Geniza Lab

Accounts in Ladino and western Arabic numerals. The names are intriguing, perhaps Greek: פאפא ניקולה (Papanicolaou?), the wife of Manoli, איבדוקולה (Eudokoula?), etc. Needs examination.

Two bifolia containing several items of interest. First: A glossary of Spanish/Ladino words from Judaeo-Arabic, including a great number of foods, but also numbers, days of the week, colors, and miscellanous terms (malīḥa --> hermosa; sūq --> plaza; saḥab --> nube; ramād --> ceniza). Second: Drafts of beginnings of letters, including one apparently addressed to Shūʿa Levi Abū לייה ha-Levi al-Marḥūm (but this can't be completely correct, because marḥūm generally means "dead"), and another addressed to the apparently nonsensical תומוסל כא ן זֿירה and יאקות ן תלזֿם. Third: Writing exercises. Dating: Probably 18th or 19th century. Needs further examination.

Letter from a man to his son-in-law. In Ladino. Dating: Perhaps on the earlier side, 16th or 17th century (based on hand and vocabulary). The left side is torn off, so the content is difficult to reconstruct. There are business instructions, perhaps dealing with jewellery (anillos + las dos piedras). The sender may also mention his daughter once or twice. Mentions the currency 'ducado' (last line of the margin). There may be a name in the lower right margin: it looks like פייגוז אבו סבאק, which may be the sender's mercantile company.

Accounts in Ladino.

Account register. In Ladino. 3 bifolia. Dated 5450s AM, which is 1690s CE. On the left side of folio 3r there is reference to the sale of a copy of R. Yosef Karo's Shulchan Arukh (line 7). Needs examination.

The main text is in Ladino and Hebrew, perhaps a sermon or exegetical work. Verso also contains: the draft of the beginning of a Ladino family letter with several drafts of the signature of Eliezer Ḥazaq; a musar text in Hebrew in a different hand; calligraphic pen trials of the Arabic alphabet; and scattered jottings and sums in Hebrew characters.

Account-related transactions listed in Ladino with many names, including Yosef and Ya'aqov; with Hebrew alphanumerical numerals. (Information from CUDL) There are three columns, from right to left that list: the detail of the transaction, the quantity of the monetary sum, and the coinage type– which appears throughout as the silver medin abbreviated as "מאי". Some of the entries offer the formula "מאש אה ר׳ יוסף / More to R. Yosef" which gives the sense of outgoing payments/expenses. MCD.

Letter or letters in Ladino. The first is from Livorno, addressed to Shabbetay Palas (aka Alpalas) and Yosef Levi. Dated: 41st of the Omer, 5454 AM, which is 1694 CE. Mentions the surnames Aripol and de Curiel. Needs further examination.

Letter in Ladino. Long and well preserved. Needs examination.

Accounts in Ladino. Needs examination.

Long document in Ladino, probably a family letter. Needs further examination.

Document in Ladino, probably a family letter. Needs further examination.

Small fragment of a letter in Ladino.

Letter in Ladino with part of a responsum on verso.

Letter addressed to Yaʿaqov Cassuto. In Ladino. Dated: 14 Kislev 5651, which is 26 November 1890 CE. On verso is a fragment of a printed form in German.

Letter in Ladino on grid paper. From 1886/87 CE if the '647' is the date. Needs further examination. Join by Oded Zinger.

Letter fragment from Yosef. In Ladino.

Accounts in Ladino. Mentioning gold and silver and R. Shelomo. The text on the other side appears to be literary Hebrew.

Ladino letter from one woman to another; the writer lives in the Holy Land and asks for the recipient's charity. Information from http://www.investigacion.cchs.csic.es/judeo-arabe/sites/investigacion.cchs.csic.es.judeo-arabe/files/Genizah-Al-Andalus.pdf.

Legal declaration, probably the concluding page of a deposition, signed by Shem Ṭov al-Ḥāmī. In Hebrew and Ladino. Dating: Late. Shem Ṭov declares that he vowed to undertake the nezirut of Samson (i.e., abstain from wine and let his hair go wild) when his son had an eye disease. He wanted his mother-in-law to come visit her daughter and sick grandson, so Shem Ṭov told her that he had beaten her daughter. This had the desired effect, but led to a great quarrel, in which both Shem Ṭov and his wife denied any beating, and the mother-in-law asks, "Why are you denying the truth?" At this point they wanted the mother-in-law to leave them alone, but she refused to leave without her daughter. Shem Ṭov made a fist and threatened her in order to end the argument. The husband concludes by reporting the words of his vow to refrain from wine and, it seems, not to leave his wife alone on Sabbath (meaning that he would fulfill his conjugal obligations), "Yo recibo nezirut Shimshon bar Manoaḥ baʿal Delilah con todos sus tena'im de non dexarla עלא דומתי (?) on the Sabbath." He signs Shem Tov ("Good Name") al-Ḥāmī, watchman of a quarter. "The purpose of the declaration was, of course, that the impulsive watchman thirsted for wine and wished to be absolved from his overhasty vow." Information from Weiss and Goitein (Med. Soc, II, 608 n. 41 and Med Soc V, 110 and 536–37). ASE.