Geniza Lab

This fragment is actually several fragments stuck together. In the lower right corner of 'recto,' at 90 degrees to the other text blocks, there is the upper right corner of a legal testimony in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe, concerning ʿArūs al-Urjuwānī (the purple merchant), probably Abū l-Afrāḥ ʿArūs b. Yosef and also [...] b. ʿAmram. Mentions Diyār al-Yaman (the lands of Yemen). All the fragments under the shelfmark AIU VIIA.38 were preserved in a book-binding.

Letter in Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: ca. 1764 CE. Mentions numerous names: Yaḥyā b. Hādī, ʿAlī and his brother Ṣāliḥ, ʿAlī Ḥusayn, ʿAzīz b. Sinān, Yūsuf al-ʿAzīzī, Manṣūr b. Avraham, Mūsā al-Ḥajabī, and ʿAlī Ḥusayn al-Ashwal. It is cold in the village, and everyone is sick, and the writer requests a delivery of some kind. There is also a report on conditions in the 'upper village.'

Legal document. In Arabic script. Location: Yemen. Dated: Shawwāl 1177 AH, which is 1764 CE. At least six witness clauses appear at the bottom.

Letter of recommendation. Late. In Hebrew, with some Aramaic and Judaeo-Arabic. The bearer Saʿīd b. Manṣūr the Yemeni is from a good family and has had to abandon his wife and children, traveling in search of charity and a living.

Letter of condolence on the death of a woman. From an unidentified sender, probably in Qūṣ, to Abū l-Karam and his son Abū Isḥāq b. al-[...], in Fustat. In Hebrew and Judaeo-Arabic, with the address in Arabic script. The sender was staying in the funduq of Ibn al-Muṭiyy (בן אלמטי) in Qūṣ. There is also a deceased man, as the sender writes in the margin of recto that "your letters distract me from reading the letters of the deceased man (al-marḥūm)." Verso contains greetings to and from various people, including to Fakhr al-Dawla. In the margin of verso, he asks the addressee to forward a letter to the wife (? ṣāḥiba) of Ibrāhīm b. Amīn al-Mulk, one of the Yemeni traders "who burned in the ill-omened funduq." ASE

Copy of a court record from Aden. Dating: Summer 1131 CE. Concerning a controversy over Jewish communal leadership in Yemen. Goitein thought that this copy was made in the hand of Ḥalfon b. Netanel ha-Levi, but Friedman doubts this. It is not a direct continuation of T-S 20.37, but it concerns the same controversy. Namely, a Persian Nasi who was a cousin of the Exilarch in Baghdad had come to Aden, and the Yemeni public received him with respect and handed over to him the synagogue and religious affairs. He annulled the practice of mentioning the authority of the head of the Palestinian Yeshiva (at that time Maṣliaḥ Gaʾon, based in the Egyptian capital) in prayer and legal documents. The foreign merchants, such as Ḥalfon b. Netanel, opposed this. (Information from Goitein, The Yemenites, pp. 67–68 and Goitein and Friedman, India Book IV; Hebrew description below.) VMR

Legal testimony concerning a partnership release from a commenda. Dating: 1098. Abū al-Ḥasan Yaḥyā ha-Kohen b. Shemuʾel ha-Kohen al-Baghdādī and ʿUlla ha-Levi b. Yosef ha-Levi al-Dimashqī release Abū al-Barakāt Mevorakh al-Ḥalabī b. Shelomo from any further claims on their partnership — called shirka, mu‘āmala and muḍāraba (commenda) variously throughout the document, though some of those terms are used in the course of legal indemnification clauses, so don't necessarily reflect the exact structure of the partnership. Abū al-Ḥasan Yaḥyā ha-Kohen b. Shemuʾel ha-Kohen al-Baghdādī and ʿUlla ha-Levi b. Yosef ha-Levi al-Dimashqī testify that they gave Abū al-Barakāt Mevorakh al-Ḥalabī b. Shelomo 100 dinars, which he took to Yemen as the active partner; on his return, he gave them back their capital and the profit he accrued. This is one of three documents in Lieberman's corpus involving Abū al-Ḥasan Yaḥyā ha-Kohen b. Shemuʾel ha-Kohen al-Baghdādī and ʿUlla ha-Levi b. Yosef ha-Levi al-Dimashqī; the others are T-S 8J4.11 and T-S Misc. 27.4.29. Lieberman additionally points to CUL Or. 1080 J73 as concerning the same business partners, as well as ENA 4020.2, also a partnership release. One source of the investment capital of Yaḥyā and ‘Ulla could be a money-changing stall (dukkān al-ṣarf), mentioned in TS Misc 27.4.29, and one of Yaḥyā’s partners in ENA 4020.2, verso, is a money-changer (l.16). Possibly in the hand of Hillel b. Eli, but not in Weiss's corpus. (Information from Lieberman, "A Partnership Culture," 27–32)

Accounts in Judaeo-Arabic. Location: Yemen. There are several dozen names and strings of numbers (in Hebrew characters) of varying lengths after each name.

