Geniza Lab

Confirmation of a payment ca. 1220. The beadle Abu'l-Farah (known also as Tahir) pays 30 wariq dirhams for removal of garbage, apparently from the synagogue. The elder 'Amram b. Ḥalfon ha-Levi records it on a note. (Information from Gil, Documents, pp. 428 #127)

A mother buys her little son the privilege of reading the book of Esther in public, Damira in the Nile Delta, February/March 1244.

Lower part of a carefully written list of contributors, practically all of whom appear in earlier or later lists. The first 15 donate 2 (dirhams); 9 donate 1 (d?); 2 donate 1/2 (d); 3 no amount indicated; 4 amount not preserved. Total: 33 persons or households. The collection seems to be one made for a special occasion. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 491, App. C 51 [dated to first part of 13th century])

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])

Slip of paper with expenditure for one week. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 462, App. B 81 [dated 1200-1240])

Legal record. Dated Friday, 3 Av or July 4, 1231. Scribal notes for a draft of a partnership contract. The notes state that Abū Sa‘d has 83 dinars (minus two qirāṭs) together with Manṣūr b. the great-grandson, Suleymān b. ‘Imrān and Futūḥ b. Abū al-‘Izz, with the profit to be split in two halves, half for Futūḥ b. Abū al-‘Izz (less a twenty-fourth) and half for Abū Sa‘d, with Suleymān given 19 as a commenda. The full details of these notes are delineated in the contract itself (see TS 8 J 6.9, verso). (Information from Lieberman, "A Partnership Culture," 182-183)

Letter from the physician Abū Zikrī, in Alexandria, to his father Eliyyahu the Judge, in Fustat. Dating: Shortly before 1227 CE. Abū Zikrī tries to convince Eliyyahu to accept the post of judge in Alexandria. He promises that he will procure Eliyyahu's pension from the Ayyubid sultan al-Malik al-Kāmil (r. 1218–38 CE). He reports about the downfall of the Muslim governor and the Jewish Nasi of Alexandria and suggests that his father could get a position in that town if he wanted to. He also rebukes his father in strong terms for failing to include an update on the health of his mother in the previous letter, causing tremendous agitation and fear that she might be sick (r18–21). In a section that is almost completely effaced (v16–17), he mentions "appetite for food," perhaps in the context of one of his own chronic illnesses. (Information in part from Frenkel and from Goitein, Med. Soc. Vol. 1, p. 64 and Vol. 2, pp. 353, 380, 596.) See also T-S Ar.39.64. ASE

Legal document. Court record. Dating: 1232. Record of three tannery partners, Rāḍī ha-Kohen, Mufaḍḍal ha-Kohen, and Ṭāhir, who worked in Minyat Ziftā. The total amount of the partnership was fourteen hundred dirhams. Rāḍī and Ṭāhir may have held their portion of the partnership jointly, and Rāḍī seems to have been the managing partner. Rāḍī attests to having paid out seventeen dinars’ worth of hides to Mufaḍḍal, leaving him (Rāḍī) owing three dinars. Lieberman thus infers that Mufaḍḍal’s share of twenty dinars represents roughly one-third of the total value of the partnership. Prior litigation on the same matter in an Islamic court led to a ruling requiring Rāḍī to pay Mufaḍḍal 1.5 dinars each month. Rāḍī seems not to have accepted the ruling, and while Mufaḍḍal seems to have been willing to compromise and accept only one dinar a month, Rāḍī brings "an Islamic document" to challenge him. The case then comes before the court of Abraham Maimonides (though testimony was not admissible as one of the litigants was a relative of the witness). The document does not record any final settlement. (Information from Lieberman, "A Partnership Culture," 264)

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)

Notification by the court referring to a decision made in July 1238 and announcing that the collector of the alms for the poor was empowered to make the necessary arrangements for the payment of a certain elder’s need. (Information from Goitein's index cards) EMS

Will of a wealthy man in favor of his wife, concerning twenty-seven assets and liabilities. Dated: 1431 Seleucid, which is 1219/20 CE. (F. Niessen and A. Shivtiel, ed., Arabic and Judaeo-Arabic Manuscripts in the Cambridge Genizah Collections, 602) EMS

Upper part of a will in a hand that resembles that of ʿImmanuʾel b. Yeḥiʾel (active ca. 1231–65), in which the husband of Sutayt bt. Nadiv clarifies that half of the house in which he lives belongs to his wife, as well as the jewelry that has been given as collateral to Yosef Ibn Nufayʿ in Fustat against a loan of 150 nuqra dirhams; "it must be ransomed with the money of the orphans." Lastly, the female slave named Nasrīn [belongs to Sutayt]. (Information from Goitein's index card and from Med Soc III, p. 255 n. 35.)

Lower middle part of a ketubba in which the groom renounces his rights to the bride's earnings. Dated to the 13th century. (Information from Mediterranean Society III, p.134, and from Goitein's index cards)

Account of the qodesh for display ca. 1222-23. This document is the final copy of the record of which the preceding document (ENA 3824.1) is an earlier draft. (Information from Gil, Documents, pp. 431, #129). (Written by Sheolomo b. Shmuel. AA)

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.

Recto: Note in Judaeo-Arabic in which Shelomo b. Eliyyahu requests from an unidentified philanthropist a sum of money to cover Sabbath expenditures. Verso: Jottings in Arabic script. (Information from CUDL)

Expenditure of 427 1/2 bakhaya dirhams on clothing for communal officials, on payment of a balance due for the distribution of wheat and other items. Superscribed: 'Collected 427 1/2. The expenditure entirely in bakhaya' (= dirhams bearing the inscription bkh). The lists on verso (see App. C 87) was written by Shelomo b. Eliyyahu (ca. 1220). (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 449, App. B 38 [dated 1210-1225]).