Geniza Lab

Informal note addressed to a certain Yosef. Dating: Ca. 1210 CE (per Goitein). The hand may be known. (1) Abū l-Riḍā al-Wathīq has a power of attorney from Abū l-Bahā' al-Dimashqī regarding textiles (qumāsh), against Thiqa al-Dimashqī, demanding in particular a new silk shawl (miṭraf), which will be given as a pawn. The addressee Yosef will loan them the 40 dirhams. So now everyone is waiting for the addressee to advance them those 40 dirhams and himself take possession of the shawl. (2) The addressee is to get a copy of Avoda Zara (or its price) from Abū ʿAlī, and tell him what the sender had mentioned about Abū Zikrī and the raisins. (3) The addressee is asked to meet with Abū l-Maḥāsin b. Sitt Ghazāl and ask for news of Sitt Ghazāl. The sender wants to know where she lives so that he can go there and ask after her. He also wants to stay at Abū l-Maḥāsin's house with a friend. The pronouns are a bit tricky in this section, and it is not entirely clear if Abū l-Maḥāsin and Sitt Ghazāl live together or not. (Information mainly from Goitein's index card)

Letter from Salama b. Musa ha-Safaqusi, Alexandria, to Nahray b. Nissim, Fustat. Date: August 25, 1059. The writer informs the addressee about letters that arrived for him in ships. In addition, he details the ships movement from Mahdiyya, Sfax, and Sicily. The writer is about to sail from Alexandria, probably to Sicily. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 4, #747) VMR

Letter from Abun b. Sedaqa in Jerusalem to Nahray b. Nissim in Fustat. Dating: November 1064 CE. The main subject is the tension between the writer and Nahray's cousin, Yisrael b.Natan. Other subjects include details about the burning of ships in Sicily. Opens with a vivid description of the general grief following the death of Sittāt, the wife of R. Natan, who left a boy of 2 years. "How terrible is our grief! It has destroyed us (haddatnā) and sickened us (amraḍatnā).” A government edict threatened to make a dignified funeral impossible, so the mourners considered simply burying her within the walls. “We contracted from this a terrible convulsion (rajf ʿaẓīm),” Abūn writes, “and we gave a bribe and brought her out at night.” ASE

Letter of business from Isma'il b. Ishaq al-Andalusi, in Tyre, to Nahray b. Nissim. The writer alludes to his great losses at sea while simultaneously thanking God, who has replaced what has been lost many times over. Also includes a quotation from II Shemuel 14:20. (S. D. Goitein, Mediterranean Society, 1:60, 332, 405, 485; 5:239, 571, 572) EMS

Letter from Natan Ha-Kohen b. Mevorakh in Ascalon, to Ulla Ha-Levi Ha-Parnas b. Yosef in Fustat, probably ca. 1110.

Letter from Daniel b. Azarya informing one of his supporters in Cairo that an unnamed prominent person had received a friend of his opponent in Dagun (a suburb of Ramla) and on top of that had not answered his letters. He urges his supporters to have the vizier write to the aforementioned man. (Information from Goitein's index cards)

Letter from Yehuda b. Isma’il al-Andalusi, from Sicily, to Nahray b. Nissim, Fustat. August 9, 1062. Regarding shipments of textile, especially silk, to Nahray. Nahray sends pearls and camphor. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 3, #578) VMR

Draft of the end of a letter, with many corrections, sending greetings to Elʿazar ha-Kohen. In the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. (Information from CUDL)

Fragment of a letter mentioning the plight of a woman who has a house 'under the administration of the court' but whose requests are not being heard. (Information from Mediterranean Society, III, p. 494; IV, p. 171)

