Geniza Lab

Part of a booklet of alms lists (fols. 15.5, 15, 39, 50), titled here: 'List of the poor of Fustat.' Inside (col. II, line 5ff.): ˜Available 600 [loaves] weighing 600 pounds. Price 3 dinars, which I have received from the Prince of Princes [i.e., the Nagid Mevorakh]--may he live forever.' Date is preserved on fol. 39, Tuesday, Marheshvan 18 (Nov. 5), 1107. Fol. 15 was written on the Friday of the same week and notes 500 pounds yielding 567 loaves. Fol. 50 contains the distribution of the following Tuesday [Nov. 12] again comprising 500 pounds, but only 547 loaves. The handwriting is that of Avraham b. Aharon. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 443, App. B 19).

Part of a booklet of alms lists (fols. 15.5, 15, 39, 50). Date is preserved on fol. 39, Tuesday, Marheshvan 18 (Nov. 5), 1107. Fol. 50 contains the distribution of the following Tuesday [Nov. 12] again comprising 500 pounds, but only 547 loaves. The handwriting is that of Avraham b. Aharon. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 443, App. B 22).

List, neatly written, of 26 people pledging gifts of 5 to 60. The ten most generous donors remain anonymous, the relevant entry being 'mattan,' which is the beginning of the biblical verse 'a gift in secret averts anger' (Prov. 21:14), understood as 'the anger of God.' Verso, in a different script, hasty entries of donations made over three consecutive weeks (the first is incomplete) and, again in another hand, notes on pledges during a later week. On this page, too, a number of pledges are anonymous. The second week is headed by 'the h[aver] the nagid Musa, the eldest son of Nagid Avraham II b. David b Avraham I Maimonides, d. Nov. 1290. (Information from Cohen, Voice of the Poor)

Collection by R. Baruch during the week 'In the Beginning' Twenty-seven contributors totaling 36 1/2 (dirhams). With the exception of two scholarly persons, a banker, entitled haver, who gives nine, and a goldsmith, styled rabbi)--the only one in the list besides the collector--who contributes five together with his partner, all the others content themselves with gifts of one-half, one, or at most one and one-half. Actual payments were made once for several weeks. The insertion in small letters of 'Thursday' between lines 18 and 19 shows that R. Baruch completed his collection during the synagogue service on Thursday morning. This is an example of one of several lists of contributors that do not show a wide scale of social or economic differentiation, with craftsmen by no means always in the lower categories. The letter resh stands for rubaʿ (1/4) and the letter tav for thumn (1/8) (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, pp. 490-491, App. C 49, dated first part of 13th century)

List of 67 contributors to charity, headed by 'our lord, may his glory be enhanced,' namely, the Nagid Avraham Maimonides (d. 1237), giving 3 1/2 (dinars or dirhams). Another list superscribed sh (= sheni, second) of 13 persons mentioned before and making a 2nd contribution, is attached. The list contains many persons arranged according to 'business addresses,' namely, the bazaars where persons of the same professions had their shops or where craftsmen had their adjacent fields. This means they were solicited at the same time, in the workplace. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, pp. 486-487, App. C 40)

List of about sixty recipients of charity, some identical with those in T-S NS J293. One section is superscribed 'In the Tujib' (a quarter of Fustat). No numerals or other indications of the charity involved. Like T-S K15.102 (Appendix B 31), it is written in very large characters, but in poor script and with bad spelling. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 448, App. B 34, dated 1100-1140).

Two lists of contributors and beginning of a third, comprising 25, 32, and 4 names, respectively, all headed by ha-r (the rabbi) Yosef Israel. The 1st 2 lists are in the same hand as T-S K15.10 and have many names in common with it. The first number = the pledge; the 2nd number = the 1st installment actually made. A late list. (Information from Mediterranean Society II, p. 497, App. C 76)

