Geniza Lab

List of 103 people, households, or groups receiving wheat. Amounts: between 1/2 and 3 waybas (1 wayba = ca. 4 gallons). Goitein there are comments added to the list (‘died,' 'absent’). Before a comprehensive distribution of wheat, communal officials scrutinized the list from the preceding distribution and made a note. of changes in circumstance, such as deaths, changes in economic situation, and departures. The updated list was then copied and used as a basis for the current distribution. One item is followed by this remark: "Note, ruqʿa, from the rayyis: this man should not receive anything." Cohen dates this list to slightly after App. B 25, 29, 31, 32, 33, since 3 people mentioned there are listed here as having died. (Information from Mediterranean Society II, pp. 457-458, App. B 66, Goitein's index card, and from Mark Cohen)

List of persons, headed by R. Nahray (Nahray), on the payroll of the community. Goitein says: scholars on the payroll of the Cairene commuity. Similar to BodlC28.6 (App. B 12) and T-S K15.70 (App. B 13), both ed. Mann, Jews, II, 246-247. (Information from Mediterranean Society II, 441, App. B 14).

Payroll [similar to T-S K15.9] in the hand of Shelomo b. Eliyyahu, for the seventh and eighth weeks of the liturgical calendar. Mostly same names and sums as that list. The entries for the eighth week are in Arabic script. Some payments of arrears from the sixth week are also noted. This is a full report. The numerals are not defined. In the first 15 lines they represent dirhams, in the remaining 20, loaves of bread. Another difficulty: Here, bread costs 32 dirhams (and the distribution is 126 pounds = loaves); elsewhere, about 10 pounds cost about 1 dirham (150 pounds of bread cost 15 d. in App. B 42 and 13 1/3 in App. B 47). Goitein's solution: 'There still were two distributions every week, on Tuesdays and Fridays, as had been the practice a hundred and more years before. Our list notes the number of loaves allocated to each household for one distribution (habitual in all lists of the poor), but registers the total spent on bread during one week (by the distributor concerned). The comparatively rare occurrence of the item '2 loaves for one person' catches the eye, especially if compared with the lists from the early eleventh and twelfth centuries.' (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, pp. 450-451, App. B 41 [dated 1210-1225])

List of recipients of charity (bread) along with the khuddām al-kanīs (the list begins with three parnasim). This list fills three pages of the bifolium. One page has a Hebrew poem, preceded by the glyph, possibly in the handwriting of Moshe b. Levi ha-Levi.

Part of a booklet, with section beginning, like a title page, 'List of the Poor of Fustat--may God in his mercy make them rich and help them in his grace and kindness' (in K 15.5). Date is preserved here, on fol. 39, as, 11th of Marheshvan, October 30, 1107 (in App. B 21 Goitein wrote Tuesday, Marheshvan 18 [Nov. 5], but dated is correctly in Mediterranean Society, I, p. 56). The date is written in such a way that it could be tyt or tnt, 1107 or 1147, but the reading 1107 is made sure not only by the handwriting of the clerk [=Hillel ben Eli] but also by the names of various people listed, who are known from other Geniza papers. see ibid, I, p. 405 note 89. '490 pounds, amounting to 539 (loaves of bread), from the baker Ma'ali. Ten (pounds) were added, making a total of 500, namely ten loaves of old bread.' Other leaves from this notebook = fols. 5, 15, and 50. Notice the conspicuous presence of the Rum, Jews probably from Byzantium. In several places the names of the baker Ma'ali and that of another baker, Sadaqa, appear, interrupting the list of names of beneficiaries. The handwriting is that of Avraham b. Aharon, who also wrote App. B 23, 24. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 443, App. B 21, and from Cohen).

List of contributors to charity, preserving only 26 names, many identical with T-S K15.106. First two, including again the representative of the merchants al-Hakim, give 1/8 dinar, approx 5 dirhams. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 477, App. C 17 [dating from late 11th or early 12th century])

List of recipients of charity (bread) in the same hand, headed 'Friday the 4th (week of the liturgical year), 550 Pounds,' specifying about 140 households receiving approximately 600 loaves of bread. Most of the names in the list T-S NS J41 (= Cohen, The Voice of the Poor in the Middle Ages, no. 58) recur in this one, as well as in App. B 19-24 (= Cohen, The Voice of the Poor in the Middle Ages, nos. 60-65), but from which group it is separated by many different names.' Ca. 1100. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 442, App. B 18)

Three, much damaged columns, seemingly in the hand of the scribe of App. C 1, 2, containing about sixty names of male persons, recipients of alms. The first four are styled 'elder'; among the others: 4 dealers in olive oil, zayyat, 2 dyers, 2 packers, a cook, a gravedigger, a ghulam, servant or employee, of the (senior) Tustari brothers, all people of low professions. The list, which contains no numbers, was drawn up in connection with the payment of the capitation tax (Goitein) (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 453, App. B 53 [dated 1040-1080]).

