Geniza Lab

Family letter in Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: Likely 12th or 13th century, based on layout and handwriting. Same sender and addressee as T-S 8J24.4 and CUL Or.1080 J25. The identities of sender(s) and addressee(s) are difficult to disentangle, but there is probably sufficient evidence contained within the letter. The tarjama reads, "Your son Ibrāhīm," and both of the addresses are made out to Abū l-Ḥasan Ibrāhīm al-Maghribī, in the Goldsmiths' Market, in Fustat. But the main voice of the letter is that of a woman, who is dictating the letter to the scribe Ibrāhīm (perhaps her husband or brother), and she is addressing herself to an older female relative, likely her mother. She also greets her sister Umm Ismāʿīl. The main addressee, who may live with Umm Ismāʿīl, is supposed to tell Umm Ismāʿīl to have her husband (perhaps the Abū l-Ḥasan Ibrāhīm from the address) send a letter with their news. The scribe Ibrāhīm then takes over the letter and greets Abū l-Ḥasan (and his father and his children) and rebukes him for his treatment of a woman (perhaps his wife Umm Ibrāhīm), "This is not what we agreed upon, and this is not how I instructed you (to behave). Whatever you do to her, you do to us." There are regards to various other people, including Sitt Zahr and Abū l-Rabīʿ Sulaymān and his son Ibrāhīm and his mother. As for the content of the letter proper, the sender reports that her daughter (Sitt al-Niʿam) and son (Abū l-Ḥasan) both fell off of a roof, but they were not seriously injured (cf. CUL Or.1080 J25, v22–27). She reports on a woman named Ṣayd (aka Sitt al-Ṣayd), who may be a slave, and who wishes to marry the slave of Ibn Miṣbāḥ, which apparently causes great distress for her owners (this section should be clarified by comparison with CUL Or.1080 J25, v4–12). She asks for her ring to be sent with the addressee's cousin (bint khāl) Sitt Nasrīn, and for a garment to be sold in Qūṣ and for something ("aṭrāf") to be made for Abū l-Ḥasan with the money from the sale. NB: Goitein originally described this as a letter from Ibrahim to his sister, writing about a widow with children who was intending to marry a person who obviously had not too good a reputation. The judge had warned her but she insisted on marrying the man. The writer tells about the children and complains about neglect. (Information from Mediterranean Society, III, pp. 275, 475 and from Goitein's hand list.) Information in part from Wagner, E. (2015). The language of women: L-G Arabic 2.129. [Genizah Research Unit, Fragment of the Month, January 2015]. https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.8238. ASE.

Letter from Yefet b. Menashshe b. al-Qaṭa'if to his brother Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Yefet has sent with Efrayim a vessel containing 20 dirhams of lizard droppings and Ḥalfon is to try to sell them. There are lots of other instructions about small transactions and letters to be forwarded. Yefet mentions the person (Yūsuf al-Qallā'?) "who was your doctor in Fusṭāṭ." Yefet sends greetings to Sitt Naʿīm, who it seems is none other than Ḥalfon's wife (see Wagner, E. (2007). Ḥalfon’s wife, Mosseri Ia.29. [Genizah Research Unit, Fragment of the Month, July 2007]. https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.40294). ASE.

Memorial list of the family of Eliyyahu the Judge in the hand of his son Shelomo b. Eliyyahu. Amir Ashur, "A Memorial list of Elijah b. Zechariah’s family: T-S 10J18.2," Genizah Research Unit, Fragment of the Month, December 2020.

The unique papyrus codex in the Taylor-Schechter collection. "The late Professor Ezra Fleischer identified the fragments as a collection of liturgical poems by the Palestinian payṭan, Joseph b. Nissan of Neve Qiryatayim (a contemporary of Eleazar b. Kallir c. sixth century CE). At some point during the eighth or ninth century CE, a scribe copied Nissan’s poems out on to the papyrus leaves and the leaves were bound into a codex." See Jefferson, R. J. (2009). T-S 6H9 – 21, the papyrus codex rebound. [Genizah Research Unit, Fragment of the Month, July 2009]. https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.48228.

Arabic translation of Genesis 4:4–15, with one line (Genesis 4:9a, line 9 recto) is written in Samaritan square script. See Niessen, F. (2007). An Arabic Translation of the Samaritan Pentateuch (T-S Ar.1a.136). [Genizah Research Unit, Fragment of the Month, November 2007]. https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.40721.

Treatise on geography in Judaeo-Arabic. See Yossi Ben-Artzi and Esther-Miriam Wagner, "Geography in the Genizah," Genizah Research Unit, Fragment of the Month, December 2010.

