Geniza Lab

Moshe b. 'Amram b. Ḥalfon ha-haver asks Za'im al-Mulk in Fustat to help him retrieve the inheritance of his grandfather in al-Ramla, which was taken away by Ma'mun al-Dawla after his own father's mother died. (Information from Goitein's index cards)

Letter in which a Kohen, who is in financial difficulties and is the father of girls, asks the Nagid Mevorakh to allow him to beg throughout the Rif (countryside). He requests two letters of recommendation, one from the notable Abu'l-Mufaddal. (Information from Goitein's index cards)

Enthusiastic letter by Yaʿaqov ha-Kohen b. Yeshaʿyahu, a leader of the Jews of Yemen, to Mevorakh, congratulating him on his appointment as Head of the Jews. (Information from Mediterranean Society, V, pp. 196, 197) The letter was sent from the Ṣulayḥid capital of Dhū Jibla to Fusṭāṭ around 1095 C.E. The letter emphasizes the close connection between the Yemenite Jewish communities and Mevorakh, revealing that Yemenite Jewry during this period was connected to Egypt and the Palestinian Rabbanite yeshiva, and not only to the Babylonian Yeshivot as had been believed (see on this Ashur and Outhwaite, “An Eleventh-Century Pledge of Allegiance to Egypt from the Jewish Community of Yemen” CmY 22 (Juil. 2016) 34). (Nathaniel Moses) Old IB number: 350. New IB number: VII, 64

Recto: A woman complaining to the Nagid Mevorakh about her inefficient brother-in-law who was unable to secure her children's estate from his partner, expresses the apprehension that the latter too might die, and getting something out of orphans for other orphans was next to impossible. (Information from Mediterranean Society, III, pp. 296, 302) Verso: List in Arabic script. (Information from CUDL)

Letter to a hazzan, Ben Sadoq, who is asked to intervene on behalf of the writer, Menashshe nin Shemaiah, before Sar Salom, head of the community of Alexandria. The writer says he’ll be in Alexandria at the New Year, God willing. Ca. 11th century. Menashshe signs his name at the end surrounded by a motto. Verso: small amount of illegible text in a different hand and ink. (Information from CUDL)

Letter sent to al-Firnas (= the parnas) al-Haruni (= the Kohen) Allun b. Ya'ish (= Eli b. Yahya) in Fustat from Damascus, announcing that Abu 'Ali Hassun b. Musallam b. al-Hirbish had come to Alexandria and asking that he see to it that al-Hirbish fulfills his obligations. (Information from Goitein's index cards)

Letter containing a complaint about a weak muqaddam (head of a local community). (Information from Goitein's index cards)

Letter from the judge R. Hanan'el b. Shemuel to notable in Alexandria. AA

Letter from Moshe b. Peraḥya, the muqaddam of Minyat Ghamr, to a prominent scholar in the capital. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: Likely 1230s–40s (the last years of Avraham Maimonides or the first years of his son David). Identification of the sender (and dating) was made by Amir Ashur, based on handwriting. The sender explains that his rival in a nearby place was stirring up much publicity for himself and asking the recipient intervene for him with the head of the Jewish community as he requests that Minyat Zifta be restored to him in full and that he likes to retain also Malij , for which he has held letters of appointment for years. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, 49 and V, 188, 192.) Compare T-S AS 157.86.

The Nagid R. Yehoshuaʿ warns against disqualified kosher butchers. Middle of the 14th century.

Later document: Petition/letter of recommendation from an unidentified sender, apparently in Fustat, to Yoshiyyahu Gaon. In Hebrew. Dating: Ca. 1020 CE. This is a letter on behalf of the brother of Daniel b. Sahl ha-Melammed, who sent Daniel a letter crying out about his harassment at the hands of somebody (Gil suggests this was a Fatimid military officer but does not explain why). This person claimed in Muslim courts that Daniel's brother was his slave, but "God forbid that a Jew should be a slave of a Gentile, all the more so of a Jew like him" (r34–38). Various Jewish dignitaries are mentioned, including Elḥanan Rosh ha-Seder. Yoshiyyahu is asked to intervene. This fragment also contains a state document in Arabic and a Hebrew piyyuṭ in a different hand than the letter (larger and cruder).

