Geniza Lab

Letter from Ṣadoq (b. Shemuel or b. Yehuda) Ibn al-ʿAmmānī, in Alexandria, to Moshe b. Ḥalfon ha-Kohen Ibn Ghulayb ʿAyn ha-ʿEda Paqid ha-Soḥarim etc., in Fustat. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dated: 11 Sivan, 159 = 4800 + 159 = 4959 AM, which is 1199 CE. The first part of the letter conveys the information that the "rebels" (המורדין) in the congregation of Alexandria have drawn up and signed a decree (taqqana) stating that they will never accept a muqaddam who is not a native of Egypt. They plan to send the decree to Maimonides ("Rabbenu") and ask him to appoint either the judge Yiṣḥaq b. Sasson or the judge Shemuel ha-Levi b. Seʿadya. The congregation offers a hefty initial payment of 50 dinars. (This decree may well be the same one mentioned in T-S 18J3.15, a letter from Barakāt b. Abū l-Ḥasan to Eliyyahu the Judge ca. 1221 CE upon the death of R. Anatoli.) The second part of the letter conveys Ẓadoq's request for Moshe ha-Kohen to intercede with Maimonides so that the new muqaddam will not deprive Ẓadoq of his profession of wirāqa (i.e., his appointment as a warrāq, a copyist and notary of legal deeds). Ẓadoq wants the present arrangment to continue: half of the wirāqa jobs for Ẓadoq and half for the muqaddam. Ẓadoq complains about his difficult financial straits and that he has to sustain two "households," i.e., his two wives. If Ẓadoq loses his income from wirāqa, he will have no choice but to abandon his family and move to Byzantium. In the end, Maimonides did not heed the taqqana of the community, and instead he appointed. R. Anaṭoli b. Yosef of Marseilles as the muqaddam of Alexandria. Ẓadoq's request, however, was accepted. We hear again of the division of the wirāqa between Ẓadoq and Anaṭoli in the year 1216 CE in the document T-S 10J25.3. Information from M. A. Friedman's article on this and related documents.

Recto: Letter in Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: 1218 CE or slightly before, based on the date listed in the accounts on verso. The writer is in desperate straits and asks the addressee to bring the case of Menaḥem (=himself?) to 'the Rayyis,' who may be Avraham Maimonides, and obtain from him 'what will release me (mā yubrīnī).' The writer wishes to move his children to Alexandria. He complains about R. Anatoli ('It is not concealed from you all the 'informing' (מסרות = מלשינות) that took place among us, nor the anger (khulq) of R. Anatoli and his impatience (? צגֿרה)." The writer mentions Manṣūr al-Miṣrī in the context of business matters; sends regards to Abū Zikrī; and the title of a lady (al-sitt al-rayyisa) appears on verso, apparently not as part of the letter. Information in part from CUDL and M. A. Friedman, "Maimonides Appoints R. Anatoly Muqaddam of Alexandria," [Hebrew], vol. 83 (2015), p. 155, n. 80. Join by Friedman.

Letter to Anatoli b. Yosef to remind him of a donation promised by his congregation for the repair of a synagogue. Sent by Menahem and dated Kislev 1212 A.D.

Letter from the nephew of a Ḥaver (whose eldest son is Abū l-Maʿānī), mentioning the 13th-century judge Anatoli. (Information from CUDL)

Legal query sent to the Judge Anaṭoli about a debt. In the hand of Berakhot b. Shemuel. See Mordechai Akiva Friedman, "Responsa of Abraham Maimonides on a Debtor's Travails," in Genizah Research after Ninety Years – The Case of Judaeo-Arabic, ed. J. Blau & S. C. Reif, Cambridge 1992, pp. 82–92. (AA)

Abū l-Faraj b. Khalaf (?), probably in Minyat Ghamr, writes to his cousin (ibn ʿamma), Eliyyahu the Judge, in Fustat. These cousins had prior correspondence and business dealings—Eliyyahu sent 22 dirhams with his previous letter, and the writer has a store in which he deals in indigo. The purpose of this letter is to ask Eliyyahu to write to the judge R. Menaḥem in the hope of obtaining permission for Abū l-Faraj to take a second wife. Eliyyahu is familiar with the case already, but Abū l-Faraj repeats some of it here. He has endured 20 years of suffering because of the illness of his wife, which prevents her from going to the bath (presumably a problem for him because of menstrual purity laws rather than because of hygiene). When Abū l-Faraj arrived in Minyat Ghamr from Jerusalem, he found a second woman whom he wanted to marry. The local judge, Mufaḍḍal the ḥaver, refused to marry them on his own authority and said that permission would need to come from higher up. Mufaḍḍal sent a letter to R. Menaḥem with Ḥabīb the shohet, but there was no response; Abū l-Faraj himself was unable to accompany Ḥabīb. Abū l-Faraj thought that Eliyyahu would already have intervened on his behalf, but no news of that has reached him. He visited Alexandria, but it seems that Mufaḍḍal discouraged him from seeking a ruling from the judge [A]natoli on account of his strictness. In the remainder of the letter, he repeats his request in various ways. He is willing to come to Fustat in order to marry. Information from Friedman's edition and translation. The writer quotes a saying in lines v13–15, where he is urging Eliyyahu to act quickly, and Friedman marked his translation as somewhat tentative. Cf. alternate versions of the same idiom in ENA 2558.21, T-S 13J21.20, Moss. II,167, T-S Misc.28.33, and Bodl. MS heb. d 66/14, e.g., "mā baqiya fī l-ʿumr mithla mā maḍā," literally, "there do not remain [years] of life like those which have passed," apparently corresponding to the English "we aren't getting any younger, [so please help me]." Another version of the phrase also appears in the first chapter of Ibn Buṭlān's Daʿwat al-Aṭibbā', in the mouth of a physician whose income has dried up and who has nowhere to go: mā baqiya aqallu mimmā maḍā ("what remains is less than what has passed"). See also T-S AS 162.167 + T-S AS 151.29 and Oded Zinger's edition in "You and I will enjoy each other's company until God decrees our death in the Land of Israel," Cathedra 174 (2020), note 22. ASE.

Literary collection of poetry and prose relating to Anatoli b. Yosef. Dating: Perhaps 13th or 14th century, some time after the death of Anatoli. The headings are quite interesting, and of documentary value: e.g., What Anatoli wrote to R. Shemuel the week of the earthquake; R. Shemuel's response; by Anatoli, addressing R. Moshe Ḥazzan; what his nephew Abū l-Surūr sent him; by Anatoli, concerning drinking and wine; what R. Peraḥya ha-Zaqen Ḥalabī wrote to Anatoli; Anatoli's response; Peraḥya's response; what R. Shemuel Nafūsī wrote to Anatoli when he left Sicily (or maybe Palermo); what R. Shemuel wrote him when he traveled to Māzar; from the letter that Abū l-Faḍl wrote to him. According to the FGP bibliography, this manuscript was edited by Elisheva Hacohen, שירי ר' אנטולי בר יוסף, in 1995/96. There may still be other items of documentary interest under Yevr. II A 104. ASE.