Geniza Lab

Letter from the two congregations of Alexandria to David Ha-Levi b. Yiṣḥaq, requesting 33 1/3 dinars for the ransom of a prisoner. 1030-1.

Letter from the two congregations of Alexandria to David Ha-Levi b. Yiṣḥaq, requesting 33 1/3 dinars for the ransom of a prisoner. January 1031.

Letter by Ḥalfon b. Netanel ha-Levi, in Damascus (חדרך), to Yeshuʿa b. Moshe, in Egypt. In Hebrew. Dating: ca. 1145/46 CE. Regarding the will of Maṣliaḥ Gaon. The addressee is not known from other sources. Ḥalfon is currently in the circle of Avraham b. Mazhir, the head of the Palestinian Yeshiva in Damascus, who was likely an in-law of Maṣliaḥ. Ḥalfon asks the addressee to look for the will of Maṣliaḥ Gaon among the two witnesses who wrote and signed in (R. Natan ha-Dayyan ha-Ḥaver ha-Meʿulle and R. Natan b. Shemuel) or other witnesses. If he cannot find it, he should try to reconstruct its text from the witnesses and to send it by land through the desert to Damascus. This letter itself was sent by land. Ḥalfon has praised Yeshuʿa to the yeshiva in Damascus. (Information from India Book 4; Hebrew description below.)

Letter from Sadoq Ha-Levi b. Levi, Jerusalem, to Efrayim b. Shemarya, Fustat, probably 1030.

Letter from Shelomo b. Eliyyahu to Abū l-Barakāt, the uncle of Sitt Ghazāl. He writes of the terrible sickness that has not relented ever since he married. "I have perished. If you saw me, you wouldn't recognize me. I am thin as a toothpick and a ghost in my clothes." All his money goes to potions and chickens, and all the women who visit him tell him that he is the victim of a spell. He begs Abū l-Barakāt and Sitt Ghazāl's father Abū l-Faraj to intercede with the Gaon (Avraham Maimonides per Goitein) and Avraham b. Simḥa the judge and physician and obtain their agreement for a ban of excommunication against whoever bewitched Shelomo ("man or woman, Jew or Gentile, male or female slave, or whoever ordered them to cast this spell") and who does not reverse it. He hopes that the judge Avraham b. Simḥa will declare the ban of excommunication himself, or, failing that, another God-fearing elder. Greetings are sent by: Shelomo, Sitt Ghazāl, Shelomo's brother (Abū Zikri), his maternal aunt (Umm Abū l-'Izz?), her son (Abū l-'Izz?). Greetings are sent to: Abū l-Barakāt, his wife, his brother Abū l-Faraj (al-mawlā al-makīn), and his father (Abū l-Ḥasan). Information in part from Goitein's note cards. See T-S NS J223 for another note in which a person asks for a ban of excommunication against whoever bewitched him. There does not seem to be any way to determine if these two documents are connected. ASE.

The widow of Hiyya, a well known Fustat judge active 1129-1160s, wrote this expressive Hebrew petition to the Jewish congregation of Fustat. Her father was Shelomo,”the great prince',” i.e. someone with a position in the state administration. She informs the community of her difficult financial circumstances in explicitly gendered language: "(I write to) your honor due to the pressing times and their vicissitudes (even) on the rich who know well in their wisdom how to manage their wealth so that it will not decrease and dwindle. How much more (difficult are these times) on she who is hidden in the belly of the earth and is dependent on all." She also mentions that she has instructed a certain Menahem to speak on her behalf and collect money for her. On the back of the Hebrew petition are some 14 lines in Arabic script. They are directly related to the Hebrew petition as the second Arabic line mentions ”the daughter of the rayyis Salāma” and the fourth line mentions the same Menahem from the Hebrew petition. (Information from Oded Zinger)

Letter in Hebrew from the widow of the well known mid 12th century Judge Hiyya b. Yishaq. The widow is stressing her powerlessness (היא חבויה בבטן האדמה וצריכה לכל) and asks assitance from the community. On verso is an Arabic-script petition with a few Hebrew words added to it. Are the Hebrew and Arabic petition related in some way?

(a) Letter to Yakhin ha-kohen b. Nashi (נשי) . The writer fulfilled the order of the recipient and talked to the Nasi (נשיא) about a certain dispute. The writer is Aharon ha-kohen b. Eliyahu. On verso, pen trials and the Arabic script address of the letter

Poem, probably as part of a letter to the community of Damietta and the head of the community Perahya

Letter from Yosef b. Natan al-Ḥalabī to Moshe Maimonides. In Judaeo-Arabic. Only the upper portion of recto and the address are preserved, entirely consisting of poetical praises.There are two unrelated notes on verso. Unpublished. Noticed by Goitein and rediscovered in 2017 by Amir Ashur and Oded Zinger.