Deed of sale. Location: Ḥamida/Ḥamuda, Yemen. Dated: 24 Av במ״ד, which is likely 2044 Seleucid, which is 1733 CE. The parties include [..] and Saʿīd and Avraham the sons of Yūsuf. Currency: gurush. Signed: Menaḥem b. Ḥayyim; Seʿadya b. Avraham. There is a note on verso with more names.

Accounts of Yaḥyā Ḥajabī. In Judaeo-Arabic. Location: Yemen. Currencies used are gurush and zolota (a silver coin minted by the Ottomans to replace the Polish-Lithuanian zloty starting in 1690 CE).

Letter from a certain ʿEli, unknown location, to the cantor Isḥāq, in Damietta. Addressed specifically to the shop of Abū l-Surūr al-Ṣayrafī. In Judaeo-Arabic with the address in Arabic script. Dating: ca. 1100 CE, based on Goitein's assessment of the handwriting and the people mentioned. The letter is interspersed with learned quotations of poetry, Bible, and Talmud. The sender apologizes for neglecting the addressee's letters. He reminds the addressee. to send him items he had left with him, including the little thawb (thuwayb), the scarf or turban (radda), and the kerchief (mandīl). He says that the judge Abū Isḥāq al-Rayyis has written several times to Abū l-Surūr and that Nissim b. Naḥum also came (from Damietta?). He particularly wants the collected poems of Yiṣḥaq Ibn Khalfūn (an Andalusi Hebrew poet of the late 10th–early 11th century), either his copy that is with the addressee, or a new copy that the addressee has made. It seems that someone else borrowed another copy, 'was ashamed to give it back,' and took it with him to Yemen. He also wants "my letter/epistle and the poems(?) of the Parnas who/which went to Tinnīs," or copies, since his brother Avraham wants to study it (the letter is torn in the key phrase in this sentence, and this translation is not certain). In a postscript on verso, he wants the addressee to get half a dinar from al-Mawṣilī and purchase bees' honey with it. (Information from Goitein’s index card and from Goitein, "Ibn Khalfun's Collection of Poems in 11th Century Egypt and Yemen," Tarbiz 29 no. 4 (1960), 357–58.)

Letter from Yaʿaqov b. Salīm to Ḥalfon ha-Levi b. Natanʾel in al-Ghuwwa, Yemen, ca. summer 1131, concerning the controversy over the reshut of Maṣliaḥ gaʾon over the Jews of Yemen and the collection on behalf of the yeshiva in Fustat. Yaʿaqov b. Salīm, leader of a Jewish community in Yemen, having left Aden and moved to al-Ghuwwa, sends Ḥalfon a secret letter for Maṣliaḥ, head of the Jews in Egypt, and another letter for Abū Zikrī ha-Kohen, representative of the merchants in Fustat. Yaʿaqov b. Salīm had managed to get the Jews in the villages of Yemen to send contributions for Maṣliaḥ, and he asks Ḥalfon to beware lest the letters fall into the hands of his enemies. In case Ḥalfon is delayed on his journey to Egypt, he should ask Abū l-Yumn to deliver the letters personally. Yaʿaqov hopes he will receive an answer from Maṣliaḥ within the year. He also comments on books that he has sent to Ḥalfon, and notes that he had already copied the letter sent to him from al-Ghuwwa while he was staying in Aden. Yaʿaqov b. Salīm had left Aden for al-Ghuwwa because, like others, he was seceding from the authority of Maḍmūn b. Yefet and didn't want to be involved in controversy, all the more so given what we learn from his letter regarding contributions collected for the yeshiva of Palestine in this period of controversy. He himself had sent 34 dinars as an annual contribution from the villages of Yemen. The letter seems not to know that the villages had refrained from contributing that year — a rumor based on the exilarch's preventing the congregation from saying the reshut clause in the name of Maṣliaḥ gaʾon. Yaʿaqov b. Salīm points out that only two villages had not yet contributed, and that when their contribution came, the total contribution of the villages would be 404 dinars, a good amount according to Yaʿaqov b. Salīm, but also a much larger sum that any other geniza document mentions as a contribution to any reshut. Goitein read the sum as 600 (תר) rather than 404 (תד), but after the number the word danān(īr) appears, which in both classical Arabic and in this letter comes only after units. The regular contribution in the name of the gaʾon of Palestine demonstrates the attachment of Yemeni Jews to the central institution of learning. This seems to be the earliest document written from Yemen in the controversy over the reshut. It is exceptional that Yaʿaqov b. Salīm warned Halfon to handle the letter with secrecy and destroy it; fortunately, Halfon didn't obey the warning. The letter is difficult to decipher, but includes specific information about the affair, such as the copying of letters from the Davidic Persians and details about the collection for Maṣliaḥ, as well as greetings to Halfon's children ("his lion cubs"). Yaʿaqov b. Salīm was already known from Mann, Jews in Egypt and in Palestine, 2:366 (doc. 65; read al-Ghuwwa instead of אלגיוהומא). (Information from Friedman and Goitein)

