Geniza Lab

Engagement (shiddukhin) contract. Dated: Tishrei [5]566 AM, which is 1805 CE. Groom: Moshe Ẓvi. Bride: Simḥa bt. Barukh. Verso is a list of items and their values apparently relevant to the engagement (a dowry list?). A handful of the terms are in Ladino. The word "contante" (cash?) appears a few times. Mentioned in Ilana Tahan, "Judeo-Spanish Manuscripts in the British Library's Hebrew Collection," p. 152 (no. 37)

Engagement (shiddukhin) agreeement. Fiance: Yosef b. Yehuda Menaḥem. Fiancee: Esteta (?) bt. David (?) ha-Kohen. Currency: Venetian ducats (פרחים זהב בנאדקה). Location: Fustat/Cairo. Dated: 12 Ḥeshvan [5]330 AM (יקיר), which is October 1569 CE.

Engagement (shiddukhin) agreeement between Efrayim b. Shemuel and כואנדה bt. Eliyyahu Sūsī, in a beautifully illuminated frame. Currency: medin. Dated 1720 CE (1 Elul 5480), Fustat. Goitein notes and index card linked below belong to a different shelfmark. ASE.

Engagement (shiddukhin) agreement between Nissim Zeraḥya and Miryam bt. Shelomo ha-Levi. Dated 1749 CE (21 Heshvan 5510), Rashid. Currency: the gold zeri maḥbūb coin (זהובים מחבובים), apparently first minted by Maḥmud I 'the hunchabck' in 1740. Goitein notes and index card linked below belong to a different shelfmark. ASE.

Engagement (shiddukhin) agreeement between Avraham b. Yosef Mammon and Bayda (?) bt. Moshe ha-Levi known as ʿŪraybī. Currency: real. Dated 4 January 1797 (6 Tevet 5557), Fustat. See BL OR 5543.11 for the ketubba of Bayda's brother ~8 years later. ASE.

Engagement (shiddukhin) agreeement between Eliyyahu b. Moshe de Man (?) of Manṣūra and Raḥel known as Kuḥla bt. Ḥassūn. Currency: real. Dated September 1803 CE (Tishrei 5564), Fustat. ASE.

Deed of engagement (shiddukhin). In the hand of Natan b. Shemuel ha-Ḥaver. Dated: Monday evening, 30 Kislev 1460 Seleucid, which is 1148 CE, under the authority of the Nagid Shemuel b. Ḥananya. The ornate titles attached to the names of the couple may suggest that they were family members of Shemuel b. Ḥananya. The manuscript is located at the Central Archive for the History of the Jewish People in Jerusalem.

Legal. Engagement (shiddukhin) contract. Dating: No earlier than 1697 CE, based on the mention of the coin (zer-i) maḥbūb. Groom: Yosef b. Yaʿaqov Najjār. Bride: Ḥanna bt. Hillel אלחירקו(?), a widow. There follows a trousseau list and conditions. Currency: maḥbūb. On the facing page there is another list (also a trousseau list?) in a different hand. Several of the items are written in Ladino.

Engagement (shiddukhin) contract. In Hebrew. Dated: 1 Tamuz 5569 AM, which is 1809 CE. Groom: Yaʿaqov ha-Levi Istanbuli b. Shemuel. Bride: Sara bt. Moshe Condiote. Currency: real. Verso: Note in Arabic script.

Recto: Legal document, possibly a court record. Regarding an engagement (shiddukhin). Fiance: Yefet b. Binyamin b. Refa'el ha-Levi ha-Talmid. Fiancee: Fāḍila bt. Bū l-Khayr Binyamin b. Faraḥ. Verso: One line in Judaeo-Arabic, possibly connected to recto, mentioning the money due to a wife (muqaddam, mu'akhkhar, ʿaml(?), and kiswa). There are also several unidentified lines in Arabic script. Information from Amir Ashur via FGP.

