Geniza Lab

Copy of a letter from Menaḥem b. Eliyyahu, in an unspecified location near Salonica and Constantinople. In Hebrew, with occasional phrases in Judaeo-Arabic. Probably composed during the period of the first crusade, as it refers to the arrival of German armies. Relates messianic events that occurred in Salonica (including the healing of a blind man and various apocalyptic visions and the reduction of taxes) and asks the addressees to share any messianic rumors that they have heard. Contains several noteworthy names of people (including a reference to Evyatar ha-Kohen, gaon in Jerusalem c.1083–1105, who had sent them a letter from Tripoli, Lebanon) and geographical areas (Romania, Thebes, the land of the Khazars). There is a full translation and detailed analysis in Sharf, "An Unknown Messiah of 1096 and the Emperor Alexius." ASE

Letter from an older Maghribī traveler, in Alexandria, to his cousin, somewhere in the Maghrib. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: ca. 1100 CE. Evidently this letter was never sent. The writer has spent the last five years in Egypt attempting to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. He describes the various disasters of the years 1095–1100 to justify both why he has failed to reach Jerusalem and why too he has remained in Egypt instead of returning to his family and waṭan. First, he describes the chaos in Palestine under the Seljuq occupation ("many armed bands made their appearance in Palestine"). He next describes the 1095 siege of Alexandria in which the vizier al-Afḍal deposed Nizār and secured the caliphate for al-Mustaʿlī ("the city was ruined. . . the Sultan conquered the city and caused justice to abound"). He again prepared for travel "when God conquered Jerusalem at his [the caliph's] hands," i.e., in 1098, only to be foiled by the appearance of the Franks, who "killed everyone in the city, whether Jew or Muslim." The writer is confident that the Fatimids will retake Jerusalem this very year, so he intends to remain in Egypt until he sees Jerusalem or gives up all hope. The letter ends with the writer's protracted illnesses. Throughout these years, the land has been filled with epidemic diseases (wabā', aʿlāl, amrāḍ, dever). The wealthy became impoverished, "most people died," entire families were destroyed. The writer himself developed a grave illness (maraḍ ṣaʿb), which lasted one year, and was shortly followed by another grave illness, which has lasted four years and perhaps continues to the present day. "Indeed [true is] what the Scripture has said of the dreadful disease of Egypt (Deut. 7:15). . . . He who hiccups (yastanshiq) will not escape from it. . . . ailments and will die from them. . . . Otherwise, he will remain alive." Note that "yastanshiq" typically means "inhale" or "snuff" (e.g., water for ritual ablutions) rather than "hiccup." Information largely from Goitein's attached translation and notes, and Goldman, "Arabic-Speaking Jews in Crusader Syria" (diss.), pp. 38–42, where there is a thorough analysis of the letter's context and a discussion of the writer's penchant for hyperbole.

Letter about naval warfare off the Ifrīqiyan coast (1100).

Letter from Jalāl al-Dawla. Dated: 1237 CE. Concerns in part a negotiation between members of the Jewish community and Christians about preventing Jews from entering Jerusalem. The writer mentions that the Christians welcomed him and his companions, and also mentions the town's ruler. VMR.

Recto: Letter of appeal from a woman who "is among the captives from Palestine." Dating: both Goitein and Gil date this document to the early Crusader period (early 12th century), but see Goldman, "Arabic-Speaking Jews in Crusader Syria" (diss.), p. 37, "Many undated Geniza documents have been ascribed to the period of the Crusades simply because they relate to warfare, ransoming, refugees, and/or massacres." Content: The woman requests the help of the community (qahal). She arrived this week in Fustat from Sunbāṭ. She is "naked" (i.e., in need), with a young child to take care of. Verso contains a very faded text in Arabic script (see separate entry, PGPID 35164).

Copy of a letter sent from one of the Syrian communities to Damascus. In Hebrew. Conveying their distress at the imminent arrival and encampment of "the Germans" (ha-Ashkenazim, i.e., the Crusaders) and a plea to pray on their behalf and write to other communities. (Information from CUDL.)

