. The letter contains information about a communal conflict between Anatoli the Judge and Yehuda's paternal uncle—Ṣadoq b. Shemuel b. al-ʿAmmānī—and his son Mufaḍḍal. (Frenkel suggests this is the same case against a judge that Yehuda mentions in T-S 13J21.25, but that letter was written in 1208.) Ṣadoq had made a taqqana and collected signatures of important Alexandrians such as Abū Saʿd b. Nānū and Bū l-Rabīʿ al-Kohen in order to appoint his son Mufaḍḍal to lead the congregation (as judge?), but Mufaḍḍal is young, beardless, and unmarried, and therefore regarded as unfit to lead the congregation over an older, distinguished man. Moreover, Ṣadoq went to the Nagid Avraham Maimonides for approval of the taqqana behind the back of Anatoli the Judge, who was understandably angry when he heard. It seems that Mufaḍḍal has been shunned by most of the population for the last few months. Yehuda himself is waiting for the Nagid to respond with a fatwa to a query of his own, and he is resentful that the Nagid does not recognize that Yehuda is the one who is managing all the affairs of the synagogue, while his uncle is addicted to wine and incompetent (Med Soc V, 39 and 516, n. 148). Yehuda mentions the Tāj (the Aleppo Codex) "which was written and pointed by Ben Asher or Ben Naftali" in the last line of the main text on verso. The addressee Abū l-Majd was recently sick, and others in his household still are. See also T-S 16.305, a letter written in spring 1217 in which Yehuda thanks Avraham Maimonides for resolving the conflict between him and his uncle. Information in part from Frenkel and from Gotein's note card. ASE.

Legal query concerning a newlywed girl who is scared of her husband who has a convulsion every time they attempt sexual intercourse. She is begging for divorce. She is still a virgin, dealing with whether a geṭ is necessary or not and what to do with the dowry payments. (Information in part from CUDL)

Letter from Abun b. Sedaqa in Jerusalem to Nahray b. Nissim in Fustat. Dating: November 1064 CE. The main subject is the tension between the writer and Nahray's cousin, Yisrael b.Natan. Other subjects include details about the burning of ships in Sicily. Opens with a vivid description of the general grief following the death of Sittāt, the wife of R. Natan, who left a boy of 2 years. "How terrible is our grief! It has destroyed us (haddatnā) and sickened us (amraḍatnā).” A government edict threatened to make a dignified funeral impossible, so the mourners considered simply burying her within the walls. “We contracted from this a terrible convulsion (rajf ʿaẓīm),” Abūn writes, “and we gave a bribe and brought her out at night.” ASE

Letter from the Qaraite Jews of Ashqelon to the Qaraites and Rabbanites of Fustat. Dating: Summer 1100 CE. The letter deals with the ransoming of Qaraite captives from Jerusalem following the Crusader conquest of the city. (Qaraites represented a large percentage of the small number of Jews who still lived in Jerusalem after the Seljuk conquest[s] in the 1070s.) The letter also explains that the fortified city of Ashqelon had not yet fallen, but the residents are struggling to cope with an influx of refugees and the need to make large payments to the Crusaders to ransom back Jewish captives - men, women and children - as well as books and scrolls pillaged from the synagogues of the Holy Land. Despite the terrible circumstances, they take solace in the fact that that the Crusaders appeared not to have mistreated the women. The writers report that they had received the suftaja (bill of exchange), at least the second substantial donation from the Jews of Fustat to the campaign to redeem captives and books. This letter is a request for further donations. The community in Ashqelon had spent over 500 dinars; ransomed over 40 captives; continues to bear the high expenses of caring for the 20 redeemed captives who remain in Ashqelon; and is now in debt for more than 200 dinars. The writers also mention Jews who had escaped from Jerusalem on their own, and others who had been given safe-conduct with the wālī. Of the refugees who arrived in Ashkelon, many had died of the epidemic they encountered there: "The attacks of these illnesses (amrāḍ), the falling of that plague (wabā'), that pest (fanā'), that disaster (balā')" (recto, lines 17–19); later, describing how the refugees perished, "Some of them arrived here healthy, and the climate turned against them (ikhtalafa ʿalayim al-hawā'), and they arrived at the height of that plague (wa-waṣalū fī ʿunfuwān dhālik al-wabā'), and many of them died" (recto, lines 42–44); then, twice more, the writers emphasize their great expenses caring for those who have survived but are still sick, who need not only food and clothing but medicines and syrups (recto, lines 53–55 and right margin 19–20). There are notes by the writers and forwarders of the letter in the right margin on verso, including Yehayyahu ha-Kohen b. Maṣliaḥ, David b. Shelomo and Ḥanina b. Manṣūr b. ʿUbayd. See DK 242 + T-S AS 146.3 for a letter written one year earlier from the Rabbanites of Fustat to the Rabbanites of Ashqelon, also having to do with the campaign for the ransoming of captives. (Information CUDL and from Goldman, "Arabic-Speaking Jews of Crusader Syria" (PhD diss., 2018), 49–58. See also Goitein, Med Soc 5:537; Goitein, "New Sources on the Fate of the Jews during the Crusaders' Conquest of Jerusalem" (Heb.) Zion, 17 (1952), 136; Goitein, Palestinian Jewry, pp. 241-242; and Goitein's notes attached to Bodl. MS Heb d 11/7 (page 9f). ASE/MR

