Geniza Lab

Letter from a Sicilian who had come to Egypt in order to study with Moses Maimonides and with Yiṣḥaq b. Sasson. Despite his long sojourn in the place where his children were born and died, he could not bear the hot climate. He expresses his wish to return to his hometown, Messina, where his learned father lived. (Information from Mediterranean Society, V, p. 101)

Letter to Abū Saʿd b. al-Khāzin. In Judaeo-Arabic. Fragment, left third only. Contains an eloquent opening and mentions the synagogue, difficult circumstances, Ibn al-Shāmī, and Abū Ayyūb. Information from Goitein's note card.

Letter segment concerning some legal issues with the signature of Shemarya. The first concerns Nissim al-Iskandarani who has entered into a business partnership with an unnamed woman. Mention is also made of Shemarya’s school. Greetings are sent at the end to Yosef b. Salim. (Information from CUDL)

Letter from an unidentified writer to Eliyyahu the Judge. In Judaeo-Arabic. The writer conveys condolences for a death in the family of Eliyyahu (r6–9). He says that the blow is even harder to bear than his own trials with the sick woman (al-ṣaghīra) in his household. The rest of the letter is about this woman. (Motzkin identifies her with Eliyyahu's daughter-in-law Sitt Ghazāl, but he does not explain why.) The writer asks Eliyyahu to obtain a medical consultation with the Rayyis (Avraham Maimonides?) concerning the patient. The writer provides a detailed, albeit cryptic, account of her problems (r15–v1). First she withdrew from mingling with people (inʿazalat ʿan al-khalṭa—unless this refers to a khilṭ/humor) and remained either silent (sākita) or with some altered mental status (sābita). Those around her attributed this to the wakham (bad air/epidemic) and to her pregnancy. But in the fifth month of her pregnancy, she was afflicted with "dullness of mind (balādat khāṭir), irritability (ḍajar), confusion (taḥayyur), and disorientation (taghayyub)." The family members refrained from giving her any medicine to drink on account of the pregnancy. Finally, God had mercy and she gave birth. (Motzkin understood this as a miscarriage, but the letter does not. She could just as well have carried the fetus to term and given birth to a live child.) But, the writer continues, her situation is still unstable, and they anxiously await Eliyyahu's response with the Rayyis's advice. ASE

Recto: Letter (upper part). Line 7: "As for the matter of the [..]ar, I asked Abu l-Ḥasan about it, and he said that he talked to Yusuf who went to the mistress of the nursing (or wet nurse) slave," who apparently demanded an exorbitant price for her ("she is worth half of these figures"). As for Tawfiq, he had a terrible quarrel with his maternal aunt. She arrived on the same Shabbat as the son of the judge. After the unpleasant events, she went to stay with Abu l-Ḥasan, but she cannot stay there "because of what you know about the women [of the household]." "As for Ḥujrah [another female slave?], it is not possible to [...] to her while her masters are absent." He encourages the addressee or Abu l-Barakat to come soon. The letter cuts off around here. Verso: writing exercises. ASE.

Letter addressed to Abū l-Faraj b. al-Rayyis (=Eliyyahu the Judge?). In Judaeo-Arabic. Regarding a certain Abū l-Bayān al-L[evi?] (=Moshe b. Levi ha-Levi?). Apparently Abū l-Bayān recently arrived in the sender's town (al-baladiyya). He has been working for a teacher (mushtaghil ʿinda muʿallim) and staying with the sender (nāzil ʿindī fī l-bayt). But he seems to have acted in a bad way, spurning the sender's favor and causing pain to everyone (...faḍlī ʿalayhi li-anna ḥasala lana minhu alam...). (This sentence might also mean the opposite, if it actually reads "uns" instead of "alam.") Someone mentioned to someone that the shop was in need of "someone like him." Abū l-Bayān consulted the sender on this matter, who told him that it would be better to go back to his own town, but Abū l-Bayān said that he couldn't do that "for various reasons." The sender now asks the addressee to employ this man. Goitein translates the next bit, "As long as this wheel [of fortune] turns, nothing remains in its accustomed state, except for one to whom God grants a respite. May the Creator spare you and me the hostilities of Time and its vicissitudes, and may he not let us taste, or even see again, anything like that we have gone through and may he accept it [what we have gone through] as an atonement for our sins" (Goitein, Med Soc V, 48). The sender greets the young men (the addressee's sons? but Eliyyahu did not have sons by these names) Abū l-Najm(?) and "the noble branch" (al-farʿ al-najīb) Abu ʿUmar or Abū ʿImrān. In the margin he asks the addressee to convey his regards to Sayyidnā A[vraham? ha-. . .] ha-Gadol. ASE.

