Geniza Lab

Letter draft. In Hebrew. Full of fulsome praises for a very important person who is also a Kohen. Refers specifically to Benei Ṣadoq, so perhaps also a Qaraite? There is also some Arabic script at the top of recto.

Letter from Shemarya b. David to a prominent Egyptian Jew. Aden, late twelfth century.

Document in striking red ink. Appears to have the form of a letter (opens with "that which you desire to know:") but consists of a long list of materia medica and numbers. Perhaps an inventory of a drug store?

Petition in Judaeo-Arabic to help Thābit al-Hazzan b. al-Munajjim, who was ill and had been imprisoned for two months for not paying his capitation tax. (Information from Goitein's note card)

Fragment of a letter from Shelomo b. Yehuda to an unidentified personality, 1042.

Most of a letter in Judaeo-Arabic. The writer assures his mother that he is doing well and tells her not to weep for him. He then gives orders for what should be sent to him with his maternal uncle: sums of money and goods to be collected from various individuals who are named. Only the beginnings of the lines remain on the bottom half; he refers to someone who is sick (fa-innahu wajīʿ). He sends his regards to his maternal aunts and to the wife of his paternal uncle and the whole family. He adds a postscript: "I have sent you several letters. Please ensure they reach aṣḥābunā, and read the "communal letter" (kitāb al-jamāʿah) to them on Shabbat."

Beginning of a draft petition from a woman. After ca. 1120 (includes taqbīl clause).

Recto: letter to Abū l-Ṭāhir (?). Verso: recipes featuring cheese, lemon, meat, fish, and chicken. (Information from CUDL)

Late and unusual letter in Judaeo-Arabic to the writer's brother Faraj Allāh. The writer opens with greetings to a large number of family members and friends. He has sent 5 chickens, a pair of pigeons, blue and white yarn, white buttons, and colored silk. Faraj Allāh is instructed to sell these only to Jews in the ḥārah, not to any goyim. The people greeted at the beginning (after the brother Faraj Allāh) include: the writer's sister; the boy Manṣūr and the boy Yūsuf; the writer's maternal aunt; the teacher Shemuel; the boy Faraj Allāh; the (female) teacher Qamr; the (female) teacher Sawād; Umm Sulaymān and her daughter ʿAzīzah; the son and wife of his maternal uncle; the neighbors; Manṣūr Dayyān and his mother and wife and children.

Letter of appeal in the name of an old woman, whose mantle was stolen while she was about to wash it in the Nile, asking the community in a well-styled address to help her to buy at least a large shawl. She emphasizes her age and frailty and eye disease as the reason why she cannot help herself. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, pp. 170, 500.) ASE.

Letter from a Byzantine silk dyer to the elder al-Najib Ezra in Fustat, detailing that the writer is afflicted by severe agony (al-ʿadhāb al-shadīd) after having been tortured and his children seized as a security. He had allegedly spoiled some previous silk garments, and asks Ezra al-Najib to help in reclaiming his children. (Information partly from Goitein’s index cards.) EMS. Verso also contains the draft of the beginning of a family letter in rudimentary handwriting, in which the writer defenes himself against his brother's rebukes. ASE.

An interesting letter in rhymed Hebrew prose, with one line of Judaeo-Arabic, spanning 4 leafs (7 pages). It opens with a blazon of a certain person's beautiful features (arched eyebrows as if inscribed by a pen, temples and cheeks like scorpions that sting the heart of all who behold them, etc.). The addressee seems to be named in the last line of Image 6: "his name is Avram and Avraham is his father, like Elʿazar purifying with animals' blood," i.e., they are Kohanim. The writer asks several times for a letter and then for an ambiguous favor "based on the convenant between you and me [made] on Shabbat Teruma." He says he always asks seafarers for news ot he addressee. Then, "Write to Daniel your servant on the day he goes (or: you go) down to the city of און בימה (Heliopolis?) / To accompany a brother as he travels to Spain, and your slave to 'Sin' of the West (? סין שבימה)." Information largely from FGP. Merits further examination.

Beginning of a letter from Daniel b. Azarya Gaon or David b. Daniel to a community, ca. 1092. NB: The shelfmark has since changed, and it will take some work to find the current shelfmark.

A letter to Damietta concerning a teacher. NB: The shelfmark has since changed, and it will take some work to find the current shelfmark. Mentioned Med Soc V, X, a, I, n. 6 (p. 505).

Letter from Hillel Ha-Ḥaver b. Yeshu'a Ha-Hazzan, Tiberias, to Sahlan b. Avraham in Fustat, end of 1034. NB: The shelfmark has changed, and it will take some work to find the new one. Possibly DK M69, which is not available on FGP.

Letter from Avraham b. Shelomo b. Yehuda perhaps to Efrayim b. Shemarya. In Hebrew. Complains about a Coptic kātib (הסופר הערל, lit. "the uncircumcised scribe") and how "the Ishmaelites and the Qedarites" are demanding a heavy burden of taxes. He asks for help for the sake of the synagogues. The response should be secret and the kātib must not find out. NB: This does not seem to be the correct shelfmark, as DK 123 on FGP does not correspond to this document. The good news is that there is a photograph of the fragment in Scheiber, Acta Orientalia (Hung.), 27 (1973), p. 328.

A cantor orders a religious poem in which each stanza concludes with a biblical quotation which has as its last word "God," such as Numbers 23:27 or Exodus 1:17. He asks to get it well in time, as he was not any more as good in memorizing as he had been previously. At the head, the first two words of a poem by Judah ha-Levi. Possibly he needed the poem for a circumcision, given the biblical verse specifically alluding to midwives. Information from Goitein's note card. NB: The shelfmark has since changed, and it will take some investigation to find the current shelfmark. Goitein's transcription linked below is actually of DK 238.5 (Alt: XVI) = PGPID 9285.

Bottom part of a letter from the cantor Yiṣḥaq b. Avraham ha-Levi. In Hebrew. Dating: 12th century? Conveying gratitude to many people by name. See bibliography on FGP for potential identifications of the sender.

Letter and panegyric from a certain Khalfūn to the Nagid. The poet's name is spelled in an acrostic in the last 5 words of the poem. Alexander Scheiber argued in 1960 (based purely on internal evidence) that the poet was [Yiṣḥaq Ibn] Khalfūn and the addressee Shemuel ha-Nagid. The note underneath the poem starts, "And seeing as my poetic inspiration (qarīḥa) has died due to all my worries and has not managed to make something worthy of our master the Nagid..." and concludes with best wishes for the holiday of Purim.

Letter from Eliyyahu Ha-kohen b. Shelomo Gaon, to Ḥalfon b. Shelomo. Note that verso has been reused for a (literary?) Hebrew tex