Geniza Lab

Incomplete legal document from Cairo, dated 6 October 1816 (14 Tishrei 5577), for Raḥamaim b. Nissim who apparently seeks to remarry the woman he had previously divorced. This document lays out the conditions upon him from both the first ketubba and in the remarriage. Needs further examination.

Legal document from 1725 CE (1 Tevet 5486) from Fustat/Cairo formalizing a reconciliation between husband, Yosef Mizraḥi known as Khumays, and wife, Nujūm the daughter of the late Baribas (?) Melichi (?). He agrees to live with her for at least another 6 months and behave well toward her. If she does not become pregnant during these 6 months, he will then have the right to take a second wife. Two of the witnesses are Yiṣḥaq ha-Levi Ghazāl and Aharon Ḥanūn.

Letter sent from Alexandria to Avraham ha-Rav ha-Sefaradi. (Perhaps the same Avraham ha-Sefaradi as in ENA 2558.13, who corresponded with the Nagid Yehoshuaʿ Maimonides in the first half of the 14th century.) In Hebrew. The sender conveys the plight of a woman who is his neighbor, presumably urging Avraham to intercede. This woman comes from a distinguished, educated, and wealthy family from Barcelona. After she had been a widow for 12 years, a man named Yosef arrived from "the city of Castile" (Toledo? or does it just mean "one of the cities of Castile"?). He said that he was a great sage and physician, and the widow's parents delightedly took him as their son-in-law. It turned out that he was a liar, a fraud, an ignoramus, and a great heretic ("Who commanded us to wear tzitzit? Who commanded us to put on tefillin? God did not command these things.") Her parents are inconsolable; she is their only child. The husband has already swindled them out of 500 pieces of silver. He does not even give her food to eat. The pair have since gone to Fustat. ASE.

Letter from Shelomo b. Yehuda to an unidentified personality in Fustat, expressing gratitude for funds sent to the community in Jerusalem, and requesting the intervention of the recipient to persuade a lady to leave Egypt and join her husband in Jerusalem. Approximately 1030. (Information from CUDL)

Letter from a woman to her mother ʿAzza al-ʿIblāniyya (from Iʿbillīn, a village in western Galilee), in Fustat. She is asked by her daughter to save her from her husband, life with whom was hell (l. 10), and who wants to take her, against her will, to his native town of Aleppo. The daughter asks her mother to come herself or send a proxy. (Information from Mediterranean Society, III, p. 177, and from Goitein's index cards)

Legal query concerning a newlywed girl who is scared of her husband who has a convulsion every time they attempt sexual intercourse. She is begging for divorce. She is still a virgin, dealing with whether a geṭ is necessary or not and what to do with the dowry payments. (Information in part from CUDL)

Letter probably from Sahlan b. Avraham instructing his uncle, Aharon 'the appointed', to make peace between a husband and a wife, or to bring her to the court. She had previously refused to appear in court, with her mother claiming that she was ill, and is thus in danger of being charged with rebellion against both her husband and the court. The letter ends with a request to send the two ṭaris (= 0.5 dinars), a charitable donation to the synagogue, without delay, and is signed with Sahlan’s motto ‘covenant of integrity’. In the context of attempting a reconciliation between the couple, an allusion is made to Judges 19:3. Verso: Part of a calendar for the year 1345 (= 1034 CE), describing when the festivals occur. (Information from CUDL)

Letter from an uncle to his niece containing a last warning to the woman to return to her husband. Letter in which the husband and the paternal uncle Abū l-Faraj try to persuade the addressee, a woman in the city, to join her husband in a small countryside town. The letter includes some threats—such as the wife being left as an abandoned woman if she disobeys—and instructions on how she should go about the move. Mentions Abū l-Ḥajjāj Ibn al-Ṭabīb (son of the doctor) and ‘the judge’ (possibly Elijah b. Zechariah, as handwriting looks similar to Solomon b. Elijah, who may have acted as a scribe). C. 13th century. (Information from CUDL.)

Deathbed will of a rich woman, made during the absence of her husband. Location: Fustat. Dated: Wednesday, 26 Iyyar 1454 Seleucid, which is 13 April 1143 CE, under the reshut of Shemuel b. Ḥananya. Testator: Sitt al-Ahl bt. Abū l-Munā al-ʿAṭṭār al-Iskandarānī, the wife of Abū Naṣr al-Ḥalabī al-Tājir. Witnesses: Yosef b. Thābit ha-Levi; Shelomo b. Natan ha-Haver. "This remarkable deathbed declaration, on the one hand, shows the cosmopolitan character of Fustat: the daughter of a druggist called 'the Alexandrian' was married there to a merchant 'from Aleppo.' On the other hand, it betrays an extraordinary attachment of the testator to her paternal family and to local customs and concepts. The dying woman's husband was a tājir, or great merchant, who traveled far and was expected to be away from home for several years. He probably was on a business trip to India. She had a little boy (Mūsā) from a former marriage, who lived with her parents. As his guardian and her own executor she appointed a brother of her former husband (Abū Mūsā Hārūn/Aharon b. Yeshuʿa ha-Kohen). The main purport of the will was the legal protection of her parents, brother (Abū l-Surūr), and boy against her present husband and providing a sumptuous burial for herself. She wanted to have Muslim wailing women, presumably because the cries and shrieks of Jewish women exercising the same profession were not shrill enough for her taste. The most impressive detail is her wish to be buried together with 'one of her family' meaning her father, mother, or brother. To these she was attached by 'natural ties'; with her husband she was connected solely by a 'contract.'" There is also a clause about Sitt al-Ahl's female slave named Fūq and Fūq's daughter, who belongs to Sitt al-Ahl's mother. Sitt al-Ahl also intends for the daughter of her brother Abū l-Surūr to marry her son Mūsā. (Information in part from CUDL and mainly from Goitein's attached notes, where there is a full translation.)

Legal document concerning a husband who wanted to travel to see his mother and relatives and his wife took him to court for it. He reportedly said that he would “go and come back,” to which his wife replied, “I did not believe his words” (lo he ’emanti li-devarav). (Oded Zinger, Women, Gender, and Law, 83) EMS

Letter from Abū l-Barakat b. Abū l-Ḥasan to Shelomo b. Eliyyahu. In Judaeo-Arabic. The sender is evidently a family member of Shelomo's wife Sitt Ghazāl bt. Abū l-Faraj. Abū l-Barakat reminds Shelomo that Sitt Ghazāl’s relatives had only reluctantly agreed to let her depart for Alexandria in the first place, and that they had made this concession in good faith, believing that he would treat her well. The writer goes on to defend Shelomo’s charges against Sitt Ghazāl’s slothfulness, lambast him for his boorishness and lack of empathy for his young wife, and attempts to socially shame the husband into proper behavior. (Eve Krakowski, “Female adolescence in the Cairo Geniza documents,” PhD diss., The University of Chicago, 2012, 68, 236, 238–39, 278–79.) EMS. Likely a join with T-S 6J3.15 (identified by Oded Zinger).

Letter of a woman, telling about her marital problems, written by Ḥalfon Ha-Levi b. Menashshe to the Gaon Masliah Ha-Kohen in Egypt. (Date: 1127-1138)

Letter of a woman, regarding her marital problems. Written by Halfon b. Menashshe Halevi (Date: 1100-1138). The join was created by Oded Zinger. Might be connected to T-S NS 226.113.