Geniza Lab

Letter in a mixture of Ladino and Hebrew. Needs examination.

Letter from Mūsā b. Abū [...] to an unknown addressee (c/o a certain Turjumān). In Judaeo-Arabic, with the address in both Judaeo-Arabic and Arabic script. The content is difficult to decipher. There are at least three further fragments under this shelfmark, one of which may even belong together with the main fragment

Letter, upper left corner only, containing half of the first six lines of recto and verso. Distinctive handwriting. ASE.

Letter fragment. In Judaeo-Arabic. Too damaged to extract much of the content.

Letter fragment in Arabic script. Mentions "his pure intention with me, in the document/petition" (من نيته الخالصة لي في الرقعة) and then "... the document/petition to your noble presence..." (الرقعة الى جلال حضرته) and then "if God makes our meeting successful..." (وان وفق الله اجتماعنا). Reused on recto for literary/liturgical text in Hebrew. Needs further examination.

Recto: Letter of appeal for charity. In Hebrew. Dating: late, probably 18th or 19th century. Addressed to the judge Moshe Anhori (or Ankori?) and a person whose name is too faded to read and ʿEzra. The writer explains that he has no work except for the Torah, and he would be eager to read the Torah or teach children or serve as shammash in the addressees' yeshiva. R. Moshe ha-Kohen will vouch for the writer. On verso there are pen trials.

Letterbook in Judaeo-Arabic (fragment) likely eighteenth- or nineteenth-century that contains drafts and possibly copies of business-related correspondence. The letters frequently use the phrase "יא אכי/ O my brother" which implies the possibility that this was business correspondence between brothers (l. 1v, 6v, 14v, 7-8r, 12r). On the recto, the same letter is practiced five times and discusses maritime trade in Beiruti silk where the coinage is silver reales. The spelling shifts between the instances of "אל רייס מחמד" and "אל ריס מחמד" (l. 5-6r, 11r, etc.) yet it seems possible that this could be referencing "the captain Muḥammed" of the maritime vessel "מרכב" mentioned in each draft (l. 2r, 8r, etc.). In the closing of each draft the phrase "נרסלהם לכם צוחבתו ושלום" appears which is drawing on the Ottoman Turkish "ṣohbet" or "friendly conversation" (l. 6r, 11r, etc.). On the verso, there is more evidence of drafting with the repeated phrase "בית אל קונסול וטאלבהם" (l. 3v, 8v, etc.) but the epistolary passages vary in length and content ("בית אל קונסול" is likely a reference to European consuls in the Ottoman empire). Date: 18th c or 19th c. MCD.

Letterbook in Judaeo-Arabic (fragment) likely eighteenth- or ninteenth-century that contains drafts and possibly copies of business-related correspondence. The letters frequently use the phrase "יא אכי/ O my brother" which implies the that this was business correspondence between brothers (l. 2r, 17r, 19r). In the first section, lines 9-10r echo the structure of the drafts in the join ENA 2716.10r and also the third section of the same page (l.26-31r) in ENA 2716.11. The latter section is repeated five times on the join ENA 2716.10r. Section two of ENA 2716.11 lists the coinage type "ריאל פראנסא" suggesting a silver coin of French origin (l.21r) and the unit of weight "אוקה" is in also use (l.24). On the verso a wide variety of quantities in various Ottoman coinage denominations are listed often with respective numerical quantities, for example: gold "maḥbūb Istanbuli" (l.11v) and silver kuruş (l.13). There is also reference to the "friendly conversation/ṣohbet" that will accompany the arrival of the letter carrier, Aḥmed al-Sharqawi "אחמד אל שרקווי" (l.17-18, 20-21). Date: 18th c or 19th c. MCD.

Letter from someone possibly named Yaʿqūb addressed to a physician. In Judaeo-Arabic. There are two lines in Arabic script on verso, apparently lines of poetry expressing longing for the addressee. Dating: Perhaps 13th century. The writer asks for more of a certain collyrium (ashyāf al-natwā), possibly because it is selling well. But he is not so greedy as to need the (proprietary) recipe for it. Cf. DK 316, a letter from the physician Ibrāhīm to the physician Yaʿqūb, in which Ibrāhīm divulges the recipe for the collyrium for "al-natwā" that he obtained from Abū l-Bahā. There is no clear evidence that the two letters are directly connected, but both are referring to the same medicine. ASE.