Letter (commercial-family) written from Fustat to a brother residing in Alexandria. The letter is from the beginning of the twelfth century. (Information from Frenkel. See additional information in Goitein, Med. Soc. 1:201)

Business letter by a young Spanish merchant writing from Fez to his father in Almeria, Spain, revealing that he preferred not to use his father's house in Fez but to stay with friends instead in order to be able to declare his merchandise as destined for a local merchant. (Information from Mediterranean Society, I, pp. 61-62 and Goitein's translation, attached.) After he was forced to pay the governor (qā'id) and customs inspector (mutawalli al-ʿushūr) and sundry others, "I was sick for three days out of anger and sorrow. Had I possessed here the same courage as I usually have in Almeria, I would have escaped with less than this. But I consoled myself with the solace of one who has no choice."

Letter to the son/boy R. Elazar, from Yusuf the brother of Mansur. About three-fourths of recto is taken up with self-pitying expressions of how sad and anxious Yusuf is to have received only one letter from Elazar, and how he will die in his distress and old age, and how a letter would heal his heart, and how hard it is to see other children with their parents. The subject of the letter is damaged. It mentions someone or something in the house of Rabbi Yusuf the brother of Musa, the addressee's in-law. Istanbul is mentioned (so post-1453? the language and script also support a late date). The economy is depressed. The writer sends regards to his wife and to his son. "If you ask about me, I am in good health. . . . From the day I got off the boat at Bulak (בולאך?!), I have been well." He sends regards to a long list of people at the end, including Ya'qub and his son; a Jerusalemite woman and a female teacher (Hanna?) and her son; the physician Pinhas; Yehudah Karat (?); everyone who asks about him; everyone in his family and their wives. ASE.

Recto: letter by the Palestinian Gaʾon Daniel b. ʿAzariah to the head of the Palestinian congregation in Fusṭāṭ , ʿEli b. ʿAmram, concerning ‘what was collected [from the] market’ (i.e., the proceeds of slaughter) from the beginning of Elul to the end of Kislev. Mention is made of Ṣemaḥ ‘our scribe’ (ספרא דילנא). It closes with his ʿalāma, ישועה, and Daniel signs (in a different ink): Daniel ha-Nasi Rosh Yeshivat Geʾon Yaʿaqov. Verso: probably the draft of a sermon, quoting Isaiah 21:12, different hand and ink. (Information from CUDL)

Recto: Letter from the Palestinian Gaon, Daniel b. Azarya (1051-1062), to the head of the Palestinian congragation in Fustat, Eli b. Amram, concerning ‘what was collected [from the] market’ (i.e., the proceeds of slaughter) from the beginning of Elul to the end of Kislev. Verso: Probably the draft of a sermon, quoting Isaiah 21:12, different hand and ink.

Letter to the judge Natan (b. Shelomo?) ha-Kohen (he-ḥaver ha-meʿulle ha-dayyan ha-maskil bet din hagun...). In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: ca. 12th century. Goitein's index card suggests that the sender could be the addressee's cousin Ṭoviyya b. ʿEli—but the handwriting is not Ṭoviyya's. The purpose of the letter is to ask for help on behalf of the bearer, formerly the tax farmer (ḍāmin) of 'the freight (nawl) of [...]' in Shubrā Damsīs. This man left the city years ago, and he was targeted by his creditors when he returned. The case seems tangled and involves Salāma Ibn al-Muʿallim, 33 dirhams, Barakāt al-Dimashqī, outstanding debts to the diwan, and 3 dinars. (See Goitein's attached notes for his attempt to sort out the details.) The addressee is asked to help the bearer approach 'Sayyidnā' for help. The sender says "there is benefit for us in this" (wa-lanā bihi nafʿ). (The same phrase, incidentally, appears as a Judaeo-Arabic marginal annotation in an Arabic-script document from 1507 CE—D. S. Richards, "Arabic Documents from the Karaite Community in Cairo," doc. XV.) The sender also refers to a woman who is "naked and lacking everything," perhaps a family member of the ex-ḍāmin. ASE

Recto: Bottom of a letter in Judaeo-Arabic. With several expressions of deference and petition-like language. Might be a request for a loan of 2 dinars which the sender needs for his travel expenses in Alexandria and Malīj; he will send the money back from Malīj to Fustat. Verso: Top of a letter in Arabic script. Addressed to two maternal uncles, possibly (mawālayya al-akhwāl(?) aṭāla allāh baqāhamā). The sender tells them that they left at a good time ("in a blessed hour") and that Kalil al-Kassār (the woodcutter) stayed in the shop into the night, and nobody came, and eventually Abū Saʿīd ('your cousin,' ibn khālkum) came home. The old woman said to him, 'Go to the shop and tell Kalīl to lock it up.' The continuation is fragmentary and difficult to follow.

Recto: Letter in Arabic to a certain Amīr [...] al-Dawla wa-[...]hā, perhaps reporting on business setbacks. The body of the letter begins in line 6 after the space. The writer may be discussing wool (al-ṣūf) and the wool merchants (al-ṣawwāfīn) in the margin. Verso: An unusual Judaeo-Arabic composition, giving recipes and instructions, purpose unclear. Perhaps for detergents and/or dyes and/or bleaches. ASE.

