Geniza Lab

Letter from Daniel b. Azarya to a man in Fustat concerning a replacement for the supervisor who was responsible for the butchers in Fustat, after Yefet b. David passed away. The beginning and end are missing. VMR

Detailed account of a kosher butcher from Fustat, specifying the various community officials and other persons to whom he had made payments of 7 dirhams week after week during a full year. Dated 1179 or 1183. (Information from Mediterranean Society, I, pp. 381, 382)

A religious slaughterer who was careless in the exercise of his duties is flogged and forced to make a public confession. Dated 9 Iyyar 1339/ May 1028 in Cairo. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, pp. 330, 568)

Statute (‘taqqana’) about the conduct of two slaughter houses, one at the Great Bazaar and one at the Bath of the Mice, issued by a committee of seven individuals elected by the community. The document records the decision to appoint Yefet b. David to be cantor and the supervisor of the slaughter instead of his father, who had passed away. Yefet will be responsible for these two markets in Fustat where ritually pure meat was available, and must send one-half of the weekly income to Yoshiyahu, the Gaon and head of the Yeshiva in Jerusalem. Goitein dates the document to after 1024. (Information from Gil, Palestine, vol. 2, 583-585, #319; Goitein, “The Social Services of the Jewish Community as Reflected in the Cairo Geniza Records” Jewish Social Studies (1964), 10; and Goitein’s index cards) VMR and EMS

Accounts of a slaughterer, written, it seems, by Shelomo b. Eliyyahu. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, pp. 227, 228, 571)

Leaf from a court ledger. On recto: Testimony of compliance with an order issued by the head of the Jews, Netanʾel ha-Levi. Dated: First third of Shevaṭ 1471 Seleucid, which is 1160 CE. To wit: Manṣūr al-Dhabbāḥ, a ritual slaughterer and cantor, was brought before the court and instructed to behave properly, to be nice to people, not to argue with those who tease him in the presence of gentiles, and to follow the usual laws of slaughtering. He promised to obey these instructions. (Information in part from Goitein, Mediterranean Society. II, p. 225.)

Pastoral letter with widely-spaced lines, from a Nasi, possibly David b. Daniel. Announcing that Meʾir ha-Sar and Yiṣḥaq ha-Dayyan will appoint all ritual slaughterers (טבחים) and guards in the community addressed and look after their religious needs. "Elsewhere in the same letter the writer announces another of the prerogatives he plans to exercise over the community and, at the same time, justifies his authority: 'We shall select ten elders out of your notables and strengthen their arms so that they may lead the people, as it is incumbent on us to appoint elders, judges, and magistrates. This is our inheritance and that of our forefather King Jehosaphat, as it is written in Scripture: 'And he set judges in the land throughout all the fortified cities of Judah' (II Chronicles 19:5)." Cohen, Jewish Self-Government, 208–09. On the other side, there is an astronomical piyyuṭ. In the bottom and left margins, there is a "narrative of the dreadful calamities that occurred in Lucena (אליסאנה), may God protect it." (Information in part from Goitein's index card.)