Geniza Lab

Letter of appeal from an elderly, blind woman, mother of several sons and grandsons, to the Gaon Maṣliaḥ. Dating: 1127–38, based on the tenure of Maṣliaḥ Gaon. In Hebrew and Judaeo-Arabic. Written by a scribe on her behalf (Goitein: "A refreshing mixture of the accomplished style of a court clerk and the woman's ipsissima verba"). Subject: She complains about being neglected by her firstborn son Abraham after the death of her daughter, and begs for charity. "After eight lines of biblical quotations and an introduction in Hebrew, the letter continues: 'I wish to inform your high excellency that I am a blind woman. For a long time, I have been sitting in a corner with no access to this world, but as long as my daughter lived, she was always around me and cared for me. Now she has died, and her brothers and their sons have taken what she possessed. My son, Abraham, the firstborn, took the estate, and has not provided me with anything since she died, not even a loaf of bread. I have now entrusted my spirit to God, the exalted, and to you. Shout at him and tell him that he should give me what is indispensable. May the Holy One never let fail your strength and may he guard you from the blows of Fate, such as blindness and indigence, and shield you under the shelter of his wings'" (Goitein, Mediterranean Society, V, p. 124).

Legal record in the hand of Mevorakh b. Natan. On 27 Kislev, the blind woman Sitt Ṣāfī receives from Abū l-Makārim Jābī l-Rubʿ 10 dirhams that are due to her for Elul and Tishrei of 1159 CE. Signed: Nissim b. Shelomo; Simḥa b. [???]. The money was handed over by Tiqva b. David. (Information from Goitein's index card.)

Recto and verso: Draft of a legal document. Abu Saʿd al-Levi undertakes to provide his elderly father Shemuel with food and drink and the money for the capitation tax, since his father had traveled widely on business and was too exhausted for regular work. This fragment also contains an unrelated legal document dated 1232 CE (see separate PGP record). (Information from Mediterranean Society, vol. 5, pp. 122–23, and from Goitein's index cards.)

Letter from Moshe b. Nissim to an unknown addressee. In Judaeo-Arabic. He asks the addressee to sell on his behalf four copies of th She'eltot de-Rav Aḥa (he seems to have been the copyist). He is in need of the proceeds, because before he left Cairo he took out a loan of 40 dirhams. The money is to be sent with al-Shaykh al-Rashīd Abū l-Fakhr, the brother of [Sayyid?] al-Ahl the Blind. (Information in part from Goitein's note card)

Abū l-Majd, in Alexandria writes to his cousin Judge Elijah, in Damascus (?) on a business trip. See Goitein Nachlass material. Judge Elijah may in fact be in Fustat. Abū l-Majd writes, that a certain mawlā (his father?) wrote to him from Damascus telling him to come join him. "I was shocked; I don't know what to do. He said that he is blind in his eyes. I am making up my mind to go. I want to consult you about the trip. . . the news of the country, whether caravans are going. . . ." Abū l-Majd also writes, "I have sent you many letters on this matter and not received a response." AIU VII.E.38 seems to be one of those letters. ASE.

Recto: Letter of recommendation addressed to Aharon ha-Ḥazzan. In Hebrew, calligraphically written. Headed with the title 'Rosh ha-Seder.' Requesting that Aharon look after a blind man named Shabbat who claimed to have been cheated of his allocation. Verso: A woman pawns pieces of her trousseau against loans. The date 26 May 1050 CE appears in lines 4–5. Information from Goitein's note cards. Old description: Fragments of responsum by a Gaon, dealing with children of female slaves.

Letter from Natan ha-kohen b. Mevorakh, Ashkelon, to Avraham b. Elazar, Fustat. Dated 1130. This is a letter of recommendation for a man who recently lost his sight from ophthalmia. Bottom missing. On verso is a text in Arabic script.

Letter from Natan ha-Kohen b. Mevorakh and one other person, in Ashqelon, to Avraham b. Elʿazar, in Fustat. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: 1130 CE. Bottom missing. Letter of recommendation on behalf of Badr b. M[...] of Ḥamā who lived in either Alexandria or Ashqelon ('al-thaghr') for 30 years, but probably the former, because he is introduced as having come 'here' recently (חצר אלי הנא). Badr recently went blind due to ophthalmia. Starting in Rabīʿ al-Awwal 523 AH (=February/March 1129 CE), his monthly stipend was cut in half from 2.5 dinars to 1.25 dinars. He is attempting to assert his right to the other half of the payments owed him in court, and the addressee is asked to intervene on his behalf. On recto there is a text in Arabic script (see separate record).

