Geniza Lab

Letter from David (b. Yaʿāqov) al-Shammās to Moshe b. Yehuda of Alexandria. In Hebrew and Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: Last quarter of the 15th century. Also signed by Aharon b. Ḥasde'el ha-Levi. "As for what you mentioned concerning your wife, it is not that she hates you and desires a bill of divorce for that reason. For she has been patient..." It seems that Moshe b. Yehuda promised to return on a certain date in a certain year and then delayed his return and failed to communicate properly with his wife when that date approached, and now people are getting anxious that he may have had a change of heart. The sender asked her about the raisins; she said they arrived with the son of Sehmuel al-Skandarī. Merits further examination.

Letter from Isḥaq b. ʿImrān, probably in al-Maḥalla, to the parnas Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Yahya, in Fustat. In Judaeo-Arabic with the address in Arabic script. The letter concerns Efrayim, a poor man from al-Maḥalla, whose wife did not wish to live in the Rīf and traveled to Fustat on her own without his permission. The sender had previously received instructions from the addressee about this case. The man is poor and cannot afford to live in Fustat, but offers her the option to live in Damietta. (Information in part from Goitein’s index card)

Court deposition in the hand of Hillel b. ʿEli. Dated: 1406 Seleucid, which is 1094/95 CE. Abū ʿAlī Yefet b. Menashshe accuses his wife Milāḥ b. Khayrūn of wishing to divorce him in order to marry Barakāt b. Abū Saʿīd al-ʿAṭṭār, who has "corrupted" (afsada) her. She takes mighty oaths, denying that she would ever marry Barakāt. Later, Abū ʿAlī verbally abuses Barakāt, "Yā fāʿil, yā ṣāniʿ, you corrupt my wife and tell her, 'Divorce him so that I can marry you!'" They have a great fight and hurl accusations at each other ("some serious, some trivial"). Barakāt takes a mighty oath that he will pay a fine of 50 dinars to the poor of Egypt if he ever proposed marriage or anything else to Milāḥ. Signed by Binyamin b. Avraham. NB: Three distinct fragments have been joined and are all photographed under the shelfmark ENA NS 19.14 (this is why there are no photographs under the shelfmarks ENA 4010.7 or ENA Misc. 17). The lower left fragment is still missing. Join by M. A. Friedman. (Information in part from Goitein’s index card.) ASE

Letter fragment in Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: Possibly 12th century. Rudimentary hand. Relates that there is violent domestic conflict between Hilāl and his wife. Mentions Ibn al-Labbān and [Abū?] Naṣr b. al-Sadīd.

Legal document. In Hebrew. Location: Pitom (=Fayyūm). Dated: Thursday, 20 Iyar 4758 or 4768 AM (4738 can be ruled out, as 20 Iyar was not a Thursday). This is an agreement outlining conditions under which a wife, Salma bt. Natan, is taken back by her husband, Ibrāhīm b. Salām, after a period of separation. The conditions reflect a downward change in social stratum. This document was published by Assaf in the Marx Jubilee Volume and translated nearly in full by Goitein in Med Soc III, p. 215. Witnesses: Moshe b. Yosef ha-Kohen; Sar Shalom ha-Levi b. Nissin; Salma b. Shaʿya, Yosef b. Seʿadel, Shubayyib b. Shekhanya, al-Giddem ("the amputee"), and Ṭayyib b. Avishay. The witness Yosef b. Seʿadel also signs T-S 12.496, T-S 12.198, and Bodl MS heb. b 12/7; the latter two were validated by Shemarya b. Elḥanan (ca. 980–1010). (Information in part from Goitein’s index card.)

Legal query with the autograph responsum of Yehuda ha-Kohen Rosh ha-Seder b. Yosef (aka "the Rav"). Yehuda b. Yosef was a student of Rabbenu Nissim b. Yaʿaqov of Qayrawān. He appears in the letters of the Maghribī merchants of the second half of the 11th century simply with the name "the Rav." This query concerns an orphan girl whose mother married her off while she was still a minor. Some time after the wedding, she stated that she had committed adultery. The man initially denied this claim but confessed upon examination by the court. The querier wishes to know if the wife is permitted to her husband. The responsum begins: "There are two sides to this ruling." The Rav ultimately rules that she is permitted to her husband. On verso, in Arabic script, "hādhihi ʿindī bi-khaṭṭihi raḥimahu Allāh" ("I have this in his handwriting, may God have mercy on him"). Information from Amir Ashur via FGP and from Friedman, "A Responsum by 'The Rav.'"

Recto: A curse in Judaeo-Arabic with some Hebrew against whoever is spreading false rumors about the writer and stirring up conflict between him and (probably) his wife. Verso: Fragment of a letter in Judaeo-Arabic, in the same hand. The sender asks for a favor from the addressee. He says that he knows that the addressee considers him like the late brother Abū l-Makārim. Same handwriting as T-S AS 162.161

Recto: Letter in Hebrew. Dating: early 13th century, based on the mention of the Judge Anaṭoli in the penultimate line. The sender is apparently a Byzantine Jewish man. He married either a Christian woman or a Jewish woman who converted to Christianity (along with him? והלכ[ה] אחרי אלי נכר). Then he tried to persuade her to return to Judaism. She said, How can I leave here (Byzantium) and eat and live? He arranges to support her with four pounds (ליטרין) of bread and one pound (רטל) of meat each week. With this, she was supposed "to sit and to make Rūmī garments" (on such garments see Goitein, Med Soc IV, 191–92). The letter becomes more fragmentary around here; mentions a Jewish woman; a Christian man; someone quarreling a lot with the sender (probably his wife); Muslims; giving some people a bribe; and perhaps accusing a man of sleeping with his wife (וחטאת עמה). Then he went to the Judge Anaṭoli and confessed. (Information in part from Goitein's index card, Goitein, Med Soc IV, 236, note 82, and de Lange, Byzantium in the Cairo Genizah, 40.) This document has also been edited by Ze'ev Falk in Sinai 85 (1979), 147–48.

Court record in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Perhaps a settlement between an abusive husband (...lahā bi-ḍarb wa-qaṣd...) and a woman named Ḥākima (another version of her name may appear in line 7: [...]aba al-madhkūra). (Information in part from CUDL)

Recto and verso (reuse): Letter addressed to Maṣliaḥ Gaʾon containing a report on the conflict between Ṣedaqa and his wife. Initially there was an agreement involving him divorcing her, but later they might have reconciled. The neighbors are mentioned several times. Someone named Abū l-Faraj is also involved. At one point someone says to Ṣedaqa "lā khayr wa-lā karāma!" (roughly "shame on you!"). Needs examination.

An interesting letter of a son to his father, Mubarak, in Fustat. The son complains about his wife's insolence and quarrelsomeness. Especially noteworthy is his statement: אלדי קאל פיהא אלכתאב אשה ראעה צאראעת לבעלה - quoting a proverb attributed to Ben Sira in BT Yevamot 63b and Sanhedrin 100b. (Info by Oded Zinger)