Geniza Lab

Receipt on behalf of the elders of Jerusalem. (Information from Goitein's index cards)

List of names of poor persons, without numbers. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 456)

Survey of households, recipients of alms. Written on a leaf, 8 by 6 inches, folded so as to form four pages, each originally containing data about 33-34 families, a total of about 135, of which about 110 are preserved, many defective. The list is important inasmuch as it mentions the number of persons in each household. It was no doubt prepared in order to form the basis for weekly distribution of bread to the needy and to community officials. The names of the assistant judge Jephthah, the beadle Tahir, and the cantor Abu Sahl put the list at the beginning of the thirteenth century, preferably after T-S NS J.98, where Tahir receives 14 loaves, indicating that he still had a large household, whereas here only one child lives with him, and a son of his is listed as a separate family. The average size of a family of relief recipients is 2.4. For a realistic appreciation of this breakdown one should keep in mind that most of the persons listed must have been elderly people who either no longer had a family or whose older children (from the age of ten) were seeking their livelihood out of their homes. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 460, App. B 74 [dated 1200-1240])

List in the hand of the scribe of App. B 25, part 2, and App. B 33, part 1. Distribution of 23 jukhaniyyas to thirteen women, seven men, and three persons defined as 'acquaintance of' or 'the house of.' The names of three (e.g., the laborer employed by the beadle and parnas Salim) are crossed out and nine bear the sign resembling an Arabic final m (probably tasallam 'received') as in App. B 25 and 33, with which our fragment might once have formed one document. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 456, App. B 64 [dated 1100-1150])

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 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])

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]).

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

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)

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]).

List of thirty-two names with Coptic numerals (recipients of loaves of bread), for example, “the son of little Sesame.” A Maghribi scribe is recorded as receiving ten loaves and the water carrier Wafa two loaves. (S. D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, 2:463) EMS

Distribution of 150 pounds of bread to 39 households, in the same hand as T-S Misc.8.61. The large number of households receiving 3 loaves was clearly attributable to some monetary shortage, when the normal ration of 2 loaves per person could not be maintained. The additional allocations (verso: ziyada fi al-'aniyyim) were certainly answers to protests. The symbol א following numbers for some names might be a Coptic fraction. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, 452, App. B 47 [dated to1210-1225]).