Letter of appeal for charity from Manṣūr b. Ibrāhīm Ibn Naḥum to the Nagid Shemuel b. Ḥananya. In Judaeo-Arabic. The sender opens by mentioning that he is the brother of the wife of the cantor from al-Raḥba. He then reminds the Nagid that he actually helped him once, "in the time of al-Maʾmūn" (unclear who this could refer to), by giving or loaning him 10 dinars to get out of a guarantee or tax farm (ḍamān) which Shemuel was being held accountable for. The term "imāra" (something to do with the state?) is mentioned. Parts of these lines are crossed out. Now, fate has caught up with the sender. His wife has died, he has three children to support, and his vision is weak (ḍarra baṣruh). (Information in part from CUDL)

Letter from a woman, in Fustat, to her son Abū l-Maḥāsin, in Funduq al-Qamra, Alexandria. Dictated to Abū Manṣūr. Likely belongs with T-S 10J19.26, in which case the writer of this letter is Sitt Ghazāl bt. Abū ʿUmar. She expresses the anxiety (nār) that afflicts her heart on his behalf ever since his departure on Friday. She has been having nightmares and insomnia, and fears that if he does not return quickly, she will be completely blind by the time he returns. (It is also possible that the phrase "yatlaf baṣarī" refers to death instead of going blind; compare "wafāt ʿaynak" in T-S 10J12.14.) She urges him not to drink wine "on account of your illness. . . May God protect us from illness while separated (al-maraḍ fī l-ghurba). . . If my night visions are distressing to me, how [much the worse] if I should see them while awake." The last sentence is ambiguous: either she fears that nightmares can afflict a blind person at all hours, or she fears that her visions of terrible things happening to her son will become realities. She requests that he bring various goods back with him: a large bowl (qaṣʿa), a linen cloth (? shīta), a good comb (mushṭ), and two spoons (milʿaqatayn), and possibly red ink (? midādun yakūnū ḥumr) for Umm Abū l-Bahā'. The scribe Abū Manṣūr interjects here (line 13), and the remainder of the letter is in his voice. He apologizes for troubling the addressee with news of illness, but the fever is still with him. He asks for news of Abū l-Waḥsh Sibāʿ, and the bible, and the book of Rabbenu Baḥye. He is very anxious to learn what his instructions are—it seems he is to copy one or both of these books for Abū l-Waḥsh—so that he is not accused of tardiness. The instructions should be delivered either to Sūq al-ʿAṭṭārīn to the shop of al-Kohen al-Siqillī, or to al-Sūq al-Kabir, to the shop of Abū l-Faraj al-Sharābī. See Mediterranean Society, IV, pp. 224–25, 260. VMR. ASE.

Letter from Yeshūʿa ha-Kohen b. Avraham ha-Galili, in Shubra Damsīs, to Efrayim b. Meshullam (judge, active 1142–54). Dated: 1142 CE (month of Av). The writer sends greetings in the name of his two sons. He encloses a letter from Rabbenu Zakkay for Efrayim, as well as another letter from R. Zakkay and a letter from himself to be delivered to the Nagid, whether by Efrayim himself or by the bearer of the present letter. The bearer is a worthy man and has with him a sick girl whom he "wishes to treat," and the bearer himself is also chronically ill and weak of sight. (S. D. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 2:513; Norman Golb, “Topography of the Jews of Medieval Egypt,” JNES 33 (1974), 141. See also Goitein's index card) EMS. ASE.

Petition from Yefet ha-Melammed the schoolmaster to Avraham Maimonides; the latter's answer is on verso, lines 18–26. Yefet writes that he is ill and losing his vision, and consequently has been unable to pay his rent (?) which has accumulated in arrears of six dirhams. Avraham grants him the money. (Information in part from Mediterranean Society, II, pp. 37, 529, and Goitein's index cards.) Many of the specifics of the writer's financial situation are lost. There is an ambiguity as to whether "ujra" here means rent or wage/tuition. In "Side Lights on Jewish Education" (p. 96), Goitein prefers the latter: "The community paid for [the tuition of] the sons of those who were impeded by any reason to go after their usual professions (munqaṭiʿ)," referring to recto, lines 9–11. In this reading, the word munqaṭīʿ refers not to the writer of the letter but to the parents of his pupils who have been unable to pay him. "[This] teacher receives 1 dirham per pupil and week, probably for special reasons," referring to recto, lines 13–14 and 17–19. Yefet has evidently continued to work despite his condition, but has not received the wages officially due to him from the community. He thus writes with a description of his current plight (shidda) to expedite the payments. ASE

