Geniza Lab

Letter from Raqqah (Syria) to Fustat. May 1197. The writer stayed in Fustat in the past. He sends his greetings to Maimonides and several other people in the city. It seems like he is a poet and a person who copies books. Mentions his desire to return to Fustat but because of his work he cannot. He was expecting to receive several books from Aleppo and other places but only one of them arrived. The writer is a clothing merchant as well and has contacts with the people in Aleppo and Damascus. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 2, #90) VMR

Private letter from Raqqa to Moses Maimonides (?). Letter from Raqqah (Syria) to Fustat. May 1197. The writer stayed in Fustat in the past. He laments the lack of intellectual life in Raqqa, and is determined to return to Fustat once his business in Raqqa has furnished sufficient profit. Halakhic questions had been addressed to Yosef, and then to Shemuel and Avraham in Aleppo, and Shemuel had come to Raqqa with a commentary on Berakot. Various business matters are also discussed, involving ʿEli, and also Abu l-Zuhd in Damascus, as well as the recipient. He sends his greetings to Maimonides and several other people in the city. It seems like he is a poet and a person who copies books. Mentions his desire to return to Fustat but because of his work he cannot. He was expecting to receive several books from Aleppo and other places but only one of them arrived. The writer is a clothing merchant as well and has contacts with the people in Aleppo and Damascus. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 2, #90 and CUDL) VMR

Report from a man called only "al-nāʾib" (the deputy), in Malīj, to the Nagid Shemuel b. Ḥananya (in office 1140–59), in Fustat/Cairo. In Judaeo-Arabic. Concerning Ṣāliḥ b. Abū l-Khayr, a man from Malīj who had been robbed by bandits on his way to Cairo, in between a town called Dijwa (likely present-day دجوي just south of Banha) and a town called Kharāb (?! "ruin"). But he managed to conceal some of his possessions from the bandits. He slept in Dijwa and then wen to Kharāb and complained to the local nāʾib that he had been robbed on the land of the town. He made the error of showing the goods that he still had with him as evidence of his claim that the rest had been stolen. The nāʾib assigned him two escorts, who killed him and his donkey as soon as they left the town. The people of the town told this to his children. The nāʾib has acknowledged that he received Ṣāliḥ in his town, in the majlis of the deputy of the Ṣāḥib al-Ḥarb of al-Sharqiyya province. The report ends after a few more faded lines, with a version of a raʾy clause; evidently the Nagid Shemuel is expected to intervene and achieve some kind of justice for the heirs. (Information in part from CUDL and Goitein's index card.)

Letter from Shelomo b. Yehuda to Nethanel Ha-Levi b. Ḥalfon, Fustat, 1045 C.E.

Letter from Ṭoviyya b. Daniel (as far as the first few words of line 31) and the Gaʾon Shelomo b. Yehuda (from the remainder of line 31, as well as line 30, inserted between lines 29 and 31 in minute script), on behalf of the academy, in Ramla, regarding the imprisonment and subsequent release of "our ḥaver who had been ordained in our academy’, (probably Efrayim b. Shemarya). Dating: ca. 1030. The ḥaver and some colleagues had been falsely charged, apparently by rivals within the Shāmī Rabbanite congregation in Fusṭāṭ, but the intervention of the Sahl, Saʿadya, and Yosef b. Yisraʾel al-Tustarī and Abū Naṣr David ha-Levi b. Isḥāq caused the governor to investigate and dismiss the charges. The faʾon led prayers of thanksgiving in Ramla, mentioning both the caliph and his governor, and has arranged for the same to be done in Jerusalem. He urges the leaders of the Rabbanite community in Fusṭāṭ to strive for peace. (Information from CUDL) Letter in Arabic script on verso (as catalogued); see separate entry.

Business letter in Arabic script from an unknown trader, possibly to Nahray b. Nissim (Aodeh), on the back of a letter in Hebrew script (see separate entry).

Letter from ʿIwaḍ to Peraḥya the judge. In Judaeo-Arabic and Hebrew, with the address in Arabic script and Hebrew. Written on a very long strip of paper, for which the writer asks forgiveness, because time was tight and the matter was urgent. The writer reports that Ibn al-Yamanī rejected the authority of Avraham Maimonides, while he himself vigorously defended the Nagid. The writer gives a blow by blow report of his argument with Ibn al-Yamanī. The writer adds that the ḥaver R. Eliezer was sick (mutamarriḍ) at the time the letter was written (or: at the time he wrote his letter). Eliezer is upset at Peraḥya for failing to respond to his letter or to send him Isaac Israeli's Book on Fevers. (Information in part from S. D. Goitein, The Yemenites, 125–29.) VMR. ASE.

