Geniza Lab

Legal document: testimony about the will of Yosef Lebdi. This fragment, written in the hand of Hillel b. Eli, records that before leaving for his last journey, Lebdi made the will. Friedman dates the fragment to the beginning of the 12th century.

An Egyptian Jew traveling to Sicily testifies that he owes money to an Italian Jew called Ser Mishael from Trapani. (Information from Mediterranean Society, I, p. 256)

Segment of a court testimony. In the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe ha-Levi (Date: 1100-1138). Regarding dowry arrangements after the renewal of a lost ketubba. The ketubba of Abu l-Fadl Ṣadoq b. Ḥalfon b. Moshe and his wife […] bt. Berakhot b. Yehuda ha-Levi was lost when the Franks (‘May God ruin them’) captured Tripoli (Lebanon, in 1109 CE) and Abū l-Faḍl and his wife were taken prisoner. On verso there is Genesis 1:1-3. (Information from CUDL)

Legal document. In the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Avraham b. Nissim gives part of a house to the wife of Shelomo, and she will bear his burial expenses and will provide him with fine clothing. (Information from Goitein's index cards)

Testimony made by unknown members of the Jewish community (the signatures are either cut off or were never added). Location: Fustat. Dated: First decade of Iyyar 1540 Seleucid, which is 1229 CE, under the authority of Avraham Maimonides (called 'adon' and 'gaʾon' but not 'nagid'). T-S NS J66 (mainly Hebrew) and T-S 8.161 (mainly Judaeo-Arabic) are versions of the same document. The undersigned say that when they lived in Jerusalem, Yeshuʿa b. Shelomo ha-Levi regularly went up to the Torah for the Levi blessings when no other Levi was present. Moreover, they confirmed this from asking the people of his country. This document was drawn up for him to carry with him as support for his claim to be a Levi. Goitein summarizes it as follows: "How even the poorest of the poor would jealously guard his rights in these matters [participation in prayer] may be seen from a document certifying that a certain young "Levi" was called up in Jerusalem to read a part of the Scripture lection, when no other local or foreign "Levi" was present. This rather comical testimony was given to him "so that he might not be put to shame" (Med Soc II, p. 161). (Information in part from Goitein, Palestinian Jewry, p. 336–37.) VMR. ASE.

Hebrew court testimony by Yehoshuaʿ b. Mansur saying that his wife has no debts to him.

Very effaced record of testimony with partially visible date reading Iyyar 15?5.

Three unsigned court depositions. Location: Damascus. Dating: July 1094 CE and March 1095 CE. They have to do with properties owned by the Zawbaʿa ("Tempest") family. The elder brother was named ʿUthmān b. Yefet. The second brother was Maṣliaḥ b. Yefet known as ha-Gizbar ("the Treasurer"), i.e., he was a government officer. (This Maṣliaḥ is also known from Megillat Evyatar as the man who brought up David b. Daniel b. ʿAzarya.) There were two tyrannical governors in Damascus: Ḥaydara Ibn Manzū (r.1063–64) and Muʿallā Ibn Manzū (r.1068–69). One of these expropriated the property of Maṣliaḥ in the Dār Quzmān neighborhood (near the eastern gate of Damascus, in the Jewish quarter), and the two brothers Maṣliaḥ and ʿUthmān fled the city for Egypt. Some 25 years later, Yefet the son of Maṣliaḥ returned to his birthplace and sued to regain the property abandoned by his father and uncle. In the meantime, another uncle had moved into one of the houses, encroaching beyond the border of the neighboring property owned by his wife. The uncle insisted on bringing the case to the Muslim courts, and Yefet b. Maṣliaḥ here testifies that he was compelled to go to the Muslim courts and did not want to. (Information from Goitein's edition.)

