Geniza Lab

Letters dealing with communal matters surrounding the dispute between Shelomo b. Yehuda and Natan b. Avraham, glued together and reused for the epistle of Sherira Gaon. Per Gil, copied by Ibn Sughmār for the benefit of the nagid of Qayrawān and his followers (who must have known the work well). The passage describes a gaonic schism at Pumbedita in the 820s that was resolved peacefully when Yosef bar Ḥiyya relinquished the office and contented himself with the position of av bet din, allowing Avraham bar Sherira to reign unchallenged. The message Ibn Sughmār intended the passage to convey: like Yosef bar Ḥiyya, Natan b. Avraham should step down from the gaonate and be content with his former title; like Avraham bar Sherira, Shelomo b. Yehuda's position should be uncontested. (Information from Rustow, Heresy, 314)

Letter from Shemarya b. Maṣliaḥ, in Fustat, to the Nagid Yaʿaqov b. ʿAmram, in Qayrawān. Dating: probably spring or summer of 1039 CE, and in any case 1038–42 CE, the period of conflict between Natan b. Avraham and Shelomo b. Yehuda over the gaʾonate in Palestine. The letter drafts on both recto and verso are about that conflict and the question of the loyalties of the community of Qayrawān. Signed by Shemarya but from a group of people; Shemarya's signature is in a different hand from the letter itself, and according to Gil, the scribe is Ghālib b. Moshe ha-Kohen, the son-in-law of Efrayim b. Shemarya. Both Gil and Cohen assume that additional leaders of the Fustat community were planning to sign the letter. This letter covers some of the same ground as the letter on verso; we additionally learn that the support that Natan b. Avraham claimed to have secured in the Maghreb came from the elders of Qayrawān. Jacob Mann published T-S 18J4.16, and Mark Cohen discovered the join with ENA 3765.10 and the significance of this pair of letters. (Information from Goitein, Cohen, Gil, and CUDL.)