Account of rent, ca. 1096. Accounting of rent owed by four tenants. Besides the accounting of an anonymous tenant of which only the end is preserved here, there are three larger paragraphs, of which the first deals with a room of a man from Aleppo (al-Halabi), the other with the apartment of another anonymous tenant, and the third with the apartment of Sitt Qawdaf. The third tenant had to pay one dinar for six months, as did hte lady named Sitt Qawdaf. The periods of payment covered are unusually long. The account stretches over more than two years, from January 1094 to February 1096. The document is a leaf from a notebook, divided into two parts. Written mostly in the hand of an unknown parnas, but with additions inserted in the awkward hand of the parnas Eli b. Yahya, its upper part is missing. (Information from Gil, Documents, pp. 227 #38)

List of pledges arranged in two sections, separated by a blank space. Thirteen donations are in the first group and ten in the second; two contributions are for ten dirhams while the other amounts range from one to five and one/half dirhams. (S. D. Goitein, Mediterranean Society 2:488) EMS

Ten weekly payrolls for the second through the tenth weeks and then again for the fourteenth week of the liturgical year, which begins after the autumn holidays. In this account and those in T-S Misc.8.100, T-S K15.63, and T-S NS J105 the total spent on the distribution of loaves of bread is also listed every week. These important drafts are in the hand of Shelomo, the son of judge Eliyyahu, presumably in preparation of fuller reports. For each week there is the sum put at disposal of writer. The name of the collector who handed over the money is often also named, plus a balance from the previous week, or arrears due on its account. Then, never in same order, the items paid, concluding with the balance remaining or due. Payments to officials do not represent their actual salaries, but their share in the weekly collection. These remain the same for many weeks. The weekly expenditure on bread was 29, 30, 30 1/2, 32 3/4, 33 1/4 dirhams and similar sums. It is possible, however, that there were one or several distributions handled by other communal officials, whose notes have not come down to us. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 450, App. B 40, early thirteenth century)

List of about ninety persons receiving subsidies for their capitation tax obligation, similar to T-S K15.14 + T-S K15.66, Apps. 4-5. Many names and sums are identical. As in official documents from the Fatimid chancelleries, a blank space, three times as wide as the height of the script, is left between the lines. Thus, no doubt, the list was destined for public display. Col. I, l.2 'from the collection, pesiqa' is added because of a special circumstance. It was found that the person concerned was unable to pay even the very reduced rate of 1/4 dinar imposed on him. Verso col. II, l. 11: Yahya al-Majjani, 9 qirats. probably the well known merchant, in dire straits that year and in need of assistance with his capitation tax. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 440, App. B 6, dated 1040-1060)

List: “Register (thabat) of the names of the elders who...” written upside down on the reverse side of a list of payers of incomplete capitation taxes (see T-S K15.94). The superscription is nearly entirely effaced but the word ‘jarida’ (also register), mostly used on lists of the poor, is clearly visible in the second line. (S. D. Goitein, Mediterranean Society 2:476) EMS

List, eight columns, of more than 180 names receiving alms. Many payments of 1/8 dinar. Many foreigners, designated as such: Palestine 13; Iraq 12; Syria-Lebanon 7; Rum 3; Sicily 2; Qayrwan 1; Barqa 1; Spain 1. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 441, App. B 8)

Account of the Qodesh: revenue from rent, ca. 1040. A fragment seemingly belonging to the same record as T-S NS J264a and also written by Yefet b. David b. Shekhanya. It contains a partial accounting of rent collected for (probably) Dhu'l-qa'da and Dhu'l-hijja, i.e. the accounts for five months, between T-S NS J264a and this one, are lost. Almost all the tenants are identical with those of T-S NS J264a. (Information from Gil, Documents, pp. 184 #16)

Letter from the office of Yehoshua the Nagid (d. 1355), a grandson of a grandson of the Rambam, to the Jerusalemite synagogues concerning an erection of a Sukkah and redemption of pawned Torah bells.

Account of the Qodesh. Revenue from rent. Dating: probably ca. 1043. The right margin of the leaf is missing; however, we have in it an almost complete list of revenue for one month, Rabīʿ I, and fragmentary details on the preceding one, i.e. Ṣafar, and the following one, i.e. Rabīʿ II. (Information from Gil, Documents, pp. 203 #27.) Previous description for T-S AS 145.18 (old PGPID 8612): List of rents collected from premises belonging to the Shāmī synagogue. Written by David b. Shekhanya. Dating: No later than 1025 CE. See Med Soc II, p. 436. (Information from Goitein's index card.) Join: Oded Zinger.

