Geniza Lab

Legal fragment. Betrothal (erusin) document in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Surviving names include Yeshuʿa ha-Zaqen and Avraham.

Legal agreement between spouses. In the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Location: Fustat. The husband of Sitt al-Bahāʾ takes her to court to revisit the conditions under which he may take a second wife, because his livelihood forces him to stay in Cairo sometimes.

Two torn fragments of a legal document between Abu al-Hasan Mevurakh and the heirs of Abu al-Faraj. Written by Halfon b. Menashshe Halevi who signed it together with Nathan Hakohen b. Shelomo and Avraham b. Shema'aya. Under the jurisdiction of Masliah Gaon (Date: 1127-1138). AA

Legal fragment. In the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dated: Tevet 1438 Seleucid, which is 1126/27 CE. ʿEli ha-Ḥaver and Ada(?) ha-Zaqen b. Kawkab ha-Zaqen give a testimony regarding what they previously witnessed of the deathbed will of Abū l-Maʿālī Shelomo al-Dhahabī.

Legal document. In the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Location: Fustat. Dated: last decade of Iyyar 1431 Seleucid, which is April 1120 CE. Settlement between Amat al-Qādir Sitt al-Gharb, the wife of Abū l-Faḍāʾil Yosef, and her sister Qurrat al-ʿAyn Sitt al-Milāḥ, the widow of Abū Yaʿqūb known as Ibn Naḥum. The two women are the daughters of Abū l-Faḍl Shela b. Shelomo Ibn al-Qaṭāʾif. The legal case concerns the inheritance from both their father and mother. Moss. VII,116.3 concerns some of the same people. (Information in part from Goitein's index card.) On verso there is Hebrew poetry.

Marriage contract (ketubba). In the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Dated: Tuesday, 5 Adar II 1437 Seleucid, which is 1126 CE. Groom: Elʿazar b. Shemarya. Bride: Ḥasana bt. Seʿadya ha-Levi the cantor, a divorcee or widow. There is a special clause stipulating that Elʿazar will not remarry his divorcee. Should he violate this condition, he will have to give her a bill of divorce and pay her delayed marriage settlement. ("Note that under the conditions of the contract there was no bar to Elʿazar taking a second wife other than his divorcee. Shortly after this ketubba had been issued a standard monogamy clause whereby the husband undertook not to marry a second wife or to keep a slave girl of whom his wife disapproved was routinely written in Fustat ketubbot.") This marriage contract was torn into 5 pieces apparently upon the divorce of Elʿazar and Ḥasana, of which M. A. Friedman located 3 pieces, and Yiftach Eitan and Oded Zinger located the upper right corner. (Information in part from Friedman, "A Case of Polygyny with David, Abigail, and Ḥasana," Dine Israel X–XI (1981–83). Also discussed in Friedman, "Polygyny in Jewish Tradition and Practice," Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 49 (1982), 33–68.) Moshe Yagur has discovered that Elʿāzar and Ḥasana subsequently remarried; Bodl. MS heb. b 12/18 is the upper right corner of their new ketubba.