Palimpsest containing the Latin text of a sermon by St. Augustine. See CUL Add.4320a-d and Outhwaite, B. (2007). St Augustine in the Genizah. [Genizah Research Unit, Fragment of the Month, May 2007]. https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.40134.

Recto: legal document in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe, mentioning the elder Avraham and 92 dinars. Verso: legal document in the hand of Hillel b. ʿEli, mentioning a power of attorney and a certain Yehuda. (Information in part from CUDL.) See Wagner, E. "T-S AS 145.333: Keeping it in the family: the handwriting of Hillel and Ḥalfon." [Genizah Research Unit, Fragment of the Month, September 2008]. https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.48226.

Halakhic work, possibly a responsum, concerning betrothal and marriage. Features the proverbial Reuben and Shimon. (Information from CUDL.) Reuven engaged or betrothed the daughter of Shimon without seeing her. "As the time of the wedding approached, Reuben demanded to see her first. At this point, the manuscript is badly damaged, but it appears that Shimon rejected Reuben's demand and argued that a man should see his bride only after he marries her." See Ashur, A. (2008). T-S AS 149.178: A Legal Query in Judaeo-Arabic concerning a Bashful Bride. [Genizah Research Unit, Fragment of the Month, October 2008]. https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.48230.

Fragment in an Indian Devanāgarī script, but in an as yet unidentified language. Possibly a letter. See Bohak, G. (2008). T-S AS 159.248, T-S AS 159.247: an unidentified Indian language. [Genizah Research Unit, Fragment of the Month, March 2008]. Further discussion here: http://lughat.blogspot.com/2013/10/a-little-mystery-unidentified-indic.html, and here: https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=7875. Several commenters suggest that it may be a dialect of Gujarati written in Nagari script.

Spell of destruction. In Judaeo-Arabic and Aramaic, with a postscript in Arabic script ("for killing, very useful"). See Niessen, F., & Bohak, G. (2007). ‘Destroy the life of N.N.!’: A magical recipe: T-S AS 162.51. [Genizah Research Unit, Fragment of the Month, September 2007]. https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.40296.

Responsum in the hand of Maimonides. See Ben Outhwaite, "Two New Responsa of Moses Maimonides." [Genizah Research Unit, Fragment of the Month, April 2007]. https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.34048

Magical recipes for attaining love. "The first among these magical recipes is intended to ensure a great affection between a wife and her husband, erasing any animosity that might exist between them. The fragment preserves some beautiful biblical analogies.... The second recipe preserved in our fragment bears the title ‘Love’, emphasised by the drawing of a canopy over the word. It instructs the practitioner to take ‘seven leaves of laurel and grind them in old wine’, after which he is to write several magical names, perhaps using the mixture prepared earlier, or else, to write the names on the laurel leaves. The recipe ends with another biblical quotation, this time from the Song of Songs 8:7." Saar, O. (2010). T-S K12.89: ‘Like Esther in front of Ahasuerus’. [Genizah Research Unit, Fragment of the Month, July 2010]. https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.55274

Ketubba, Palestinian, dated to the 10th or early 11th century. Reused for a magical text in Hebrew. Unusually, the later scribe also wrote over the text of the original ketubba. See Ginsburskaya, M. (2009). A Ketubba in Palimpsest (T-S K23.3). [Genizah Research Unit, Fragment of the Month, December 2009]. https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.55272

Letter fragment addressed to Maimonides. There is a lengthy introduction, and a few words of the body, in which the writer reports that he received the letter of Maimonides reporting that the wine was deposited with Umm Manṣūr. See Ashur, A. (2010). A new letter to Maimonides, T-S Misc.28.98. [Genizah Research Unit, Fragment of the Month, 2010]. https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.55278.

Printed. Arabic invitation to a wedding in 1881 CE. See Nick Posegay's Fragment of the Month, June 2020.

Trilingual dictionary of Hebrew, with Biblical examples and glosses in Ladino and Judaeo-Greek. Printed. An unicum, i.e., the only known copy of this book. Dating: 16th century, perhaps ca. 1557 CE. See detailed analysis in Julia Krivoruchko, "A Sixteenth-Century Trilingual Dictionary of Hebrew," Genizah Research Unit Fragment of the Month, January 2021 (https://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/departments/taylor-schechter-genizah-research-unit/fragment-month/fotm-2021/fragment).

Fragment of a late letter in Hebrew signed by Seʿadya b. Moshe ha-Dayyan. See Arad, D. (2008). Syria’s links with the Jews of Cairo in the 15th and 16th centuries. [Genizah Research Unit, Fragment of the Month, August 2009]. https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.48227