Letter from Yehuda ha-Melammed b. al-Ammani, in Alexandria, to Avraham Maimonides in Fustat. Dated: Adar 1528 Seleucid, which is 1217 CE. Yehuda devotes the bulk of the letter (r.17-v.19) to a detailed account of the resolution of the conflict in the al-Ammani family between Yehuda and his uncle, R. Sadoq the Judge, crediting Avraham with resolving it. He describes the scene of the ṣulḥa in which all the family members drank to each other's health (Med Soc V, 39). Yehudah continues (v.19-31) with an encomium to Avraham; the Alexandrians have been praying and fasting for God to lift the epidemic that has attacked the population of Fustat and to protect Avraham specifically. Yehuda then emphasizes with gestures of humility (v.31-49) that all the affairs of the community rest on his shoulders alone, as his uncle drinks all day long. Yehuda's temperament cannot tolerate wine—he quotes Proverbs 20:1 ("whosoever reeleth thereby is not wise")—and does not drink more than a quarter cup in a sitting and certainly never becomes drunk. He explains (verso margin) that Avraham's colleague Abū Naṣr the physician encouraged him to write this letter, even though some of his peers mocked him for this. The letter concludes in the upper margin of recto with praises for Avraham. Information in part from Frenkel and Goitein's note card. ASE.

Letter from Yeshua ha-Kohen b. Yosef in Alexandria to the community of Fustat. The handwriting is Yeshua's and the letter is written in rhymed prose. (Information from Frenkel. See additional information in Goitein, Med. Soc. 5:367-8 and Bareket, Shafrir Miṣrayim, 18 (notice there is a mistake in Frenkel's 'mentioned' list: Goitein deals with this letter in volume 5 of Med. Soc. and not in volume 4. The page in volume 5 is 368 and not 68. She also does not mention Bareket's edition). While Bareket claims that the letter was sent from Jerusalem, Goitein claims that it was sent from Alexandria. Goitein claims that the letter was sent by Shelomo b. Yehuda to the Karaites and Rabbanites in Egypt and it was written down by Yeshua ha-Kohen b. Yosef ha-dayyan.

Strongly worded circular letter sent by Moses Maimonides to the country-side community, soliciting them to contribute to the ransom of captives. The two senior judges of Fustat, Hiyya b. Yiṣḥaq and Efrayim b. Meshullam had been sent to Palestine, probably to approach the Franks, who might have taken captives when they sacked Bilbays on November 3, 1168. A sermon in Hebrew is written in the wide spaces between the lines. verso, in Hebrew, unrelated. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, pp. 548, 549; V, pp. 54, 55.) BL OR 5533.1, T-S 12.238, and T-S 16.9 are all versions of the same letter.

Letter, probably from Damascus, in which fifteen elders admonish a community in another country to bring to court a merchant against whom a widow held no fewer then twenty documents of indebtedness. His claims against the orphans of Ibn Saba had to be dealt with separately. Dated 10th century.

Letter in the handwriting of the Ascalon scholar and scribe Natan b. Mevorakh, from Avraham (Ibrahim) b. Ḥalfon b. Nahum to Eli ha-Kohen b. Yahya in Fustat, Egypt, regarding communal friction over the muqaddam (local community head) of Ascalon appointed by the Ra'is al-Yahud (Head of the Jews of the Fatimid empire) David b. Daniel. November 17, 1087, or November 13, 1090.

Remains of 28 lines of a list of beneficiaries of charity, each containing the names of 3 or 4 households in receipt of 2, 4, 6, 8 or more (loaves). (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 453, App. B 52)

Letter in which Shelomo b. Semah, Ramla, describes the earthquake, probably to Efrayim b. Shemarya, or to the community of Fustat, December 1033. The letter details the terrible effects of the earthquake and its aftershocks on the inhabitants of Ramla and remarking on how many more would have died had the earthquake happened during the night. The initial earthquake is said to have taken place on Thursday, 12th Ṭevet (= December, 1033 CE). The reaction of the victims was to fast and cry out to God for mercy and the writer comments how the mercy of God was demonstrated in that there were survivors. The survivors are still living outside the city in difficult conditions. (Information from CUDL)

No. 1: Letter of condolence from a Gaon on the death of the addressee's son. (Bamerkazim, pp. 69-72); No. 2: Copy of a letter from Hayya Gaon to Qayrawan, probably to Ya’aqov b. Nissim. The original letter was written in August 11, 1006. Handwriting of Shemarya b. Elhanan. The Gaon writes to the Yeshiva and asks to copy letters and send them to other communities in the Maghreb. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 2, #37) VMR. In No. 1, T-S 20.100 begins at end of verso line 22. No. 2 begins with T-S 20.100 and continues on T-S 10G5.8 on line 53.

Statute (‘taqqana’) about the conduct of two slaughter houses, one at the Great Bazaar and one at the Bath of the Mice, issued by a committee of seven individuals elected by the community. The document records the decision to appoint Yefet b. David to be cantor and the supervisor of the slaughter instead of his father, who had passed away. Yefet will be responsible for these two markets in Fustat where ritually pure meat was available, and must send one-half of the weekly income to Yoshiyahu, the Gaon and head of the Yeshiva in Jerusalem. Goitein dates the document to after 1024. (Information from Gil, Palestine, vol. 2, 583-585, #319; Goitein, “The Social Services of the Jewish Community as Reflected in the Cairo Geniza Records” Jewish Social Studies (1964), 10; and Goitein’s index cards) VMR and EMS