Letter from Natan Ha-Kohen b. Mevorakh, Ashkelon, to Eli Ha-Kohen b. Hayyim, Fustat.

Letter (draft) from Elḥanan b. Shemarya, in Fusṭāṭ, to the Babylonian congregation in Damascus, sending greetings as part of his efforts to raise funds for his school in Fusṭāṭ, adding that a new law forbids them from approaching the Caliph for assistance. The writer also mentions that his son-in-law drowned while away on a commercial voyage and his widowed daughter remains in Qayrawān, pregnant and impoverished. Verso: Letter, from Elḥanan b. Shemarya, in Fusṭāṭ, to three notables in the Jewish community in Damascus, Avraham, Shemuʾel ha-Kohen, and Efrayim, sending greetings, apparently as part of fundraising for his school in Fusṭāṭ. (Information from CUDL)

Yiṣḥaq Nisaburi writes from Alexandria a letter to the Na'ib, Sadaqa b. Yahya in Fustat. He writes about a partnership in a boat and about an alarming governmental decree regarding the inheritance of foreign Jews who passed away in Alexandria. The second decade of the Twelfth Century, according to the names mentioned in the letter. (Information from Frenkel)

Part of a poorly preserved letter, written with widely-spaced lines in an elegant square hand and ornate language, probably the work of a Palestinian gaʾon. Perhaps a letter of recommendation for an emissary. (Information from CUDL)

Detailed letter of Khalaf b. Yiṣḥaq to Ibn Yiju, India, Aden, probably 1140 [1139].

Letter (large but fragmentary) from Khalaf b. Yiṣḥaq in Aden to Avraham Ibn Yiju, around 1139-1140. The letter is written in the hand of Shemuel b. Moshe b. Eleazar. The letter contains information about their commercial ventures.

Letter from Khalaf b. Yiṣḥaq to a merchant in Egypt: Attack on Aden by the King of Kish. Aden, ca. 1135-6.

Recto: part of a poorly preserved letter, apparently from the first decade of the 11th century, to Joseph b. Berekhya, representative of the Jerusalem yeshiva in the Maghreb, sending greetings to Nathan ‘Head of the Congregations’, and also to his son Abraham (who would later become the first Nagid in the Maghreb), and also Ṣaliḥ b. Barhūn Tahertī, brother-in-law of the recipient, as well as Furayj. It urges action to be taken by the Jewish communities in the Maghreb regarding a collection for the Jerusalem yeshiva and Joseph Ibn ʿAwkal’s stewardship of the funds. There is also mention of a legal claim involving Abraham b. Shaul Abī Nathan Av Bet Din. Verso: fragment from an unrelated Arabic text. (Information from CUDL)

Business letter, from Jacob to Nathan ha-Kohen. (Information from CUDL)

No. 1: Letter of condolence from a Gaon on the death of the addressee's son. (Bamerkazim, pp. 69-72); No. 2: Copy of a letter from Hayya Gaon to Qayrawan, probably to Ya’aqov b. Nissim. The original letter was written in August 11, 1006. Handwriting of Shemarya b. Elhanan. The Gaon writes to the Yeshiva and asks to copy letters and send them to other communities in the Maghreb. (Information from Gil, Kingdom, Vol. 2, #37) VMR. In No. 1, T-S 20.100 begins at end of verso line 22. No. 2 begins with T-S 20.100 and continues on T-S 10G5.8 on line 53.

Letter from Shelomo b. Yehuda to Efrayim b. Shemarya, probably summer 1029.

Statute (‘taqqana’) about the conduct of two slaughter houses, one at the Great Bazaar and one at the Bath of the Mice, issued by a committee of seven individuals elected by the community. The document records the decision to appoint Yefet b. David to be cantor and the supervisor of the slaughter instead of his father, who had passed away. Yefet will be responsible for these two markets in Fustat where ritually pure meat was available, and must send one-half of the weekly income to Yoshiyahu, the Gaon and head of the Yeshiva in Jerusalem. Goitein dates the document to after 1024. (Information from Gil, Palestine, vol. 2, 583-585, #319; Goitein, “The Social Services of the Jewish Community as Reflected in the Cairo Geniza Records” Jewish Social Studies (1964), 10; and Goitein’s index cards) VMR and EMS

Poem on the occasion of a marriage, followed by a letter from Shelah b. Nahoum, probably from Tyre, to Abu al-Khair Efrayim ca. 1085, which continues on verso. (Information from CUDL)