Letter from the Qaraite Jews of Ashqelon to the Qaraites and Rabbanites of Fustat. Dating: Summer 1100 CE. The letter deals with the ransoming of Qaraite captives from Jerusalem following the Crusader conquest of the city. (Qaraites represented a large percentage of the small number of Jews who still lived in Jerusalem after the Seljuk conquest[s] in the 1070s.) The letter also explains that the fortified city of Ashqelon had not yet fallen, but the residents are struggling to cope with an influx of refugees and the need to make large payments to the Crusaders to ransom back Jewish captives - men, women and children - as well as books and scrolls pillaged from the synagogues of the Holy Land. Despite the terrible circumstances, they take solace in the fact that that the Crusaders appeared not to have mistreated the women. The writers report that they had received the suftaja (bill of exchange), at least the second substantial donation from the Jews of Fustat to the campaign to redeem captives and books. This letter is a request for further donations. The community in Ashqelon had spent over 500 dinars; ransomed over 40 captives; continues to bear the high expenses of caring for the 20 redeemed captives who remain in Ashqelon; and is now in debt for more than 200 dinars. The writers also mention Jews who had escaped from Jerusalem on their own, and others who had been given safe-conduct with the wālī. Of the refugees who arrived in Ashkelon, many had died of the epidemic they encountered there: "The attacks of these illnesses (amrāḍ), the falling of that plague (wabā'), that pest (fanā'), that disaster (balā')" (recto, lines 17–19); later, describing how the refugees perished, "Some of them arrived here healthy, and the climate turned against them (ikhtalafa ʿalayim al-hawā'), and they arrived at the height of that plague (wa-waṣalū fī ʿunfuwān dhālik al-wabā'), and many of them died" (recto, lines 42–44); then, twice more, the writers emphasize their great expenses caring for those who have survived but are still sick, who need not only food and clothing but medicines and syrups (recto, lines 53–55 and right margin 19–20). There are notes by the writers and forwarders of the letter in the right margin on verso, including Yehayyahu ha-Kohen b. Maṣliaḥ, David b. Shelomo and Ḥanina b. Manṣūr b. ʿUbayd. See DK 242 + T-S AS 146.3 for a letter written one year earlier from the Rabbanites of Fustat to the Rabbanites of Ashqelon, also having to do with the campaign for the ransoming of captives. (Information CUDL and from Goldman, "Arabic-Speaking Jews of Crusader Syria" (PhD diss., 2018), 49–58. See also Goitein, Med Soc 5:537; Goitein, "New Sources on the Fate of the Jews during the Crusaders' Conquest of Jerusalem" (Heb.) Zion, 17 (1952), 136; Goitein, Palestinian Jewry, pp. 241-242; and Goitein's notes attached to Bodl. MS Heb d 11/7 (page 9f). ASE/MR

Letter from a physician in Silifke (Seleucia) to his sister's husband, presumably in Fustat. Dated 21 July 1137. "The Emperor John II Comnenus was on his way to Antioch—held at that time by Raymond of Poitiers—and a part of his powerful army passed through the town in which this letter was written. The Byzantines arrived before the gates of Antioch on August 29. Our letter, however, reports a rumor that the city had already fallen forty days earlier. The writer, a physician, even expresses the expectation that the Emperor might take Aleppo and Damascus as well and already placed an order for medical books which would be looted there from the homes of his colleagues." The writer had emigrated from Fatimid Egypt to Byzantium. Goitein suggests that he traveled initially with the Fatimid navy, as he lists letters he sent in previous years from the army camp at Jaffa, from Rhodes, and from the island of Chios, which were occupied by the Venetian navy in 1224. The physician also stayed in Constantinople before settling in Seleucia and marring a woman with a Greek name (Korasi). He repeatedly describes how wealthy he is despite having arrived penniless, and urges his in-laws to follow his example and join him, no matter how much they have to leave behind. [Recto 1-8:] He opens with a discussion of the fertility of his sister; she has already borne two girls to the recipient, who is now presumably hoping for a son. She has not been able to become pregnant "due to her emaciated state"; the writer believes he would be able to give her medications to allow her to conceive "even after the emaciation." (Goitein's reads shurb instead of shaḥb, and zawāl instead of huzāl, yielding, "My sister did not become pregnant despite the many medicines. If you were here, I would fix her pregnancy, by my life, even after she had ceased to bear children.") The writer's own wife never conceived except with medication. [Recto 8-9:] The writer was unable to cure Avraham, "the little beggar from Akko," who died and left his son an orphan. [Recto 10-17:] The writer provides a detailed list of the dowry that he gave his son-in-law Shemuel b. Moshe b. Shemuel the Longobardian merchant, worth altogether 200 dinars. [Recto 17-21:] The writer explains that his own letters may have never arrived because he used to send valuable materia medica with them, including mulberry concentrate (rubb tūt), ribes (rībās), barberries (barbārīs), Gentiana (ghāfit) leaves and extract, and absinthe (afsintīn). [Recto 21-27:] He lists the five letters he has sent in past years in exchange for only one from the recipients, including Abū Zikrī Yaḥyā and Abū Naṣr b. Isḥāq. [Recto 27-31:] He offers messianic wishes, citing Daniel 12:11 and a piyyut for Havdala written by the recipient's father. [Recto 31-38:] He writes of his great happiness and wealth, including a house worth 200 dinars and 400 barrels of wine. [Verso 1-4:] If the recipient really does join him, he should bring the medical books that the writer left behind. Regardless, he is hoping to obtain some medical books from the loot of Aleppo and Damascus. [Verso 4-22:] He conveys news of family and friends. [Verso 22-24:] He requests a quarter dirhem of seeds of mallow (mulūkhiyah), mandrake (yabrūḥ), and althaea (khiṭmiyyah), as these are unavailable in his location. Information from Goitein's attached summary and translation. EMS. ASE.

