Geniza Lab

bill of proxy from the leaders of Tiberias. Needs examination. No image

Acknowledgment of receiving a Torah scroll - needs examination. No image

Laws of ketubah from Cairo - needs examination. No image

Legal document? - needs examination. No image

Legal document? - needs examination. No image

Marriage document. Small fragment. Mentions [...] ha-Levi b. Yeshuʿa al-Rayyis and [...] ʿAmram known as Ibn Ḥarīra. The delayed marriage payment is 40 dinars. On verso there is a separate document in Arabic script.

Legal testimony. Involving Khalaf b. Yaʿaqov and Qaljūrī b. Makhlū, as well as a certain Ṭayyib. Scribed and signed by Shelomo b. Meir. Also signed by Avraham b. David. Needs examination.

Prenuptial agreement. In Judaeo-Arabic. In the hand of Natan b. Shemuel ha-Ḥaver (dated documents 1128–53 CE). This document begins with a dowry list. Groom: Yeshuʿa b. Shabbat. Bride: Baqiyya bt. Avraham, who is the divorcee of the groom. The groom commits to supporting his mother-in-law. She will live in the same house as the couple, and he cannot insult her, or hit her, or disrespect her, or act domineering. There is unrelated text on verso, including titles for Elʿazar ha-Sar b. Shelomo ha-Kohen (ZL).

A legal query to Maimonides written by Yosef b. Shmuel b. Sa'adya and Maomonides autographed reply. Published in Maimonides Responsa (Blau) no. 273. The query is dealing with a circumciser who use to perform circumcission in the vilages. He had a quarell with another person, a physician, who use to perform circumcission in order to harm the circumciser's livelihood. Maimonides eulrd that the physician act wrongly. AA

Legal document. Bill of attorney, written by Yosef b. Shemuʾel Halevi and approved by Maimonides, in his own hand. Published: מע"פ פרידמן, ר' משה בן מימון בתעודות משפטיות מן הגניזה, שנתון המשפט העברי, יד-טו (תשמח-תשמט), עמ' 180-181. Names mentioned: סלימאן, מוסי, אבו אלמנגא, מחאסן Signed by: Shemuʾel b. Saadya Halevi (the scribe's father), Shemuʾel b. Yosef, Moshe Hakohen b. Mordechai Judeo-Arabic, Hebrew and Aramaic. AA

Responsum by Moshe Maimonides. A copy. The responsum corresponds to #355 in Blau's edition ("I am very troubled by various matters, and my body is week, and I have no ability to even read the letters, let alone respond to them..."). Another copy of the same responsum may be found in ENA 2743.3. (Information from Amir Ashur via FGP)

Legal document. Dated: Av 4959 AM, which is 1199 CE. Location: Probably Alexandria, where legal documents in this period tend to be dated according to the anno mundi calendar as opposed to the Seleucid calendar used in Fustat and the other towns of Egypt. Concerns Sitt al-Gharb bt. Yehuda, the divorcee of Abū Naṣr Elʿazar ha-Kohen b. Shelomo al-Ṣayrafī al-Miṣrī. Friedman has synthesized her story based on (a) T-S 8.239 + Bodl. MS heb. a 3/36 (her ketubba, drawn up in Qūṣ); (b) T-S NS J455 (a court record from Aleppo, 1189 CE, in which Abū Naṣr agrees to send her a bill of divorce with the agent Avraham ha-Talmid b. Ḥananel); (c) Moss. VII,75 (that very bill of divorce, which reached its destination); and (d) MS 8254, fol. 15, the present document. Sitt al-Gharb has remarried. Her new husband, Abū l-Ḥasan b. Ibrāhīm, wishes to do business with the half-house that belongs to Sitt al-Gharb. Apparently she was not in agreement. This document certifies that the husband should be prohibited from doing anything with her property until an order arrives from Maimonides. Maimonides is titled "Rayyis" in this document, as he had returned to the post of the Head of the Jews by this date (though 'rayyis' is also sometimes used for any respected physician or dignitary). Information from Friedman's 1988 article, pp. 181–85.

Legal query addressed to Avraham Maimonides, with the latter's autograph responsum. NB: There is an extensive bibliography on this fragment, but it is often erroneously called MS 8254, fol. 16. See FGP under MS 8254, fol. 16.

Recto: Legal document. Dated: 4976 AM, which is 1215/16 CE. Under the reshut of Avraham Maimonides. Involving a certain Abū l-Rabīʿ Sulaymān and Shelomo ha-Levi (unless these are the same person?). Verso: Legal document, formulary/draft. Underneath, there is an extremly faded text block (a letter?) in the hand of Avraham Maimonides.

Legal document from the court of Avraham Maimonides. The members of the court are listed in a neat table: Ḥananel b. Shemuel, Yeḥiel b. Elyaqim, Yiftaḥ b. Yaʿaqov, Shelomo b. Eliyyahu, Yosef b. Shemuel, and Ḥalfon Kohen b. Elʿazar. See Goitein, Med Soc II, 546 no. 16, where this is the "unidentified ENA manuscript" mentioned. Information in part from Friedman, Maimonides Appoints R. Anatoly Muqaddam of Alexandria [Hebrew], p. 153 no. 71.

Legal document. Mentions a certain Rabbenu Shelomo. Signed by [Avraham?] b. David b. Avraham b. Moshe Maimonides. Dating: Before 1313 CE, as Avraham II Maimonides lived 1245–1313.

Maimonides, responsa

Maimonides, responsa

List of responsa in Judaeo-Arabic (FGP)

Birth record? In Hebrew. Dated: Sivan 5324 AM, which is 1564 CE.