Letter from Natan b. Yehuda of Alexandria to Sasson b. Meshullam, a judge of Cairo. The letter contains many personal matters that reflect the milieu of the political elite in Alexandria and Cairo. The letter reveals important details on the life of Avraham b. Yaʿaqov Darʿī. On al-Darʿī's deathbed, he accused the writer of having sent a messenger to intercept a medical prescription and swap it with a counterfeit prescription, hence murdering him. Apparently, the person who served as the representative of Mevorakh b. Saadya (referred to in the letter as 'the rayyis Abū l-Faḍl) in Alexandria after the year 1094 died in the end of the first decade of the twelfth century due to a sudden disease. The letter quotes a lament of Shemuel ha-Nagid. (Information from Frenkel)

Fragment of a letter from Abū ʿAli b. al-Dimyāṭī to his brother Abu Saʿīd b. Hibat Allah (Ḥalfon b. Netanel). The writer mentions the silk trade, describes his joy when he learned that Ḥalfon recovered after taking a medicine, and invites him to visit him in Fustat. Transcription from Goitein’s handwritten notes.

Letter from Yefet to Abū l-Barakāt the physician, in Fustat (bāb qaṣr al-shamʿ). which the writer alludes to some bad news ("ever since I heard the news, I have fasted in the daytime and prostrated in bed") and urges the addressee to keep him informed.

Letter from a son to his father with detailed description of his illness and recovery. Same writer and recipient as T-S 13J21.13 (addressed to Minyat al-Qa'id) and T-S 13J21.14 and Stras. 4110/90 (see tag). His fever finally abated yesterday with the onset of diarrhea (or successful purging?), however a woman in the house is still feverish. He relates the details of the treatment that he received at the hands of Ibn Habib, which, as far as can be determined through the lacunae, involves oxymel mixed with hot water, and timing something for the fifth day and the seventh day but not during the crisis. Khatir has not yet arrived from Alexandria, as he was detained by the wedding of a relative. Join: Alan Elbaum. ASE.

Letter from a man to his sister Umm Bū l-ʿAlāʾ. Sent care of Eliyyahu the Judge. In the hand of a scribe. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: Early 13th century. The letter contains an extremely vivid account of the imprisonment and tortures to which he and Abū Saʿd were subjected. (Information in part from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 609; III, pp. 43, 432). Discussed in Esther-Miriam Wagner, "‘Only death remains for him’, T-S 10J7.4" (Fragment of the Month, May 2011). Same scribe as ENA NS 48.26 (likewise an account of torture). ASE.

Letter in which Shelomo b. Eliyyahu asks his teacher, the judge R. Hananel, to inform his father Eliyyahu that he is very ill, suffering from weak eyesight, headache, and general weakness. He wishes to come for the holiday to Fustat rather than stay in the small town (Bilbays?) that resembles Sodom and Gomorrah and is devoid of worthy people. VMR; ASE.

Letter of condolence written by a man to his sister, Rayyisa, on the occasion of their mother's death. "If you cried for a thousand years, it would have no benefit except to sicken you, and no one would perish other than you. My sister, I ask you by God to have endurance, and for all that you endure, there will be a great reward. My sister, read Ecclesiastes, the word of Solomon, for he will counsel forbearance (taqwā) to you. I am sending you al-Faraj baʿd al-Shidda to occupy yourself with it. Know that I wrote this letter only after softening my eyes with tears for she whom I have lost. . . . . My sister, by God, I ask you not to make yourself perish for something that will not benefit you. Look at others who have lost their mother and father and children and who endure the judgment of God. . . . Occupy (shāghilī for shaghghilī) yourself so that you do not perish." (Information from Mediterranean Society, III, p. 22 and Goitein, Hadassah Magazine.) ASE.

Letter by the Jewish community of the village of Qalha, Egypt, apparently to Eli ha-Kohen b. Yahya in Fustat, 2nd half of the 11th century. The Jews of Qalḥa report to the Parnas in Fustat that Abū ʿImrān Mūsa b. Yequtiel arrived in their village on 17 Tammuz, injured and/or sick from the violence he experienced during the nahb (plunder) of Fayyūm. In addition he was robbed of everything by robbers near the village. He died a few weeks later, in Av. One of his two wives and the daughter of the other died also. The remaining wife was brought to Fustat at the expense of the community, because she had a cousin (ibn ʿamm) there. The little boy could not live in the village because of the Kushim (Sudanese soldiers?). Information from Goitein's note card.