Geniza Lab

Letter from a Jewish woman, in or near Tripoli (Lebanon), to her brother-in-law, in Fustat. In Judaeo-Arabic. She is a refugee from Jerusalem who has suffered at the hands of the invading Seljuk Turks in the 1070s CE. She had to flee from Jerusalem to Tripoli, where she reports on the carnage she witnessed: ‘I was with him on the day I saw them killed in terrible fashion... I am an ill woman on the brink of insanity, on top of the hunger of my family and the little girl who are all with me, and the horrid news I heard about my son.’ She suggests it would be better to be captured since those in captivity ‘find someone who gives them food and drink’, whereas uncaptured, she and her children are starving. (Information in part from CUDL.)

Letter from Petaḥya b. (abū al-?)Maḥāsin, a refugee from Palestine, to Avraham b. Shelomo, his relative in Fustat, shortly after the Crusader conquests at the beginning of the twelfth century. Ed. Goitein, also G. Weiss.

Letter of a refugee from Acre, who lives in Alexandria and who is experiencing problems with the community there, to Yosef b. Yahya, Fustat. Approximately 1115.