Letter of recommendation for charity. In Hebrew. Late.

Letter of appeal for charity. From Abū l-Majd to al-Shaykh al-Rashīd. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: Perhaps 13th or 14th century. The sender is in difficult straits on account of the capitation tax. He cannot hide in his house any longer, because he needs to earn a living. On verso there are pen trials or writing exercises.

Petition of a widow whose only remaining son had been killed by the Ghuzz (Seljuks), while her four other grown-up sons had died as well, and herself being unable to work. She appeals to the Jewish community for appropriate clothing for the holidays. The letter is written calligraphically by Hillel b. Eli (1066-1108). (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 501; III, pp. 238-239)

Recto: Letter of appeal for charity from a Torah scholar. In Hebrew.

List of names of poor persons, without numbers. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 456)

Right upper corner of lucidly written list of contributors, the first thirteen each donating 2 dirhams. All names appear in abbreviated form. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 491)

Survey of households, recipients of alms. Written on a leaf, 8 by 6 inches, folded so as to form four pages, each originally containing data about 33-34 families, a total of about 135, of which about 110 are preserved, many defective. The list is important inasmuch as it mentions the number of persons in each household. It was no doubt prepared in order to form the basis for weekly distribution of bread to the needy and to community officials. The names of the assistant judge Jephthah, the beadle Tahir, and the cantor Abu Sahl put the list at the beginning of the thirteenth century, preferably after T-S NS J.98, where Tahir receives 14 loaves, indicating that he still had a large household, whereas here only one child lives with him, and a son of his is listed as a separate family. The average size of a family of relief recipients is 2.4. For a realistic appreciation of this breakdown one should keep in mind that most of the persons listed must have been elderly people who either no longer had a family or whose older children (from the age of ten) were seeking their livelihood out of their homes. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 460, App. B 74 [dated 1200-1240])

Fragment of a list of donors similar to App. C 1, T-S Misc.36.137 (formerly T-S Loan 137) in the same hand and arrangement, in which at least 12 of the 23 names preserved recur. Most of the few sums extant are exactly or nearly identical with those listed there. The average of the sums contributed in silver in the 2 lists has about half the value of those given in gold. (First half of 11th century) (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 471, App. C 2)

Fragment of a list of contributors, in which at least 12 of the 23 names preserved recur. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 471)

List in the hand of the scribe of App. B 25, part 2, and App. B 33, part 1. Distribution of 23 jukhaniyyas to thirteen women, seven men, and three persons defined as 'acquaintance of' or 'the house of.' The names of three (e.g., the laborer employed by the beadle and parnas Salim) are crossed out and nine bear the sign resembling an Arabic final m (probably tasallam 'received') as in App. B 25 and 33, with which our fragment might once have formed one document. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, p. 456, App. B 64 [dated 1100-1150])

Distribution list for public charity. In Judaeo-Arabic, transitioning to Arabic script on verso. Dating: Perhaps ca. 13th century, but that is a guess. There are markings next to many of the names, perhaps indicating whether or what they received. There are numerous diminutive forms and some interesting profession names. The beneficiaries include: Abū Yaʿqūb; Barhūn; Abū Zikrī; גזוק; Mūsā; Abū Sahl; Ibn al-ʿAjamī; Surayr; Ṣudayqa; Buraykāt and his mother; מגא; אשוימי; the ear cleaner (munaqqī al-adhān); Ibn Sulaymān; the sons of the killed man; the Kohen; al-maʿārīf; Fuḍayl; Mawhūb; al-jār and his mother; the disabled man (al-muqʿad); the teachers; the blind; Isḥāq; Sulaymān; the Lādhiqī; the Baʿalbakkī; Maḥfūẓ; al-Ramādī; the brother of the disabled man; Khallūf b. al-Dabbāgh; the Baghdadi; the philosopher. The total sum distributed may be given in Arabic script at the bottom left of verso.

List on two pages, torn apart, it seems in the hand of Immanuel b. Yehiel (ca. 1231–65). 41 contributors to charity, peculiar in the wide differences among pledges made (from 1/2 to 28 dirhams). On T-S NS J108b, recto, an Arabic list.