Geniza Lab

Letter of recommendation from Bū l-Barakāt to a dignitary. In Judaeo-Arabic. Asking for assistance for the bearer. The writer mentions an earlier conversation that took place between al-Shaykh al-Makīn Abū Sahl and the Rayyis.

Letter of recommendation for charity. In Judaeo-Arabic. The writer asks the addressee to arrange a collection (jibāya) to raise funds for the letter-bearer, the cantor Elʿazar b. Yoshiyya. The congregation should also solicit from people who are absent from the synagogue. Ends with the motto "Yeshuʿa."

Letter from al-Sharīf Ḥasan to the qāḍī Ṣanīʿat al-Mulk. In Arabic script, with diacritics and vowels, calligraphic. Dating: Perhaps 13th to 15th century, on paleographic grounds. This is a letter of recommendation for charity for six 'cut-off' women (nisā' munqaṭiʿāt) who have no husbands (lā azwāj la-hunna) or anybody else to provide for them: Umm Bū Muḥammad and her daughter; the midwife or wet nurse (dāya) and her daughter; and Umm Qays and her daughter. The addressee is described as a "cave (=shelter) for the cut-off and a refuge for those who ask/beg of him" (standard epithets for important and charitable people: see e.g. AIU V.B.48 and on it Cohen, Poverty and Charity, p. 48 n. 36). ASE

Letter from Ibrāhīm b. Isḥāq, evidently of al-Maḥalla, to Abu Saʿd Hibatallāh (aka Netanʾel b. Yefet Rosh ha-Qahal), in Cairo. The beginning is in Hebrew ("twelve lines of exquisite Hebrew proem"), and the body of the letter is in Arabic script, except for two phrases. (On verso there are also a few lines of accounts in Arabic script and Greek/Coptic numerals.) This is a letter of recommendation for the bearer, one Yakhin ha-Meshorer ("the poet") who had settled in al-Maḥalla but fled from there and abandoned his family,when the superintendent of revenue (ṣāḥib al-Maḥalla) "harassed him" by demanding from him the capitation tax (al-kharāj). The letter presupposes that Yakhin was entitled to tax exemption because he was a Khaybari, a Jew descended from an Arabian clan that asserted it had received special privileges in the time of Muḥammad. The addressee is asked to help Yakhin sort out his documentation. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, 386, 611, MR, OZ, NV, ASE.)

Letter of recommendation for the bearer, a certain Yefet, an inhabitant of Fustat, who is said to be a respectable man who fell on hard times and is ashamed and unable to speak for himself. (Information from Mediterranean Society, V, pp. 198-199, 563) On verso is a piyyut for the qaddish starting with עזרי מעים ייי and אודה לאל חי, followed by three lines in Arabic script. (Information from CUDL)

Autograph letter from Avraham Maimonides to his "dear son" (i.e., congenial pupil) Yosef. In Judaeo-Arabic. Avraham excuses his absence from a student's recent wedding, saying, "The night of your wedding was the night of my turn to be on duty at the hospital, and I could not at that time put it off for reasons it would take too long to explain" (translation from Mark Cohen, “The Burdensome Life of a Jewish Physician and Communal Leader,” p. 135).

Letter from Walad al-Nezer (i.e. Mevorakh b. Nathan b. Shemuel) to the notable Netanel b. Avraham, a physician living in the Rif (and muqaddam of al-Mahallah, see 10J20.21), recommending ha-Hazzan Abu l-Bayan Moshe b. ha-Hazzan al-Ahuv who traveled to the Rif in order to collect money for his capitation tax. The young man is recommended as one growing up among the hazzanim in the time of Sar Shalom - may his name live forever - and in our own time. Information from Goitein's note card and S. D. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 2:389-90, 612. EMS. ASE.

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.

Letter in which Avraham Maimonides (1205-1237) recommeds to the judge Perahia and his sons a man who wishes to marry the judge's daughter.

Draft of a letter of recommendation by Eliyyahu Ha-Kohen b. Shelomo Gaon, on behalf of the scribe of the Yeshiva, Shemuel b. Semah the cantor (left side). (Information from CUDL)

Letter from Moses Maimonides (in his own hand with his own signature), in Fustat, to al-Shaykh al-Thiqa, in Minyat Zifta. This is a letter of recommendation for Yiṣḥaq al-Darʿī. The community in Minyat Zifta is asked to pay the capitation tax for Yiṣḥaq and his son, who are new arrivals to Egypt and on their way to Damietta. On verso there is the address. In Arabic script: في معنى ابراهيم الدرعي. Perhaps Ibrāhīm is the son of Yiṣḥaq, and this is a note summarizing the content of the letter ('re: Ibrāhīm al-Darʿī'). Or perhaps it is delivery details (‘By means of Ibrāhīm al-Darʿī’). (Information in part from CUDL.)

Letter of recommendation from Yehuda to Avraham ha-Zaqen about a righteous silk weaver named Tahor al-Talmid from the pupils of Avraham Maimonides (min jumlat aṣḥāb sayyidinā), who has "left the world from his heart" and sought the service of the Creator. The letter discusses Tahor's altruistic intention to marry an orphan girl.