Legal document recording that the parnas Eli ha-Kohen and his colleague testified in court that three orphan girls had received ten dinars bequeathed to them by an uncle in Tyre, which had been sent by Abū al-Khayr b. al-Muʿassal; from 1098. (Information from Goitein's index cards) EMS

Lengthy testimony describing that at the arrival of the ships from the West in Alexandria, Shelomo b. Hillel from Aleppo and Amran b. Yosef from Tyre had a dispute regarding 4 dinars, which was settled after the intervention of colleagues. 21 Av 1098. (Information from Goitein's index cards) EMS

Bill of release. Location: Minyat Zifta. Dated: Monday, 23 Ṭevet 4864 AM, which is 24 December 1103 CE. Shelomo b. Yiṣḥaq ha-Kohen had sent with Yāsīn Ibn al-Khabbāza a bale of flax and empowered Abū ʿAlī b. Fahd (al-wakil), known as Ibn Khulayf, to sell it. Abu Bishr Shelomo b. Furqan al-Kohen was present and reported the price garnered for it. One qintar belonged to Yiṣḥaq b. Yehuda. (Information from S. D. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 1:188, 446; Med Soc 2:532, n. 41; Goitein’s index cards; and Norman Golb, “Topography of Jews of Medieval Egypt,” JNES, 33 (1974), 145.) EMS

Record of testimony. Fragment (upper left corner). Location: Fustat. Dated: End of Sivan 152[.] Seleucid, which is 1209–18 CE, under the reshut of Avraham Maimonides. Involves [...] b. Abū l-Yumn (ZL) and [...] al-Ṣabbāgh b. Abū l-Surūr. (S. D. Goitein, Mediterannean Society, 3:327, 500.) EMS. Same scribe: T-S 8J6.1, T-S 8J6.2, T-S 8J11.6, and probably T-S 16.341.

Legal document. Location: Fustat. Dated: Thursday night, 23 Tammuz 1538 Seleucid, which is 1227 CE. ʿIbād and her sister, the daughters of Abū l-Majd, release each other from mutual claims. Signed by Judge Eliyyahu. Signatures validated on verso by Avraham Maimonides and Yaḥyā b. Elyaqim. (Information from FGP and CUDL.) ENA NS 21.18 and T-S 8J6.6 + T-S 10J4.4 are related to the same case.

Fragment of a Hebrew deed in which witnesses testify that Ezra b. Shemuel b. Ezra, the representative of the merchants, came to them to complain about his sister, Mubāraka. He asked the witnesses to go and convince her to retract her claim to a share from her father’s inheritance. (Oded Zinger, Women, Gender, and Law, 346, 349.) EMS. Join: Oded Zinger.

Record of the testimony of Tiqva, known as Raja' (רגא, ‘hope') b. 'Azariah the cantor, concerning someone from Damascus whose name is only partially preserved as ‘known as the son of the hod-carrier' (אלטיאן, though possibly to be read אלעיאן). Although not much of the document is preserved, it was probably all in Hebrew, suggesting a date early in the 11th century. (Information from the Cambridge Genizah Research Unit via FGP).

Bill of testimony concerning the will of Abu al-Faraj b. Hillel. EMS

Testimony regarding a freed female slave who was betrothed to a kohen, Aleppo, 1191.

Legal fragment in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. The wife of the speaker had given a share in a house to the widow of Abū ʿAlī Ḥasan al-Amadī (אלאמדי), stating that the ground rent (ḥikr) was to be paid by [...]. Now the speaker asserts that the conditions about the ḥikr referred to a large house which he inherited from his wife after her death. The deed of gift was dated Adar 1428 Seleucid, which is March 1117 CE, so this document dates to some time later. (Information from Goitein's index cards)

Record of a testimony written in Alexandria regarding a family excommunicated by Daniel b. Azarya. The members of the family desecrate his memory. Date: May 1079.

Declaration of a father and husband, testifying that he had not married anyone before the mother of his first-born and that he had not sired a child before this one. Written by Ḥalfon b. Menashshe (ca. 1100-1138). (Information from Mediterranean Society, III, p. 279)