Letter from Spain to Egypt about a war in the Mediterranean (spring, 1137). Naval battle between Muslims and Christians. Written on late Nisan 1448 sel., which is mid-April 1137.

Letter to Abū l-Ḥusayn b. Abū l-Khayr al-ʿAkkāwī, Fustat, from his uncle (khāl) Ṣadoq b. Namir he-Ḥaver, Tiberias. "The imprisonment (and torture) of defaulting debtors was common practice. The letter here tells about the imprisonment of the wives and children of absconding debtors, who owed money to Eschiva (Echive), the countess of Tiberias and wife of the renowned Raymond III of Tripoli. One wonders for what services Jews could owe considerable sums to the countess so that they had to flee to Egypt in order to try to collect there funds for repayment. The most likely assumption is that the services were the same as those found so often as a source of disaster in the relations with the Muslim government, namely: tax farming, see Med Soc II, 361–63. Raymond, who is referred to in this letter, returned from Muslim captivity in 1173/74, and Eschiva remained ruler over Tiberias until it was taken by Saladin in 1187. Thus the letter must have been written sometime in between these two dates." Goitein, Nachlass material. This document is also mentioned, considering the perspective of the addressee's wife, in Ashur, Engagement and Betrothal Documents, p. 116, no. 121. VMR. ASE.

Description from T-S 20.145: Letter/petition from ʿAmram b. Aharon ha-Kohen "the seventh" (the son-in-law of the head of the Palestinian Yeshiva, Evyatar b. Shelomo ha-Kohen) to dignitaries in Fustat, including the Nagid Mevorakh b. Saadya. Dating: 1108–09 CE. The sender wants the addressee to exercise his influence to have the Fatimid navy rescue Evyatar and his family from Tripoli in the period between the summer of 1108 CE (when the populace of Tripoli overthrew Ibn ʿAmmār) and 12 July 1109 CE, when the Franks sacked Tripoli. (Information from Brendan Goldman's edition.) Description from T-S AS 153.176 + T-S AS 153.177 (old PGPID 17817): Letter. Mainly in Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: 1108 CE, as it refers to the flight of Fakhr al-Mulk Ibn ʿAmmār from Tripoli and how he left it in the hands of his cousin Abū l-Manāqib. The layout is like a formal report, with a narrow width and wide space between the lines. The sender says that he has previously sent a letter concerning "the same matter" to "our cousin," a great dignitary and a kohen. "They took it and traveled with it... toward the beginning of Shabbat Vayoshaʿ (=Beshalaḥ?), the day that Ibn ʿAmmār traveled for Beirut—let him return no more to his house, and let not his place know him any more (Job 7:10)—and then traveled for Tiberias (? טברי) to fortify himself there, and the city is now in the hand of his cousin (ibn ʿamm) Abū l-Manāqib." (Information in part from CUDL.) Joins by CUDL (for T-S AS 153.176 + T-S AS 153.177) and Alan Elbaum (for T-S 20.145 + {T-S AS 153.176 + T-S AS 153.177}). For an example of the Fatimid state document format which this is emulating, see another report concerning this period in Tripoli (unpublished): T-S AS 129.149 + T-S AS 116.11 + T-S NS 137.20 + T-S NS 207.44 + AIU I.C.73 + T-S NS 238.99 + T-S NS 244.84 (+ T-S NS 125.135). ASE

