Geniza Lab

Letter of request, in which a silk-weaver who owed money to his employer, but wanted to quit his job, asks the Nagid to instruct his judges to permit him to pay in installments. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, pp. 35, 36)

Petition from Cairo to Gaon Sar Shalom (ca. 1177-1195) in which the wife of Abu al-Ḥasan, the miller, requests that the latter not be permitted to tell his wife to go and do embroidery in other people's houses and bring him her earned money, instead she should be permitted to retain her wages if she chose to work. (Information from Mediterranean Society, III, p. 133)

Left upper corner, of list of persons receiving emoluments from the community, headed by judges and including 2 scholars, 3 parnasim, the beadles of the 2 synagogues, a woman teacher, and 5 unspecified others. The Rayyis Abu al-Mufaddal was judge in the capital of Egypt but also a merchant who traveled as far as Qus. He appears also in contributor lists App. C 18, 19, 119. Written by the clerk Ḥalfon b. Menashshe ibn al-Qata'if, dated documents 1100-1138. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, 442, App. B 16)

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]).

Accounting of building expenditures ca. 1230. Fragment of a leaf, of which the bottom left part is missing; it includes three columns of items on both recto and verso. The accounting refers to repairs in Dar Hayyun. Supplies of gypsum, clay, floor tiles, and lime form the majority of the items. (Information from Gil, Documents, pp. 433 #130)

Recto: Letter/petition to Avraham b. Yaʿaqov ha-Ḥazzan. In Judaeo-Arabic. This is either intended for the eyes of Mevorakh or simply mentions previous petitions submitted to Mevorakh. It is a complaint about the excesses of Shela the Judge and his brothers and sons, who have seized power over the community in Alexandria by "violence and lack of government control(?)" and are behaving in ways unbecoming of judges. (See Mark Cohen, Jewish Self-government in Medieval Egypt, Princeton University Press, 1980, 243.) Join: Oded Zinger. EMS. ASE. Verso: Draft of a court record after the death of the well-known ʿEli ha-Kohen ha-Parnas (b. Ḥayyim/Yaḥyā), confirming that his nephew has received the 20 dinars willed to him. Join: Oded Zinger. ASE

Strongly formulated note by the prominent judge Natan b. Shemuel to a prominent member of the community, urging the man to send him money for the sick people while staying in his house. EMS. On verso there is a probably-unrelated name in Arabic script, perhaps from a chancery document: ʿabduhā al-Kāmilī Masʿūd.

Petition from Ḍiyāʾ bt. Yūsuf al-Qamrī (or possibly "bayt Yūsuf al-Qamrī" = his wife) to her relative Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAllūn al-Firnās (=ʿEli b. Yaḥyā ha-Kohen). In Judaeo-Arabic with the address in Arabic script. Dating: 1094–1111. She is in distress over her son’s imprisonment and asks the addressee to appeal to Sar ha-Sarim (=Mevorakh b. Saʿadya) for aid. She states that she must pay the jailer several dirhams every day, which she cannot afford, and suggests that Mevorakh will be able to secure the release of her son simply by writing a note (ruqʿa) to the Alexandrian qāḍī. (Mark Cohen, Jewish Self-government in Medieval Egypt, Princeton University Press, 1980, 113, 260, 261; S. D. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 2:373) EMS

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

List in same large characters as T-S 16.209v, mentioning everybody by his first name or otherwise abbreviated. At bottom, a line followed by 'al-shamiyyin b' no doubt meaning that this collection was made on a Monday morning in the synagogue of the Palestinians. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 475, App. C 10 [1st half of 11th century])

List of 24 persons to be solicited for contributions, headed by the judge and overseas trader Abu al-Mufaddal and the banker Abu Ishaq b. Tiban. Abu al-Mufaddal might refer to the scholarly merchant Nethanel b. Yefet, a nephew of the Nagids Yehuda and Mevorakh, who bore the same by-name. He was believed to be very influential with the viceroy al-Malik al-Afdal. He signed documents in 1098 and died in or shortly before 1121. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, pp. 477-478, App. C 18)

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)

Lower part of a list of contributors, with 21 persons to be solicited, each carefully described by his family name or profession or both. With three exceptions (including two names written on the margin), all names are preceded by a stroke, indicating perhaps that the task of soliciting the persons concerned had been assigned. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 485, App. C 34)

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]).

Lower part of twin list of contributors, the first with, the second without sums. Folded down the middle, hence a bifolium that once belonged to a booklet. Almost all noted in the second list had made a contribution according to the first. In five instances, donors reduced gift to 1/2 or less, and in one case an original pledge of 1/2 dinar, which was reduced to 1/4, was restituted. The strange fact that so many reduced their contributions is perhaps to be explained by the assumption that while the first collection was going on, it already became known that another was necessary. 1140s (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, pp. 479-480, App. C 24)

List of donations, qa’imat al-nedava (Hebrew), recording around forty-five names and the sums of their contributions. The reverse side contains an account of collections made, one by a layman, one by the haver Ibrahim. Both men and women are listed as contributors. (S. D. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 2:498) EMS

Account of building operations ca. 1200. Fragment of a leaf, upper left part, in a calligraphic hand. It itemizes mainly work in clay, and the work of a mason. The period covered in the account as preserved is less than a week, from Monday to Thursday. (Information from Gil, Documents, pp. 391 #104)

Account of the qodesh, ca. 1220. A double leaf of a notebook. The list contains mainly expenditures, mostly for the synagogues and for scholars and officials. Among them are beadles, including the beadle of the synagogue of Dammuh. (Information from Gil, Documents, pp. 423 #126). Four pages of drafts of communal accounts, all crossed out [vertical and diagonal strokes], which was usually done after a clean copy was made. Page one is almost entirely identical with the T-S NS J251. The other pages are highly interesting for they contain many instructions by the Nagid Abraham Maimonides showing administrative practices in times of severe hardship. For instance, a collection, totaling 30 dirhems had been promised to a young Maghrebi, for which a notable had stood security and paid to the foreigner. When only 17 dirhems came in, the Nagid ordered 13 dirhems taken from a collection for a man from Damira, Egypt, and turned over to that notable. The situation probably was that the traveler from the Maghreb had to leave, while the man from Damira could wait, and people who had stood security should get their money back immediately, otherwise no one would be found in the future to undertake that task about which we read so much in court records.

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

List with Coptic numerals, apparently of contributors. (S. D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, 2:497) EMS