Letter from an ardent supporter to Daniel b. ʿAzarya. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: Ca. 1055 CE (per Goitein). This is only the first leaf of the letter. The sender puts his money and his friends at Daniel's disposal. The entire letter is also an attack on ʿEli b. ʿAmram, who is never directly named. The sender describes communal strife in Fustat after the death of the gaon Shelomo b. Yehuda (d. 1051) and Abū Kathīr Efrayim b. Shemarya (d. after 1053 CE, probably ca. 1055 CE). The other supporters of Daniel b. ʿAzarya wanted to appoint the Rav (=Yehuda b. Yosef) as the successor of Efrayim b. Shemarya, and they did not want ʿEli b. ʿAmram to assume the position. (The Rav was in the camp of Daniel b. ʿAzarya despite being the cousin of his rivals Yosef and Eliyya, the sons of Shelomo ha-Kohen b. Yehosef who was briefly gaon in 1025 CE.) However, the sender paradoxically thinks that their enemy ʿEli b. ʿAmram should succeed Efrayim, precisely because then he will have to pay obeisance to Daniel, and the two camps will be united. The letter's contents are as follows: (1) Condolences for the death of Daniel's sister (r1–12); (2) Praises and seeking forgiveness for the fight that they had in the house of al-Damsīsī—Goitein understands that this is because the sender had advocated for ʿEli b. ʿAmram, Daniel's enemy (r13–21); (3) ʿEli ("the idiot") didn't understand that the sender has long been a supporter of Daniel b. ʿAzarya, even before the death of Shelomo b. Yehuda; and anything the sender has done for ʿEli is like what David did for Saul—serving him despite the latter's intention to kill him (r23–36); an explanation of how the sender supported ʿEli b. ʿAmram over the Rav, against the objections of the rest of Daniel's contingent, including Abū Isḥāq (Avraham b. Yiṣḥaq Ibn al-Furāt) (v1–12); ʿEli b. ʿAmram's boorish behavior once he assumed leadership, which alienated the other leading figures of the community (including Abū Sahl al-Kohen, a certain Abū l-Surūr, and a certain Elḥanan) to the point that they boycotted the synagogue (v12–28); ʿEli, fearing that he would be deposed in favor of the Rav, recruited his son-in-law Ḥunayn and started spreading malicious rumors about the Rav, including something he supposedly said to Ibn al-Talmid involving the latter's mother. Then, "Ḥunayn went and gathered some potters and quarrelsome people, and hired about fifty of them, and they wrote legal deeds about the Rav, [saying] that he had apostatized (pashaʿa) in al-Shām and [later] arrived in Egypt to re-Judaize (yatahawwada)" (v29–36). (Information from Goitein's edition. Translation of the last section from Moshe Yagur, "Several Documents from the Cairo Geniza Concerning Conversion to Islam," (2020).)

Account of the Qodesh: payments to workers and revenue from rent, ca. probably 1043. The recto of this leaf contains details of different sums paid to building workers. The heading refers to sums collected by the workers employed in the building operations of the qodesh. The names are of Muslims. The verso has some details on collections of rent. The handwriting is that of Yefet b. David b. Shekhanya. (Information from Gil, Documents, pp. 197 #24)

Account for Siwan 1494 sel. ca. 1183. This very orderly written list of revenues and expenditures covers the revenue from 18 apartments and compounds, the total being 205 dirhams. The expenditure section lists several ordinary items, but in the main gives details of sums spent on repairs in Dar al-Nagid. (Information from Gil, Documents, pp. 339 #85)

Account for Tammuz and Av 1494 sel. ca. 1183. Only the revenue part of this account is presevred. It contains the sums from 22 apartments and compouns, the total being 374 dirhams, to which 15 dirhams are added, from the account of the preceding month, all of which is to be handed over by the parnas. (Information from Gil, Documents, pp. 342 #86) Written by Shemuel b. Saadya. AA