Mercantile letter sent possibly from Aden to India. In Judaeo-Arabic. Fragment (lower part of recto). The sender received a basket (zanbīl) of pepper which he did not want. He wanted betel nut (fawfal) or cardamom instead. He humorously complains that the pepper won't fetch any money for him to be able to eat or drink. He also did not want the 15 עיטוריה(?) dinars that the addressee sent with Mūsā b. Yūsuf. He wishes that the addressee had used the money to buy him betel nut or cardamom. In a postscript on verso he adds, "whatever you buy for me, please do not put it under my name but rather under your name." (Information in part from Goitein’s attached notes.)

One folio cut widthwise into two halves. Written by various Yemenite hands. As 3\1 One side (ab) of the folio, slightly missing from one edge. Part a: A short legal(?) document about the high price of grains in Ṣanʿāʾ. Deals particularly with the astrological causes of the famine in the year 194[.] Seleucid, which corresponds to a year in the range 1628–38 CE. Part b: Under the Title "מחזור ..", Jewish calendar prototypes: years coded מש"ה; הש"א. In a different hand, larger characters. AS 3\2 One side (cd) of the folio, probably its primary usage. A Commentary on an Unknown Talmudic Treatise on the Laws of Prohibited Marriage Originally two columns, one the subject and the other the commentary, each written by a different hand. The full width of the commentary column, and half of the subject column, are extant, missing from the bottom. (DK CATALOGUE)

Letter from an unknown writer in Jerusalem addressed to R. Maʿūẓa and his sons Sālim and Yaḥyā. Written in Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: Probably 19th century, as it is written on grid paper. The hand and all the names are typical of Yemen. The writer provides a report of how he and his wife have fared since arriving in Jerusalem. ASE.

Mercantile letter from Sālim to his relative Yosef b. Yehuda Kohen. In Judaeo-Arabic. Yemeni. Dating: No earlier than 15th century based on currencies mentioned (muʾayyadī, qurūsh). Deals with trade in Adeni silk and probably other commodities. The measure farāsila is used. There are accounts on verso in a different hand.

Legal document. In Judaeo-Arabic with occasional Hebrew or Aramaic phrases. Dating: Unknown. Location: Yemen, probably, based on the handwriting and dialect words and names of the protagonists. The document concerns Yaḥyā b. Yehuda al-Ẓefira, his brother Saʿīd b. Yehuda, and Saʿīd b. Dā'ūd al-Abhar, who all jointly own and live together in one house. This is a reconciliation agreement in which each housemate promises not to use the common spaces without the permission of the others. In particular: "No one shall leave his donkey or any beast in the passageway except when tying or loading it. . . . Likewise, the outhouse. No one shall tolerate his own filth (translation slightly uncertain) and leave it exposed, but only use the hole in the outhouse." ASE.

Marriage contract (ketubba). Location: Yūd ʿImrān on Bīr al-Ḥā'it, Yemen. Dated: 4 Nisan 2151 Seleucid, which is 1840 CE. Groom: Hārūn b. Sālim al-Thalā'ī(?). Bride: Saʿda bt. Sālim Ḥoṭer al-Kohen, a widow.

Bill of divorce (get). Location: Al-Saʿdiyya, which is probably in Yemen, based on the handwriting and names. Dated: 29 Tishrei 2023 Seleucid, which is 1711 CE. Husband: Yehuda Ibn Muʿawwiḍa. Wife: Zahra bt. Yaḥyā. Witnesses include: Zekhraya b. Yosef.

Marriage contract (ketubba). Location: Yemen. Dated: Shevat 2005 Seleucid, which is 1694 CE. Groom: Dā'ūd b. Yosef al-Ḥamāmī (or al-Ḥammāmī) al-Ḥaḍrī. Bride: Simḥa, a virgin.