Recto: Letter fragment in Arabic, mentioning Cairo, witnesses, a document (wathīqa). In between the lines of recto, and on verso: Probably a Hebrew letter, in the hand of Efrayim b. Shemarya, discussing a document that may or may not have been in the handwriting of a Gaon, and his quarrel with someone who was wrongly trying to take money from the fund for the orphans. Needs further examination. ASE.

Recto: Letter fragment from Daniel b. Azarya, probably to Eli b. Amram, Fustat. Mentions the Gaon's opposition to Yefet b. David b. Shekhanya. (Information from Gil, Palestine, vol. 2 p. 625, #342) VMR

Letter from a woman to the Head of the Jews, in Fustat. Dating: Early twelfth century (see explanation below). The writer asks the addressee to send her money for two orphan sisters whose care she was reluctantly supervising. The girls were ten and thirteen years old and had no relatives to take care of them, and nothing to live on. They had been allotted two dinars from communal charity funds, but for some reason (the letter is torn here, and parts are missing) the money had not actually been sent; without it, they had "only enough for a crust of bread." A childless widow who lived nearby had volunteered to teach them embroidery, and the letter's narrator was willing to check in on them once in a while. But she refused to take them into her household, even though the girls themselves wanted her to: "They constantly tell me, 'We want to come to you so that you can take care of us.' She asked the Head of the Jews instead to provide the two dinars that the girls had been promised, along with extra funds to rent them a living space and to hire a religious steacher who could "teach them prayer, so they will not grow up like animals, not knowing shemaʿ yisra'el." Eve Krakowski, Coming of Age in Medieval Egypt, p.1. Regarding the date: "The time of the document can be defined approximately by the mention of al-haver Ibn al-Kāmukhi, the member of the yeshiva bearing a family name derived from the profession of kāmukhī, preparer of preserves with vinegar sauce. Two such persons are known, onel iving at the time of the Nagid Mevorakh, around 1095, and another during the incumbency of the Nagid Shemuel b. Ḥananya around 1145. The script of the letter would fit either of the two dates, better perhaps the latter." Goitein, "Side Lights on Jewish Education," p. 88 (doc. 3).

Letter from a woman, probably in Alexandria, to her paternal uncle. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: ca. 1030 CE. The writer's family, a family of merchants that had emigrated from the Maghreb, has been left without any males (l. 9) after the death of both the writer’s father (l. 3) and grandfather (l. 4). The writer describes the wretched state of the family. She fears that her mother will fall sick from severe grief: "she has no eye or body left," and she is either literally or practically fainting from her excessive weeping (ll. 6–7). They are worried that their property will be confiscated when the government finds out that there is no man in the family. She appeals to the uncle to help them. Despite the difficulties, she also mentions that the family has received a shipment of merchandise. On verso there is incidentally a note in Judaeo-Arabic about the hafara for Ha'azinu (but no address or continuation of the letter on recto). (Information in part from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 2, #227.) VMR. ASE.

Recto: Letter (or copy of a letter) in Hebrew, mentioning Hamadan in the antepenultimate line, and perhaps written there. The scribe signed his name, but the first part is faded: [...] b. Yiṣḥaq ha-Sefaradi. Underneath the signature, in different hands, in Judaeo-Persian and Hebrew: "The copy of the letter (nāme) of Efrayim [...], written by Toviyya b. [...]."; "The copy of the letter (nāme) of Efrayim b. ʿAzaryahu with nothing added or subtracted, written by Bū l-Faraj b. B[???]"; And then, "This is the copy of the letter (īn noskhe-ye nāme) of Efrayim. . . ." It is unclear if these statements relate to the letter above signed by [...] b. Yiṣḥaq ha-Sefaradi. Verso: In a different hand from all the hands on recto, a text in Hebrew. Unclear if it relates to recto. The whole document requires further examination. May be a join with T-S 24.52. ASE. OH.

Letter in Judaeo-Arabic. Possibly sent from Alexandria to an unidentified dignitary in Fustat (though Goitein suggests that the sender is in Fustat and the addressee in Alexandria.) The sender asks the addressee to continue visiting him as his late father ('al-ḥaver') and paternal uncle used to do. He heard that the addressee wanted to be in Fustat for the 9th of Av. The messenger reported to the sender that 18.5 dinars have been raised for the redemption of captives (Goitein apparently understood it differently, that the sender gave 18.5 dinars to the messenger). The sender has sent another letter either on behalf of or intended for (bi-rasm) Sayyidnā; the addressee is asked to deliver it. The margins of recto and the entirety of verso are filled with a list of names and numbers in tiny Arabic script and Greek/Coptic numerals—needs examination. (Information in part from Goitein’s index card.)