Geniza Lab

Collection of Geonic responsa, in the same hand as T-S 16.99, T-S G2.29, T-S 12.169, and T-S 16.310. (Information from CUDL)

Two fragments from the outer leaves of a collection of late responsum on agents, citing Haro”sh and other rabbinical authorities. There are six elaborate signatures of the scribe Yeshuʿa b. Shababo (שבאבו). (Information from CUDL)

Legal query addressed to the Gaon and Nasi Daniel b. ʿAzarya in Jerusalem with regard to the goods of an Egyptian merchant, which had been requested by the Jewish court of Tripoli, Libya, after the carrier, his Sicilian ? had died on the sea. Dated: January 5, 1059 CE. There is a document quoted that is dated 23 February 1058 CE. See also T-S NS J161 + T-S 12.5 and Bodl. MS heb. a 3/9 (also known as Oxford a3 (2873), f.9, and published by Asaf, Responsa Geonica, 1942, 125–26). On verso there is poetry.

Recto: autograph responsa by Shemarya b. Elḥanan (active 966–1011 CE) with his signature. Verso: an abridgement of BT Yevamot 65b-72a. (Information from CUDL)

Collection of halakhic rulings, concerning legal deeds and marriage. The scribe is well known from other collections of geʾonic responsa, from the beginning of the 11th century. (Information from CUDL)

Collection of geʾonic responsa. The scribe is well known from other collections of geʾonic responsa, from the beginning of the 11th century. (Information from CUDL)

Responsa, on the subject of death of either party to a ketubba, false testimony and forged documents. (Information from CUDL)

Responsum on the division of property, with citations from the Palestinian Talmud and the Babylonian Talmud. Possibly a product of one of the French rabbis who immigrated to Fusṭāṭ in the 13th century. (Information from CUDL)

Recto: responsa in the hand of Joseph b. Jacob Rosh ha-Seder. Verso: Judaeo-Arabic poem and dirge also written by Joseph. (Information from CUDL)

Letter from Ismaʿīl b. Barhūn al-Tahartī (CUDL), Yosef b. Berekhya or Moshe b. Barhun al-Taharti, Qayrawān (PGP), to (Efrayim b.) Shemarya, Fustat. Discusses responsa of the geʾonim.

Responsum concerning orphans, describing a loan from orphans that is taken orally without an oath, and a statement that orphans who are in debt because of a deceased parent should not have anything taken from them until they reach a mature age. (Information partly from Goitein's index cards) EMS and VMR. The scribe is familiar from Avraham Maimuni's period. AA

Query from Nadiv b. Yiṣḥaq, “the son of the brother of Umm Nadiv,” asking whether a woman who was deserted by her husband with whom she had lived for ten years, but had not received a bill of repudiation from him, may marry another man. (S. D. Goitein, Mediterranean Society,1:591; 3:264, 485.) EMS. The remainder of the fragment is also filled with text. Apart from difficult Arabic text on verso, there is what Goitein calls an Arabic/medieval Greek/Romanesque (laʿaz) glossary, partially in Arabic script on recto and partially in Hebrew script on verso. There is some overlap between the Arabic script glossary and the Hebrew script glossary. Examples: khubz --> אבסומי (= Ψωμί), mawlāy --> senyor. Merits further examination

Letter from Yeshuʿa b. Elʿazar Shammāʿ (candle maker or seller) to Abū l-Fakhr b. Abū l-Maʿālī. In Hebrew and Judaeo-Arabic. Only the opening and the address are preserved, along with a note in the upper margin requesting a speedy response, together with the fatwas (responsa) of Bū l-Maʿālī. EMS. (Information in part from CUDL)

Letter in the hand of Shelomo b. Eliyyahu to Ḥisday ha-Nasi (a Qaraite communal leader) concerning a husband who wishes to divorce the wife he had been coerced into marrying in Alexandria. The husband demands to pay the marriage gift in installments (i.e., never completely) after all that he had suffered from her bad character (al-tarbut raʿa). He has been with her for three years, but it feels like twenty. He is perishing from his illness (maraḍ) and poverty and bad wife. If his request is refused, he threatens to flee the country and leave her an ʿaguna. Shelomo is probably not writing on his own behalf, as it is unlikely that he would consult a Qaraite Nasi for a legal opinion. Contains elements of both a petition and responsum. There is a provocative (mis)quotation of Leviticus 14:45 on verso: "I have broken (should be: he shall break) down the house, the stones of it, and the timber thereof, etc." With this the husband is comparing his wife (referred to as one's 'house' in Judaeo-Arabic) with a house stricken with ẓaraʿat. (Information from CUDL and Oded Zinger, Women, Gender and Law: Marital Disputes According to Documents of the Cairo Geniza, 87, 149, 180, 220, 260.) EMS. ASE.

Letter of complaint to Maimonides regarding funds for the Qodesh. Written in the hand of Meʾir b. Hillel b. Ṣadoq Av. The plaintiff asks why arrangements made for him by the mutawallī Isaiah ha-Levi b. Mišaʾel have become void; and if they are void for him, why should not the other leases and deeds of rent of ruined lots be discontinued as well. The complaint was probably submitted in 1171 or somewhat later and it emerges that the agreement made with Isaiah stipulated that the plaintiff was to rebuild a ruin of the qodesh and live in it until his investment in repairs was balanced out by a hypothetical rent, in the meantime paying only the ground rent (ḥikr) to the government. Maimonides was apparently opposed to this agreement, possibly because of legal principles regarding permission to make deals with properties of the qodesh. In the second part of the letter, the writer requests Maimonides to answer various questions on the study of the Law which he had previously asked him, and to which he now adds a question on the attitude to astronomy. He also asks him for some of his books, to be copied for him, the cost to be paid from the money due to him, if the debt is recognized. Below on verso are rhymed Hebrew wedding verses in a crude hand. (Information from CUDL and Gil, Documents, pp. 363 #94)

Autographed Responsum by Avraham Maimonides regarding the estate of a freed female slave. Written by MOshe b. Perahya, who was the muqaddam of MInyat Ghmar. AA

Letter from Ibrahim b. Miṣbāḥ to Eliyyahu the Judge (spelled אליהוא). In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: early 13th century. The sender had previously sent with the bearer Ismāʿīl a legal query (fatwā) and other documents (masāṭir). Evidently Eliyyahu brought these to Avraham Maimonides (Sayyidnā al-Rayyis), who wrote his response at the bottom of the query but who did not sign the masṭūr or the pisqei din. The sender now asks Eliyyahu to get Avraham to write his signature on these documents. (Information in part from CUDL and Goitein's index card.)

Beginning of a query submitted to Maimonides, beginning by telling about a local man who is now living in another city (the rest is too fragmentary to understand). (Information from Goitein's index cards)

Legal query. Dating: Early 13th century (per Goitein). Concerning the wife of a Kohen who traveled 2 or 3 times without letting her know how long he would remain absent or leaving her sufficient food. She swore "oaths frightening the mountains" (אימאן תרעד אלגבאל) that after his return she would not remain with him. Not complete. (Information from Goitein's note card.)

Fragment of a question mentioning a woman and a daughter, the father having been absent 16 years.