Letter from the Qaraite Jews of Ashqelon to the Qaraites and Rabbanites of Fustat. Dating: Summer 1100 CE. The letter deals with the ransoming of Qaraite captives from Jerusalem following the Crusader conquest of the city. (Qaraites represented a large percentage of the small number of Jews who still lived in Jerusalem after the Seljuk conquest[s] in the 1070s.) The letter also explains that the fortified city of Ashqelon had not yet fallen, but the residents are struggling to cope with an influx of refugees and the need to make large payments to the Crusaders to ransom back Jewish captives - men, women and children - as well as books and scrolls pillaged from the synagogues of the Holy Land. Despite the terrible circumstances, they take solace in the fact that that the Crusaders appeared not to have mistreated the women. The writers report that they had received the suftaja (bill of exchange), at least the second substantial donation from the Jews of Fustat to the campaign to redeem captives and books. This letter is a request for further donations. The community in Ashqelon had spent over 500 dinars; ransomed over 40 captives; continues to bear the high expenses of caring for the 20 redeemed captives who remain in Ashqelon; and is now in debt for more than 200 dinars. The writers also mention Jews who had escaped from Jerusalem on their own, and others who had been given safe-conduct with the wālī. Of the refugees who arrived in Ashkelon, many had died of the epidemic they encountered there: "The attacks of these illnesses (amrāḍ), the falling of that plague (wabā'), that pest (fanā'), that disaster (balā')" (recto, lines 17–19); later, describing how the refugees perished, "Some of them arrived here healthy, and the climate turned against them (ikhtalafa ʿalayim al-hawā'), and they arrived at the height of that plague (wa-waṣalū fī ʿunfuwān dhālik al-wabā'), and many of them died" (recto, lines 42–44); then, twice more, the writers emphasize their great expenses caring for those who have survived but are still sick, who need not only food and clothing but medicines and syrups (recto, lines 53–55 and right margin 19–20). There are notes by the writers and forwarders of the letter in the right margin on verso, including Yehayyahu ha-Kohen b. Maṣliaḥ, David b. Shelomo and Ḥanina b. Manṣūr b. ʿUbayd. See DK 242 + T-S AS 146.3 for a letter written one year earlier from the Rabbanites of Fustat to the Rabbanites of Ashqelon, also having to do with the campaign for the ransoming of captives. (Information CUDL and from Goldman, "Arabic-Speaking Jews of Crusader Syria" (PhD diss., 2018), 49–58. See also Goitein, Med Soc 5:537; Goitein, "New Sources on the Fate of the Jews during the Crusaders' Conquest of Jerusalem" (Heb.) Zion, 17 (1952), 136; Goitein, Palestinian Jewry, pp. 241-242; and Goitein's notes attached to Bodl. MS Heb d 11/7 (page 9f). ASE/MR

Letter and bills from Sicily, probably to Yosef b. Ya’aqov b. Awkal, Fustat. Some of the bills are directed to b. Awkal for washing fabrics, and it seems like the other bills and the letter are addressed to him as well. Mentions selling linen and indigo in Palermo. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 2, #201) VMR

Complete letter by Mubarak b. Yiṣḥaq b. Sabri to Abu al-Faraj Nissim complaining about a business issue and urging a prompt response to his letter.

Draft of a halakhic question. (Information from CUDL)

Complete letter to Abu Zikri, who is hailed as 'brother' by the writer, discussing a business dispute in a past partnership between the two. (Information from Goitein's index cards)

Recto: letter from Fusṭāṭ, dated 15th Shevaṭ 5505 (= 1745 CE), describing the appointment of Joseph ha-Levi as cantor and minister at the Karaite synagogue. Signed by Elihu Ḥassūn, Moses Shalom, and Shemuʾel Naʿīm. Verso: brief text in Judaeo-Arabic concerning this same Joseph ha-Levi. (Information from CUDL)

Letter from Bnaya b. Musa, from Tinnis, to Nissim b. Ḥalfon, Fustat. 1046. The writer mentions the information that the lacquer is not sold in Tinnis. In addition, he mentions the drought in the Delta region and that it is not possible to get bread there. The writer calls the addressee “my father” but it seems (because of the name) that he is his step father or a relative, maybe a cousin that is much older than him. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 3, #601) VMR

Fragment of an unfinished calligraphic letter including an order for wheat and wine. Dated ca. 1210. (Information from Mediterranean Society, IV, pp. 435-436)

Letter from Natan b. Yehuda of Alexandria to Sasson b. Meshullam, a judge of Cairo. The letter contains many personal matters that reflect the milieu of the political elite in Alexandria and Cairo. The letter reveals important details on the life of Avraham b. Yaʿaqov Darʿī. On al-Darʿī's deathbed, he accused the writer of having sent a messenger to intercept a medical prescription and swap it with a counterfeit prescription, hence murdering him. Apparently, the person who served as the representative of Mevorakh b. Saadya (referred to in the letter as 'the rayyis Abū l-Faḍl) in Alexandria after the year 1094 died in the end of the first decade of the twelfth century due to a sudden disease. The letter quotes a lament of Shemuel ha-Nagid. (Information from Frenkel)

Letter by a man to his brother in Fustat whom he informs about the attempted delivery of 38 dirhams of his (brother's) money to a certain Tahir who, however, was not to be found.

Letter from Abu al-Nasr b. al-Melammed mentioning the impending divorce of his nephew and niece. Abu al-Nasr describes himself as suffering 'dispersion and separation from family and friends' after he traveled from Fustat to Alexandria, where he hoped his mother would join him. He adds that he will spread the fame of his benefactor at warehouses and social gatherings. He also writes that his wife refused to return with him to Alexandria after he had had to flee to and spend some time in Fustat after having gone bankrupt in Alexandria. He now wants to divorce her unless the recipient can restore peace between them. Finally he remarks that he wants to pay the capitation tax.