Letter addressed to Abū l-Faraj b. al-Rayyis (=Eliyyahu the Judge?). In Judaeo-Arabic. Regarding a certain Abū l-Bayān al-L[evi?] (=Moshe b. Levi ha-Levi?). Apparently Abū l-Bayān recently arrived in the sender's town (al-baladiyya). He has been working for a teacher (mushtaghil ʿinda muʿallim) and staying with the sender (nāzil ʿindī fī l-bayt). But he seems to have acted in a bad way, spurning the sender's favor and causing pain to everyone (...faḍlī ʿalayhi li-anna ḥasala lana minhu alam...). (This sentence might also mean the opposite, if it actually reads "uns" instead of "alam.") Someone mentioned to someone that the shop was in need of "someone like him." Abū l-Bayān consulted the sender on this matter, who told him that it would be better to go back to his own town, but Abū l-Bayān said that he couldn't do that "for various reasons." The sender now asks the addressee to employ this man. Goitein translates the next bit, "As long as this wheel [of fortune] turns, nothing remains in its accustomed state, except for one to whom God grants a respite. May the Creator spare you and me the hostilities of Time and its vicissitudes, and may he not let us taste, or even see again, anything like that we have gone through and may he accept it [what we have gone through] as an atonement for our sins" (Goitein, Med Soc V, 48). The sender greets the young men (the addressee's sons? but Eliyyahu did not have sons by these names) Abū l-Najm(?) and "the noble branch" (al-farʿ al-najīb) Abu ʿUmar or Abū ʿImrān. In the margin he asks the addressee to convey his regards to Sayyidnā A[vraham? ha-. . .] ha-Gadol. ASE.

Letter addressed to a community. In Hebrew and Aramaic. Dating: Probably 11th century. The addressees are instructed to honor, assist, and raise money for (or hire as a communal official?) a certain person (presumably the bearer). The letter refers to (purchasing?) a work on slaughter by Yosef b. Ḥizqiyya (the 11th-century Nasi). On verso there is Psalm 91 and a jotting in Judaeo-Arabic that says "Umm Yūsuf and her sister." AA. ASE.

Recto: poetic letter with an acrostic spelling ‘Ḥalfon ben Mevoraḵ (מבוכר), Saʿadya ha-Mumḥe’. Evidently a line is in the wrong sequence in the poem, which should have given the acrostic מבורכ, i.e. Mevoraḵ. Written in inverted letters are 5 lines of a poem that was the original text on the page. Verso: two poems, one written inverted. One poem has an acrostic Mevasser (מבסר) ben Mevoraḵ Saʿadya. Information from CUDL. Previous description: "Letter that is a muleteer recommendation written between 1031 and 1035. In l. 4, the muleteer Faraj is also mentioned as charged with fetching parts of a Bible manuscript. Cf. T-S NS 320.7, T-S 8J15.25 and T-S 12.655. (Goitein, Med Soc IV, p. 448 = ix, D, n. 19.)." Goitein must have had a different shelfmark in mind.

Letter to Eli b. Amram, recommending to him Moshe b. Yosef the Spaniard.

Letter from Yehuda b. Avraham b. Faraj, in Ṣahrajt (Goitein) or Jerusalem (Gil), to ʿEli b. ʿAmram (aka Abū l-Husayn ʿAllūn b. Muʿammar), in Fustat. In Hebrew and Arabic (in Arabic script). Dating: ca. 1065 CE; at any rate, under the gaonate of Eliyyahu ha-Kohen, because it ends with the motto (ʿalāma) Yeshaʿ Yuḥash. Goitein identified the sender's location as Ṣahrajt since that is where Yehuda b. Avraham drew up Bodl. MS heb. c 28/5. Gil suggests that he is Yehuda ha-Ḥazzan of Jerusalem (unclear which other documents this man is known from) and just happened to be staying in Ṣahrajt in 1060 CE. (Unbeknownst to Goitein and Gil, ENA 2465.8–9 and CUL Or.1080 15.50 also have the same sender and same addressee.) In this letter, Yehuda b. Avraham is recommending a colleague, Seʿadya the teacher, whom he hopes will be treated well and honored in Fustat ("with aṣḥāb al-khilaʿ"). "He does not need any charitable collection nor anything else from the Jews"—what he needs is a good word on his behalf with aṣḥāb al-[...] (some government bureau or maybe the capitation tax collectors—the word is torn away).

Recommendation letter for an Iraqi merchant who lost everything in a shipwreck. He is advised to write to Abu al-Bishr and his cousin. (Information from Goitein's index cards, and Goitein, Mediterranean Society, I, p. 409)

Form of a recommendation letter to the emissaries of the lepers of Tiberias, probably 1025.

Very short letter of recommendation from Abu 'Ali son of Abu al-Ma'ali on behalf of a stranger, a 'Ra'is on his way to the addressee's city on some matter and beginning with good wishes for Rosh ha-Shana. (Information from Goitein's index cards)