Letter from 1131, official, to 'the gate of the yeshiva' that is the yeshiva of Masliah Gaon. The carier of the letter is Yeshua b. Yaaqov. Very wide line spacing. Probably was written by Nathan b. Shelomo Hakohen. On verso a piyyut. Dated 1131

Lower fragment: Possibly an address of a letter. To Yehuda b. Peraḥya (Ḥemdat ha-Yeshiva Rosh ha-Nedivim) b. Ḥalfon. On the other side, there is a title of a piyyut for Yom Kippur written by Rav Nisi (רב ניסי) Aluf

Upper fragment: Letter from Shela b. Mevasser to Abū l-Faraj Yeshuʿa b. Yefet. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: 1094–1111 CE. About a sum of dinars which Mevorakh b. Seʿadya (here called Sar ha-Sarim) had sent for Shela but which did not arrive. Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm Ibn קדורה came and told Shela that he had mistakenly given the money to Abū Sahl (probably Menashshe) Ibn al-Qaṭāʾif. The addressee is asked to wait for Abū Sahl and obtain the money. If Abū Sahl is delayed, Mevorakh should be informed. (Information from Frenkel.)

Letter from Natan b. Avraham to Berakha b. Ravah, Fustat, February 1039.

Letter from Avraham al-Muʿṭī and Yosef b. Ezra to Ḥalfon b. Netanel ha-Levi. Should be included in the addenda to India Book IV. Most of the substance of the message is lost.

Letter from Shemuʾel b. Sa'adia (not the dayyan and scribe) to Moshe the representative of the merchants.

Letter to Avraham b. Shma'ya on verso, continuines on recto. Some words between the lines in diferent hand and pen. On recto a darft of poetic dirge in memory of Ḥalfon mentioning the traders. Some more jottings and pen trials, and the name Nethanel b. Yefet.

Letter from Makārim b. Mūsā Ibn Nufayʿ, in ʿAydhāb, to (his son-in-law?) the ḥaver Yeshuʿa b. Yoshiyya(?) the descendant of Shemaʿya Gaʾon, in Fustat. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: Shortly after ca. 1141 CE, since it mentions a receipt for the capitation tax for the year [5]35 AH. The sender has arrived safely in ʿAydhāb in the middle of Ramaḍān. He has booked passage to Aden in one cabin (bilīj, originally a Malayan word) in the ship of al-Dībajī together with Nahray (b. ʿAllān, cf. BL OR 5566D.6) and (Makhlūf b. Mūsā) Ibn al-Yatīm. They have taken care of their business and intend to travel onward after the holiday. He mentions: a piece of copper to be sold; that the large Bible codex should be kept safe from the mice; that the gallnuts should be sold; and that the bottles (qamāqim) should be sold if they can fetch a certain price, but otherwise they should be given to Bū Naṣr to make rose water in them. He leaves instructions for taking care of his capitation tax: "as for the capitation tax, there remain with / owed to me 3 (dinars) with Hiba from before. I received from him the receipt (al-barāʾa) for a dinar and change (dīnār wa-kasar, cf. the same expression about the capitation tax in T-S 13J25.6). It is now with Thābit but lacking a registration mark (ʿalāma). And for the year [5]35, 1 dinar and 2 qirats and 1 dirham. If you neglect this for me, I am lost. 'If you see them smoking, you (should?) think they're cooking.'" (The significance of this proverb in this context is not clear.) He has sent 33 dirhams of a Yemeni commodity (חב קרץ?) with the bearer of the letter; the addressee should sell it little by little. Greetings to the addressee, an old man, and Shemaʿya; to the sender's sister and mother, to his paternal uncle and his son Zayn and his wife, to his maternal aunt and her son, to Suʿūd, and to Thābit and his brother. Thābit should be reminded to press the wine for the sender. They should all take care of 'the old woman.' Greetings to Sayyid al-Kull b. Naḥmān (known from several other documents, e.g., T-S 12.527) and to Barhūn, and then a final urging not to forget the capitation tax. On verso, apart from the address, there are two medical prescriptions unrelated to the letter, one in Arabic script (complete) and one in Judaeo-Arabic. (Information in part from Goitein, Med Soc V, p. 575 note 140, from the several citations in India Book II, and from Friedman, Dictionary, p. 133 s.v. דכ׳ן.) ASE

Recto: Letter fragment. In Hebrew. Conveying mainly flowery greetings and expressions of pain due to separation and excuses for not writing earlier—it seems mainly because of the writer's recently born children. There are also writing exercises in Arabic script. Verso: Literary text in Judaeo-Arabic, pertaining to Maimonides's correspondence with the Sages of Provence, including R. Yehonatan ha-Kohen of Lunel, concerning the resurrection of the dead and Maimonides's treatise on this subject. The subsequent text block may be related; it is written in poetic Hebrew. This page also contains a third text block in Arabic script: يسال موسى عن ال . . . . . . تكون . . . جاير عالي شي . . . . . . . . . بجواب . . . . . . . . . . عليه شك . . . .

Verso: Informal note in Arabic script. ما هوذا يستقر لي معك قول صحيح امضي للحمام اليوم حتى اجي بلعشى واعرفك ايش افعل فقد جتني المرة الذي معها المعجر وقالت انه جاب ثلثة دنانير فقلت لها استقضي والسلم. The whole note is mysterious, but it may be approximately as follows: "I cannot accept that what you said is true. Go to the bathhouse today until I come to you in the evening and inform you what I will do. The woman who had the miʿjar (wimple or veil) came and said that it sold (or: would sell) for 3 dinars, so I told her 'go demand it!' And peace." ASE