Legal testimony. In the hand of Avraham b. Natan Av. No witness signatures. Location: Cairo. Dated: Thursday, 27 Adar I 1415 Seleucid, which is 1104 CE. The document contains the proceedings before the court regarding the matter of dispute between two members of the community of Malīj, Shelomo b. Avraham (aka Salāma b. Ibrāhīm al-Sayrajī) and Peraḥya ha-Kohen b. Ṭarfon (aka Abū l-Surūr b. Ṭarīf). The story opens with a verbatim copy of another testimony (called a sheṭar/maḥḍar) dated 2.5 months earlier (Saturday night 12 Ṭevet 1415 Seleucid), in which the witnesses Mevorakh b. Yiṣḥaq, Yosef b. Mevorakh, and Elʿazar b. Yosef testify that they entered the house of a Jew named Bashshār and found Salāma b. Ibrāhīm assailing Abū l-Surūr b. Ṭarīf and hanging on to his clothing; the latter was not defending himself. Salāma insisted on taking Abū l-Surūr before the government (sulṭan); Abū l-Surūr insisted on taking Salāma to the Jewish courts (before 'the Rayyis'). Salāma then insulted the Rayyis and said, "I am [King] Baldwin (Bardawīl), and Abū l-Surūr is my prisoner!" Salāma summoned the police (rajjāla) and had Abū l-Surūr and Yūsuf b. Rajā and Yūsuf b. Manṣūr taken before the Muslim courts/government (headed by "the amir"). The amir nearly had the defendants beaten. (End of first document.) Now, Abū l-Surūr has finally succeeded in bringing Salāma before the Jewish court and "sayyidnā" (though the pronouns are not entirely clear in l. 4 and it could also be Salāma suing Abū l-Surūr). The court orders Salāma to justify his behavior. Salāma says to summon the witnesses. The court refuses, saying, And what if they don't obey the order? Abū l-Surūr says that the court should use the ḥerem stam (blanket excommunication) to coerce people into reporting any communication they received from Salāma to antagonize Abū l-Surūr before the Muslim courts. Either Salāma or Abū l-Surūr at this point accuses the other of bearing false witness in the Jewish court ("before Sayyidnā"). The court reads out a letter that Salāma confesses to be his own, in which he accuses a troublemaker (=Abū l-Surūr) who had been exiled from Malīj to Cairo of sending letters to Ibn al-Qāsh the dyer and to the shoṭer and the nadiv to the effect that they aren't rid of him yet, since he will return as soon as Rabbenu dies. The court asks Salāma on what basis he made that claim, and Salāma can only respond that someone (he refuses to say who) told him about Abū l-Surūr's alleged letters. The court believes Abū l-Surūr's side of the story, but also issues a ḥerem stam commanding anyone who did receive a troublemaking letter from Abū l-Surūr to come forward with it. The shoṭer and the nadiv are present, and they deny receiving any such letter from Abū l-Surūr. The document ends abruptly with the line, "The day broke, and the crowd dispersed." ASE

Letter draft from the Rabbanite leaders of Fustat/Cairo to the Rabbanite leaders of Ashqelon. Dating: Summer 1099 CE. The letter recounts how the Nagid Mevorakh exhorted the Jews of the community to donate money for the redemption of captives and Torah scrolls, and how in response the Jews of Fustat have donated 123 dinars. The first transcription here is for DK 242, and the second is for T-S AS 146.3. For a detailed discussion, see Goldman, "Arabic-Speaking Jews in Crusader Syria" (diss.), 42–48.

Letter addressed to a judge. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: 1221–52 CE, as it mentions Crusaders ("Franks") fighting at al-Manṣūra 2 years prior. At that time, Sayyidnā al-Nasi intended to borrow from the sender a beautiful copy of the book of Īlāqī (probably al-Īlāqī's epitome of the first book of Avicenna's Canon) in order to copy it for the addressee. The Crusaders were attacking al-Manṣūra, and the sender was in the army camp together with a gentile (presumably Muslim). He had three books with him, including a commentary and some of the 'kalām' of Maimonides (=Guide for the Perplexed?) as well as the Īlāqī. The Muslim companion had no eyes for anything but the Īlāqī, and he offered money to borrow it, copy it, and return it. As everyone was penniless at the time, the sender agreed, but he never saw the book again. Sayyidnā al-Nasi already forgave the sender for this, but is making him write this letter to explain the situation to the addressee. The addressee must not think that he is being negligent in finding another ('regular') copy to use for his purposes. Everyone he asks either says they don't have it, or they're worried he'll make off with it and give it to the Nasi. ASE

Report to the chancery of al-Afḍal, probably. In Arabic script. Nine lines from the middle of the report are nearly completely preserved. Sent from a city referred to only al-thaghr al-maḥrūs, possibly Alexandria or Tripoli. The addressee is referred to once as al-majlis al-ʿālī al-muʿaẓẓam (khallada Allāh ayyāmah) and once as mālik al-riqq (khallada Allāh mulkah). Mentions a meeting between a certain Barakāt and Baldwin (probably Baldwin I), may God curse him. Also mentions a man from ʿAkkā (Acre) and refers to Ṣaydā (Sidon). Everyone is in a state of agitation and faintheartedness, because they do not know what Baldwin will do: will he make a truce with ʿAsqalān (Ashqelon/Ascalon)? with Ṣūr (Tyre)? Or will he conquer a certain location and treat his subjects fairly? Reused on verso for Hebrew piyyuṭ. Discovered by Alan Elbaum in July 2022.