Letter from Avraham b. Abū Zikrī to Eliyyahu the Judge. In Judaeo-Arabic. Describing business travel and reporting on transactions. Mentions someone called al-Rashīd and Abū l-ʿAlāʾ b. Sulaymān. (Information from Goitein's index cards.)

Letter, fragmentary, with little preserved. Mentions 'the sages of the yeshiva, the tannaim, the scribes, and the student[s]'.

Letter. A Hebrew address is all that survives from a letter written by Shelomo b. Eliyyahu, the judge, to the school of higher studies (Heb. midrash) of Yiṣḥaq b. Ḥalfon, in the period of Avraham Maimonides. (Information from Frenkel. See also Goitein, Med. Soc. 5:418, 624, no. 16)

Letter, calligraphic, to the two sons of Yeshua (one is named Abū Naṣr), probably asking for help. It looks like the sender may have used a pre-prepared template, since the script deteriorates (and gets smaller) about halfway down the page, following an opening section with generic verses and blessings.

Letter in Hebrew. Small fragment from the upper right corner. Aharon the cantor is mentioned. Might be a letter of condolence since the word תנחומות appears.

Letter from Sibāʿ, unknown location, to the cantor Abū Naṣr known as Al-Damghar(?), in Fustat. In Judaeo-Arabic. Possibly the same handwriting as T-S AS 152.67. Mainly on family matters. The sender left Fustat on Tuesday and arrived in his current location on Friday.

Letter from Yehuda b. Eliyya he-Ḥaver to Abū Naṣr Elʿazar b. Yosef. In Judaeo-Arabic. Fragment (upper part). The sender asks the addressee to pay 10 dinars to 'my brother' Abū ʿImrān, the bearer of the letter. He inserts some phrases typical of powers-of-attorney (תסלימה תסלימי וקבצה קבצי).

Letter fragment. In Judaeo-Arabic. Contains only a few formulaic phrases from the ending. Mentions Avraham.

Letter in the hand of Yehuda b. Ṭoviyyahu (muqaddam of Bilbays, active 1170s–1219). In Judaeo-Arabic. Containing a complaint about illness. The purpose of writing seems to be that the sender is unable to support a Ḥaver who came to stay with him. “[I was] constrained by my great expenses for medicines and chickens… An illness came upon me, on top of my chronic illness: shortness of breath and fever...” Mentions the boy Abū l-Bayān and al-Shaykh al-Muhadhdhab. Cites Berakhot 3b: “A handful cannot satisfy a lion, nor can a pit be filled up with its own clods.” Goitein read the word farrūj as surūj (meaning lamps -"perhaps he stayed up at night"), but see, for instance, Halper 410 and DK 238.3 for the formula "the medicine and the chicken." Regards to "our rabbi Avraham (Maimonides)" in the margin. (Information in part from Goitein’s index card.) Join: Alan Elbaum. AA. ASE.

Letter begging for help from a communal authority ('sayyidnā'), written by Abu Sahl b. al-Ahuv during a famine. Likely early 13th century. He opens with condolence for the death of the recipient's brother and the hunger of the brother's family before going into his own sad tale. Ibn Imran recently stole 100 dinars that were buried in Abu Sahl's house and also took items from his house and sold them. Due to Abu Sahl's age and weakness, he could not act to stop this. Abu Sahl has in the past benefited from charity from the recipient and from al-Tiferet Abu l-Mahasin (a man of this title and kunyah is mentioned in T-S NS J347, dated 1219/1220), but now requires more assistance. Abu Sahl's dependents include an old woman and a sick man who cannot sleep day or night. Abu Sahl has had to buy oil instead of bread, "so that he does not die in darkness." Abu Sahl himself has been ill for the last month. He turned to al-Shaykh al-Nezer, who told him that Sayyidnā ordered for him to receive bread in the distribution, but it has been three weeks and he has not received any bread. He concludes by asking the recipient to investigate the young man (Ibn Imran) who plunged them into this desperate state. ASE.

Letter addressed to Abu al-Ḥasan Yedutun ha-Levi asking for help to collect money owed the writer by his brother so he can open a store in Alexandria.