Recto: Engagement (shiddukhin) document, dated 18 June 1795 (1 Tammuz 5555), for Moshe b. [left blank] and Sara bt. David Russo. Verso: A geomancy casting; the question is crossed out but may be legible ("Is . . . good for me or not?")

Recto: Engagement (shiddukhin) document for Moshe b. Nissim Ṭawīl and Simḥa bt. [...] ha-Levi known as al-ʿAjamī, dated August 1818 CE (Av 5578). Verso: Halakhic discussion in Judaeo-Arabic involving the annulling of vows.

Fragment of a late legal document, signed Yaʿaqov ha-Kohen, probably an engagement (shiddukhin) document for [...] b. Ḥayyim and [...] bt. Moshe.

Recto: Engagement (shiddukhin) document, dated 7 November 1791 (10 Heshvan 5552), Fustat, for the cantor Khalīfa Khufayf (?) b. Aharon and Simḥa bt. Yaʿaqov b. Barukh. Verso: Legal document involving real estate, dated March 1792 (Adar 5552), Fustat.

Engagement deed. In the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Groom: Ṭoviyya b. Tiqva. Bride: Sitt al-Kull bt. Peraḥya, a virgin. Her paternal uncle received on her behalf 3 rings of fine gold, a ring of amber, and two silver "unbūbas." Witnessed by Avraham b. Shemaʿya he-Ḥaver; Yiṣḥaq b. Shemuel ha-Sefardi; and Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. Dated: Kislev 1431 Seleucid, which is 1119 CE. This is in fact the earliest known example of such a deed, since formalising a couple’s engagement with a legal document appears to have been an innovation of the 12th century. Jewish marriage is a three-stage process: engagement (shiddukhin), betrothal (erusin/qiddushin), and marriage. Betrothal, at which the couple are declared married but do not move in together, and marriage, when the woman leaves her father’s house and lives with her husband, are both formal events requiring a written document. Engagement, however, was an oral agreement of a more informal nature. In 12th-century Fustat, Egypt, however, the Jewish community began to formalise engagements through a written deed, in order to better protect the rights of women in the partnership. The deeds mostly consist of prenuptial conditions to be imposed on the husband: where the couple would live (and who has the right to choose), the right of the woman to ask for a divorce, various restrictions on the husband’s movements, etc, and testify to the relative power that Jewish women had in the marriage agreement. (Information mainly from CUDL and some from Goitein's index card.)

Contract of a marriage agreement (shiddukhin) – undated – Museum of Islamic Art – (number 206) – in Arabic. (information from Ḥassanein Muḥammad Rabīʿa, ed., Dalīl Wathā'iq al-Janīza al-Jadīda / Catalogue of the Documents of the New Geniza, 66). MCD.

Verso: Drafts of legal notes from a court. Some of the text may have been erased. The entries do not appear to be related to each other. #1: Record of the payment of an early marriage gift (muqaddam) of 15 dinars in an engagement (shiddukhin). Dated: Sunday, 4 Nisan 1552 Seleucid, which is 1241 CE. Fiancé: Surūr b. Yiṣḥaq al-Iskandarānī. Fiancée: Karam bt. Yefet. #2: Abū Manṣūr b. Faḍāʾil declares that he owes Ṣadiq b. Moshe [the entry ends here]. #3 (at 180 degrees): Something concerning Rashīda bt. Abū l-ʿIzz ha-Levi ("al-Rayyis al-Ajall") and monthly payments of 20 wariq dirhams. There follows what may be another entry, mainly in Arabic script. (Information in part from Ashur's edition of #1.)

An agreement for cancelation of engagement. The two parties declares they have no demands from each other concerning the engagement gifts given. It appears the the bride return the marriage gift she received to the groom, named Yosef, but it is also possible to say she kept it and the groom approved it. The bride is represented by her brother, named Angel, who released the groom from any claims. The groom and his two brothers (one named Moshe) released her from their side. AA