Letter. The sender, a newcomer in Fustat from Yemen, describes himself as 'a pigeon whose wings have been clipped' (line 1), writes to his brother in Alexandria concerning his trouble having to live on a half or a quarter dirham a day, and also relating family news. "As for what you wished to know about Yūsuf. . . he now has many dependents, and his vision has weakened, and he has nothing." A palimpsest. (Information from Mediterranean Society, III, 478; IV, 443; V, 562)

Begging letter, prefaced with a rhyming poem, from Isaac the blind ("bereft of all the pleasures of the world"), asking for assistance from Ismaʿīl b. ʿAdāya. See also Goitein's note cards (attached and #27116). On verso is a fragment from a liturgical treatise in Judaeo-Arabic, discussing which blessings to say over drinks other than wine (either בורא פרי העץ or בורא פרי האדמה). Information from CUDL and Mediterranean Society, IV, p. 447.

Letter from a Maghribi silversmith named Efrayim b. Ishaq of Ceuta, Morocco, who had fled Almohad persecution in his native country about 35 years earlier. He describes himself as a 'foreigner' in spite of having lived in Egypt for about 15 years. When he lost half his sight from ophthalmia (ramad), he was unable to work as a silversmith and had to resort to teaching. He asks the addressee, also of Maghribi origins, for charity. Ca. 1181. The letter is preceded by a poem (lines 3-8). English translation in Med Soc V, 77. T-S 8J20.24 is a sequel to this letter. On verso: an eulogy in Hebrew.

Letter from the wife of Shemuel, a poor woman from al-Maḥalla, addressed to the Gaon Maṣliaḥ. She asks for assistance for herself and for her blind son, particularly for paying the capitation tax. She had already been in Fustat one month without relying on anyone for charity. (Information from Goitein's index cards.)

Letter from a scholar from Ramla (who had lived for twenty years in Baghdad) to Nahray b. Nissim. Around 1095. Seems like a part of a regular correspondence between the two. Nahray was blind at that time and needed someone to read him the letter. Mentions the book by the Gaon Aharon b. Yosef (Khalaf b. Sarjado) and one of Shemuel b. Hofni’s grandsons. The writer asks Nahray to find a few products in Fustat, including indigo, pepper, arsenic, ammonia water and more. Between his request for funds due to him and his discussion of an ongoing divorce, he interposes the line, “for I am a lump of flesh waiting to die,” continuing later that “I am in need of mercy, my strength is fading” — a common rhetorical strategy for gaining the sympathy of one's correspondent. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 2, #85) VMR, revised following the analysis of old age (and complaints about old age) in the seminar paper of Jake Brzowsky ('21), Fall 2018. Same writer: T-S 24.46, T-S 12.780, ENA 2594.12.

Letter on behalf of Yaḥyā b. ʿAmmār of Alexandria addressed to ʿŪlla ha-Levi b. Yosef, a.k.a. Abū l-ʿAlā' Ṣāʿid b. Munajjā, a parnas (social welfare official) and trustee of the court in Fustat, dated documents 1084–1117. In Judaeo-Arabic. In the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Yaḥyā requests financial help, especially with paying off his debts. His dependents include his children and his old, blind mother. When he could not bear to see them suffering from hunger, he ran away. For some time he has been in hiding from his debtors, some of whom are Muslim. He has recently heard that his mother is dying. He fears that she will die "on his account" before he is able to return and obtain her forgiveness. Information from Mediterranean Society, I, p. 257, Goitein's index cards, CUDL, and Cohen. ASE.

Letter from the wife of Maʿānī. Desperate letter of appeal to the 'courts' (judges) from a blind woman whose husband had fled to Alexandria and left her and her 3 year old girl. She is pleading to the community for relief. She calls herself 'a widow during the lifetime (of her husband). (Information from Mediterranean Society, III, pp. 218, 472 and from Cohen)

Letter of appeal for charity from Yeḥezqel b. Ibrāhīm (the writer) and the former judge Moshe b. Shemarya to Abū ʿImran Mūsā b. Abī l-Ḥayy, Segulat ha-Yeshiva. Moshe has gone blind from ophthalmia (ramad); his eye is white and he walks with a cane. Yehezqel is so infirm that he has not left his home for two years, even to attend synagogue services. They ask Mūsā to intervene on their behalf with the Nagid Sar ha-Sarim (Mevorakh b. Saadya), though they know that Mevorakh is busy with the “service of the rulers” (khidmat al-salāṭīn), see Rustow, Heresy, p. 339, and Cohen, Jewish Self-Government, p. 220. See also ENA 2805.5a, in which Natan b. Nahray informs Musa that as instructed he has given 1 dinar each to Moshe the Judge and Yeḥezqel the Alexandrian, who is sick and confined to his house. Dated after 1094. (Information in part from Goitein’s note cards) ASE