Geniza Lab

Karaite bill of debt. Not complete and lacking the date.

Karaite testimony about a debt incur by a person to the poor.

On recto a legal deed regarding immovable property dated Thursday 2nd Kislev 5476 (1736). On verso two other legal documents, one regarding orphans and the other one declaration on payment of a debt.

Karaite bill of release

Karaite bill of sale.

Part of a Karaite legal document concerning orphans

Karaite court record.

Karaite partnership agreement in cheese producing.

Karaite Bill of debt

Karaite bill of debt.

Karaite agreement. No date preserved

Karaite instruction for writing a ketubah.

Page from a book of legal formulas of a marriage contract by a proxy probably from Siddur R. Nathan if Sijilmasa. Written by Shelomo b. Shemuel b. Sa'adya (mid 13th century). AA

A long agreement of financial claims.

Bifolium with four pages. First page: Legal record in Judaeo-Arabic. No signatures. Mentions the government (sulṭān). Dated Jumāda II 488 Hijri = 1095 CE. Second page: Legal record in Arabic script. Signed by the scribe Ḥasan b. [.]liyā(?). Mentions a jamāʿa. . . a monthly payment. . . al-ḥāra al-mutawajjiha maʿrūfa bi-l-waqf al-Mufawwīḍ(?). Needs examination.

Letter, or rather a legal query, from [...] ha-Kohen b. Avraham to a communal authority addressed as 'exilarch.' In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: Unknown, perhaps 13th or 14th century. This very long letter conveys the tale of a legal dispute involving a codex, a pawn, and a debt. The writer details his travails with various adversaries and his imprisonment at the order of the Muslim court and the physical violence that came to pass. He wants the addressee to make a judgment in this case and exert his authority to help secure the writer's rights. Needs much more examination.

Legal document. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dated: Wednesday, 15 Elul 1648 Seleucid = Muharram 738 Hijri, which is 1337 CE. Ṣafiyy b. Ibrāhīm al-Ḥazzān accepts a 10 year contract to serve as communal slaughterer (specifically for fowls) and as cantor in the Dār b. Sameaḥ (=Dār Simḥa) Qaraite synagogue for a salary of 5 dirhams nuqra a month. There are three witnesses. This may be the earliest dated document pertaining to the Dar Simḥa synagogue.

Legal document related to a divorce. Dated: Thursday 12 Tammuz 5537 AM, which is 1777 CE. Husband: Raḥamim Levi Ḥazzan b. Naḥum Levi Qayyim. Wife: Qamr bt. Seʿadya Levi Qayyim. The grounds for divorce: She is wicked and vulgar (לאנהא רשעה קלילת אלאדב). He claims, and his neighbors attest, that she does not speak to him or respect him but only insults him and curses his ancestors. This is not the way of respectable Jewish women, but rather the way of the women who are fājirāt, al-khārijāt ʿan ṭarīq al-ḥaqq. Because the court accepts this testimony, she will not receive the delayed marriage payment. On verso there are piyyutim.

Legal document. In Hebrew. Dated: Wednesday, 23 Tammuz 1837 Seleucid = 932 Hijri, which is 1526 CE. It lays out the settlement of at least one marital dispute in great detail. The protagonists include Sulaymān b. Dā'ūd b. Hārūn al-Maghribī and his daughter [...] the wife of Isḥāq b. Sulaymān b. Yūsuf known as al-Ḥaqqān ("the enema giver"), and a host of further characters. Needs further examination.

Legal document. In Hebrew. Dated: 13 Shevat 5501 AM, which is 1741 CE. Scribed and signed by Eliyyahu Rofe Ḥazan known as Ẓaʿir. The document has to do with the inheritance of the late Moshe Rofe Ẓaʿir and how it will be divided between his sons Eliyyahu Rofe and Yeshuʿa Rofe.