Geniza Lab

Deed fragment in which 'the people of Haifa's fortress' are mentioned, 11th century. CUDL description: Recto: the very beginning of a legal document referring to ‘the people of the Fortress of Haifa’, with only a partial date preserved. Verso: two lines, either a title or a short book-list: משלי ואיוב לגאון ז״ל, and underneath in a smaller script וטומאה וטוהרה. (Information from CUDL)

Power of attorney to Nahray b. Nissim, ca. 1045-1096.

Legal document: will, fragmentary, of the Qaraite mother of two girls, before delivering another child. Concerns in particular her valuable jewelry. Goitein surmised that the document was Qaraite based on the style, the script and the text in the same hand on verso, which refers to the intercalation of the calendar according to Qaraite law. He dates it to the first half of the eleventh century. (Information from Mediterranean Society, IV, p. 418, and from Goitein's index cards)

Draft of deed of attorney written in Tyre, which includes an accounting between partners after the death of one of them, Menashshe b. Yiṣḥaq, and indicates the use of documents drawn in a Muslim court. Dating: Ca. 1041 or slightly later. According to Bareket, this is in the hand of Efrayim b. Shemarya, it was drawn up in Fustat, and it is related to T-S 10J6.6 and T-S 8J11.1.

Letter from Awad b. Hananel from Alexandria to Nahray b. Nissim, Fustat. Around 1060. The writer is in urgent need of cash "I do not even have a single dīnār left, whatever I had, I purchased with it wheat", "I am in need of your generosity, I do not have a single dirham". Describes the increasing prices of wheat and beans. Mentions a shipment of nuts and oil. It seems that the writer lives in a house that belongs to Nahray. (Information from Gil). VMR, YU.

Recto: Letter from Yefet b. David, Tyre, to his father, David b. Shekhanya, Fustat, informing him of his arrival in Tyre and expressing his disappointment at finding only two letters waiting for him. Greetings are sent to various family members. Dated ca. 1007 or 1010 CE. Verso: Address in Arabic along with a draft of a document in a different hand. (Information from CUDL)

Fragment of a ketubba (שטר פרנא). Location: Likely Tyre. Dating: ca. 1090s. The handwriting of the scribe seems to be identical with T-S 16.198, T-S 16.375 (Friedman, JMP, doc. 46), T-S AS 146.83 (Friedman, JMP, doc. 60), and ENA NS 3.22 (Friedman, JMP, doc. 64). Bride: Sutūt bt. Ṣabāḥ, a virgin. Her agent is Elʿazar b. Yosef. Few other details preserved. Goitein also identified T-S 8J4.18c and UPenn E 16516 as having been written by the same scribe. (But there is some potential ambiguity since on his index card for T-S 16.198 (#8182), he writes, "No! Simply Ḥalfon b. Menashshe.") (Information from Friedman's edition and Med Soc III, pp.201–02 and 466–67 note 145.)

Letter from Eliyyahu ha-Kohen b. Shelomo Gaon to the trustee of a Yeshiva in an unidentified place, approximately 1055.

Letter from a scholar from Ramla (who had lived for twenty years in Baghdad) to Nahray b. Nissim. Around 1095. Seems like a part of a regular correspondence between the two. Nahray was blind at that time and needed someone to read him the letter. Mentions the book by the Gaon Aharon b. Yosef (Khalaf b. Sarjado) and one of Shemuel b. Hofni’s grandsons. The writer asks Nahray to find a few products in Fustat, including indigo, pepper, arsenic, ammonia water and more. Between his request for funds due to him and his discussion of an ongoing divorce, he interposes the line, “for I am a lump of flesh waiting to die,” continuing later that “I am in need of mercy, my strength is fading” — a common rhetorical strategy for gaining the sympathy of one's correspondent. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 2, #85) VMR, revised following the analysis of old age (and complaints about old age) in the seminar paper of Jake Brzowsky ('21), Fall 2018. Same writer: T-S 24.46, T-S 12.780, ENA 2594.12.

Letter from Shemuel b. Hofni to the community of Qayrawan. Dated ca. 1008 CE. In it Shemuel reminds the community that the academies of Sura and Pumbeditha had made peace before the death of Sherira Gaon, and that Sherira’s son, Khai, is now Samuel’s son-in-law. (Information from CUDL) Only T-S 12.99 is edited in comparison with manuscript.

Attestation of the court of the Babylonian community in Fustat bearing the signature of Sahlan [b. Avraham] and dated 1355/1044.

