Geniza Lab

Letter from Abū l-Faraj b. Sāl[im] to Abū l-Fuḍayl Ibn al-Amshāṭī. In Judaeo-Arabic. Not a great deal of the content remains. It seems that the addressee has sent kohl/antimony and that the writer is sending qumqums.

Tiny fragment of a Judaeo-Arabic letter.

Letter fragment in Judaeo-Arabic. Little of the content remains.

Letter fragment in Judaeo-Arabic. This small piece that survives includes a recommendation for the bearer (". . .the need, urgently urgently urgently. . .") and a request to go to Surūr the husband of Bint al-Shab[...]. On verso there are the customary closing salutations.

Letter from Yaʿīsh b al-Kadīḥī(?) to Sālim b Yūsuf al-Jiyār(?). In Judaeo-Arabic with some Hebrew. Dating: 19th century. The writer asks the addressee to send him with the bearer of the letter the new issue of the jarīda (newspaper? magazine?) that has arrived from Jerusalem, and let him know how much it costs.

Letter of recommendation, likely a draft, from Fustat. Dated: 5735 (מעֿשֿהֿ) AM, which is 1614/15 CE. The bearer, Avraham b. Shemuel Ashkenazi, fell into Ottoman captivity eight years ago. His captors brought him to Istanbul, but he refused to convert to Islam, managed to escape, "and took shelter in the Beit Midrash of Shem and ʿEver." He has been living in Fustat for the last two years, exerting himself in service of the community. He now wishes to return to his native land, and the anonymous addressee is asked to help him. (Information from FGP)

Letter from Avraham b. Shemuel ha-Levi, Jerusalem, to Nissim ha-Kohen Ṣefanya b. ʿOvadya ha-Kohen, Fustat. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dated: 6 Kislev 5439 AM (בקשו ענוה), which is November 1678 CE. Both writer and addressee are Qaraites. This is a long letter; needs further examination.

Letter of appeal for charity addressed to Yiṣḥaq Barukh. In Hebrew. Dating: Late, maybe 16th or 17th century. The writer is a teacher.

Letter (draft) from Avraham b. [...] from Jerusalem to Anonymous regarding financial support

Letter from Avraham Castro, in Alexandria, to an unknown addressee, in Fustat/Cairo. In Hebrew. Dating: 16th century (Avraham Castro died in 1560). The writer had a position overseeing trade or taxation in Alexandria. This letter is quite damaged, but it seems to deal with ships and 'the tower' and 'the men of the tower' and bribery. Information in part from FGP.

Letter from Daniel b. Azarya to Avraham Ha-Kohen b. Yiṣḥaq b. Furat, Fustat.

Letter in Judaeo-Arabic (FGP). The handwriting is rudimentary and the orthography so idiosyncratic that it is difficult to understand. Probably a family letter; discussing all sorts of distressing matters. Needs further examination.

Business letter from Abū l-Ḥusayn al-Ṭulayṭulī to Abū al-Najm Hilāl b. Yosef ha-Qara. In Arabic script. For other Qaraites from Toledo, see T-S 13J9.4 (PGPID 1236, discussed in Rustow, "Karaites Real and Imagined," Past & Present 2007). In line 7, instead of Aodeh's "وقد يخصك السلام," read, "وقد دخل الحمام," yielding, "Your son is in good health; he has entered the bathhouse (i.e., he has recovered from his illness)." ASE

Business letter from Yehuda b. Yaʿaqov (fattore) to a certain Shelomo (employer). In Hebrew with occasional Ladino words (docenas, magazin, partidos).

Letter of recommendation from Avraham Maimonides addressed to the congregation of 'Goshen' and surrounding villages, at their head the judge Shemuel. In Judaeo-Arabic. The recommendee is R. Shelomo ha-Levi from Iraq. Due to his debts in his own country, he had to leave his family behind and go wandering about, despite his weakness and age.

Letter. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dated: Ṣafar 613 AH = Sivan 1528 Seleucid, which is 1217 CE. Most of the remaining content is formulaic.

Letter from Abū l-Majd to two distinguished addressees. 17 lines of Hebrew blessings are preserved. The lower part, containing the body of the letter, is missing.

Letter in Ladino. The sender has an unskilled hand and sometimes makes numerous attempts to spell a word correctly (e.g., אין[[בייידו]] [[בייאדו]] ביאדו). Mentions R. Yosef Ganso/Gansho among the "amigos," perhaps the well-known Italian Jewish poet of the same name (1560s–ca. 1640) who lived and worked in Bursa—see Kinneret Shutzman, Josef Ganso: a Hebrew Poet in Turkey (16-17th centuries), PhD Diss. (Tel Aviv University, 2015). Needs further examination. ASE.

Letter in Judaeo-Arabic. Dated: 5575 AM, which is 1814/15 CE. There are various designs with circles on verso. Needs examination.

Petition for help addressed to a Jewish notable. Written in Hebrew, for the introduction, and Judaeo-Arabic, for the body. The sender is a goldsmith in the central exchange (Dār al-Ṣarf). A certain Daylamī named ʿAzīz al-Dawla has been persecuting him (יעמל מעי פי שפיכות דמים... ממא יעמל מעי מן אלסנאות). The addressee is asked to intervene and stop that man from harming the sender. "I have begun a task and I am unable to obtain my wage on his account." He uses the stock phrase, "The knife has reached the bone." There are also a few words in Arabic script upside down at the bottom of the page (possibly from an earlier document reused for the petition).