Recto: poetic letter with an acrostic spelling ‘Ḥalfon ben Mevoraḵ (מבוכר), Saʿadya ha-Mumḥe’. Evidently a line is in the wrong sequence in the poem, which should have given the acrostic מבורכ, i.e. Mevoraḵ. Written in inverted letters are 5 lines of a poem that was the original text on the page. Verso: two poems, one written inverted. One poem has an acrostic Mevasser (מבסר) ben Mevoraḵ Saʿadya. Information from CUDL. Previous description: "Letter that is a muleteer recommendation written between 1031 and 1035. In l. 4, the muleteer Faraj is also mentioned as charged with fetching parts of a Bible manuscript. Cf. T-S NS 320.7, T-S 8J15.25 and T-S 12.655. (Goitein, Med Soc IV, p. 448 = ix, D, n. 19.)." Goitein must have had a different shelfmark in mind.

Letter from Shelomo b. Yehuda (or Avraham son of the Gaon?) to Efrayim b. Shemarya. In Hebrew. Asking Efrayim to organize the Jewish community in Fustat to assist the bearer, a victim of theft (or refugee?), on his homeward journey. Dating: probably 1034/35 CE. (Information from CUDL). Join: Oded Zinger.

Letter fragment, from Avraham, the son of the Gaon, citing the Babylonian Talmud and the Jerusalem Talmud (or perhaps the midrash) to argue that one should say a blessing even in adversity. Dating: first half of the 11th century. Join: Oded Zinger.

Letter of appeal for charity from Yeḥezqel b. Ibrāhīm (the writer) and the former judge Moshe b. Shemarya to Abū ʿImran Mūsā b. Abī l-Ḥayy, Segulat ha-Yeshiva. Moshe has gone blind from ophthalmia (ramad); his eye is white and he walks with a cane. Yehezqel is so infirm that he has not left his home for two years, even to attend synagogue services. They ask Mūsā to intervene on their behalf with the Nagid Sar ha-Sarim (Mevorakh b. Saadya), though they know that Mevorakh is busy with the “service of the rulers” (khidmat al-salāṭīn), see Rustow, Heresy, p. 339, and Cohen, Jewish Self-Government, p. 220. See also ENA 2805.5a, in which Natan b. Nahray informs Musa that as instructed he has given 1 dinar each to Moshe the Judge and Yeḥezqel the Alexandrian, who is sick and confined to his house. Dated after 1094. (Information in part from Goitein’s note cards) ASE

Letter from Isma'il b. Yosef b. Abī 'Aqaba, Palermo, to his maternal uncle Yosef b. 'Awkal and to his brothers. (PGP) Fragment of a letter from the brothers Yosef and Nissim, sons of Berekhya, in Qayrawān, to Yosef b. Yaʿqub Ibn ʿAwkal in Fustat, ca. 1015-1017 CE. Similar letters are found at T-S 13J29.9, T-S 16.42, T-S 16.64, T-S NS J388, and Mosseri IV.10. (Information from CUDL.)

Letter from Yefet b. David in Tyre to his father David b. Shekhanya (c. 1008-11 CE). A collection (pesiqa) for the young hazzan Husayn b. Dawud b. Sakan of Fustat in Acre (well-known under the name Yefet b. David b. Shekhanya). (S. D. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 2:221, 222, 569, and CUDL) EMS

Legal document. Transfer of money to the poor of Jerusalem, ca. 1085. Shelomo b. Hayyim, one of the leaders of the Palestinian Jews, had forwarded 20 dinars to the Rabbanite Jews of Jerusalem. He attests having gotten his money back from those in charge of the compound known as Dar al-maqadisa in Fustat, dedicated to the poor of Jerusalem. The money was returned out of the rent collected from the tenants of the compound. (Information from Gil, Documents, pp. 212 #32)

Legal document: deathbed declaration, made by a woman whose name is not preserved. The upper part of the document is missing, but the reconstruction, as proposed by Assaf, would be approximately as follows: "This is what happened before us, the undersigned witnesses, on the date of ... We entered the house of ... and found her sick in her bed, etc." The woman bequeaths one third of a compound owned by her in Qasr al-Sham' to the two synagogues, of the Palestinians and the Babylonians, in equal parts. One sixth of the compound is handed over to a certain Fa'iza, on the condition that she marries; if she dies unmarried, this sixth also would pass to the two synagogues, and not to any of Fa'iza's heirs. Another third of the compound is willed, in equal parts, to the testator's brother Sahlan and to Rayyisa, the daughter of her other brother, Efrayim. One twelfth of the compound has previously been sold to another niece of the testator's, Sutayt, the daughter of her sister Sayyida, for 14 Mu'izzi dinars. This sum was spent for timber, to be used for repairs in the compound. Another twelfth is to be sold, and the revenue (14 dinars) used to cover the expenditures for the transportation of the woman's body to Jerusalem and her burial there. (Information from Gil, Documents, pp. 119 #1)

Ketubba for the remarriage of a couple, Ramla, 1052. This ketubba is cancelled, implying that the couple later divorced for a second time. Verso: Calculations and notations. (Information from CUDL)