Geniza Lab

Fragment of a late partnership agreement.

Legal testimony. In Hebrew. Dating: Late. Concerning a certain Shemuel; a female slave (? שפחה), a sum of seven bunduqis, and another sum in peraḥim

Legal records, perhaps. In Judaeo-Arabic. One record states that Ghāliya al-Ḍarīra (the blind) bt. B[...] releases someone. Another involves Nuṣayr b. Thābit and debts owed.

Legal document. Draft, probably. In Judaeo-Arabic. The wife of Yiftaḥ ha-Dayyan declares that she sold Abū l-Barakāt...

Legal document. In Hebrew. Someone makes a declaration about the inheritance his brother left him, whether in Damascus or Cairo, whether of flax. . . .

Guardianship document from the court of Daniel b. Azarya, Jerusalem. An unknown person b. Ezra appoints Ishaq b. Abraham to be the guardian and get what his brother left him in his will. (Gil, Kingdom, vol. 2, #216) VMR The second document, ENA NS 44.31 forms the second portion of lines 7 - 18. For the exact location of the tear please see the original text.

Legal document. In Hebrew with business phrases in Judaeo-Arabic. Location: Fustat/Cairo. Dated: 15 Adar II 5578 AM, which is 23 March 1818 CE. Partnership agreement between Mordekhai ha-Kohen and Avraham al-Vilda(?). The business is the collection of מירי(?) from the freights (anwāl) in the region east of Bilbays. Merits further examination.

Legal document. In Judaeo-Arabic with occasional Hebrew or Aramaic phrases. Dating: Unknown. Location: Yemen, probably, based on the handwriting and dialect words and names of the protagonists. The document concerns Yaḥyā b. Yehuda al-Ẓefira, his brother Saʿīd b. Yehuda, and Saʿīd b. Dā'ūd al-Abhar, who all jointly own and live together in one house. This is a reconciliation agreement in which each housemate promises not to use the common spaces without the permission of the others. In particular: "No one shall leave his donkey or any beast in the passageway except when tying or loading it. . . . Likewise, the outhouse. No one shall tolerate his own filth (translation slightly uncertain) and leave it exposed, but only use the hole in the outhouse." ASE.

Recto: Possibly a draft of a legal document in Judaeo-Arabic. Needs examination. Verso: Legal document(s) in Arabic script concerning the sale of a house. Unclear if/how related to recto.

Legal deed. In Hebrew. Location: Fustat/Cairo. Dated: Thursday, 29 Tammuz 5437 AM, which is 1677 CE. Concerning the moneychanging (ṣarf) partnership between Eliyyahu ha-Kohen b. Yeshuʿa and Yiṣḥaq Pereẓ b. Yaʿaqov and the arrangements that must be made now that Eliyyahu has died. This is a large and well-preserved document; needs further examination.

Deathbed will. In Judaeo-Arabic. Location: Cairo. Dated: Wednesday, 18 Sivan 1806 Seleucid, which is 1495 CE. ʿAzīza bt. Elʿazar Bek leaves some of her possessions (deposited in Alexandria) to the daughter she had with Moshe פרנשי and who is the wife of Shemuel b. Shelomo כראת, and other possessions to her other daughter Milāḥ, and other possessions are to be divided evenly between the two daughters. This is a large and well-preserved document; needs further examination.

Legal document. In Hebrew. Location: Fustat/Cairo. Dating: [..]19 AM, which is either 1858/59, 1758/59, or 1658/59, or conceivably 1558/59 CE at the very earliest. Of these options, 1758/59 CE may be most likely. The document has to do with a business partnership in the sarraflik (technically, sarraflık) trade. Needs further examination.

Court register fragment containing the remnants of 14 documents, most of which are fully intact. Dated Tevet-Kislev 5460 AM which is1699-1700CE. On the recto two partnerships were recorded, the first an isqa and the second perhaps a general commercial partnership in the coral trade for the duration of one year: במלאכת אלמרגאן לזמן י׳ב חדשים (l.18). The other court entries on the recto recount engagements that include pledges of marital gifts from grooms to brides. The verso includes two other fully legible entries related to marital arrangements, one an engagement the other an abridged ketubbah that was entered into the court register. The other entries recount payments, debts owed, partnerships, and an apprenticeship perhaps in the production of gold lace: להתלמד מלאכת הסירמקגי (l.7). Based on the suffix, the term in use here is certainly Turkish but the scribe's intended meaning with סירמקגי is somewhat unclear. It could transliterate as sırmakçı– although this term does not appear as an alternative to sırmakeş in the Redhouse dictionary (p. 1014). MCD.

Court record of divorce (or is this the bill of divorce itself?). In Hebrew. Dated: Tammuz and Av 5279 AM, which is 1519 CE. Husband: Elʿazar b. Aharon ha-Kohen. Wife: Esther bt. Seʿadya Kohen.

Recto and verso: Court record(s) in Judaeo-Arabic. One side (record #1) consists of a lengthy list of valuable commodities and luxury items, including books and account ledgers, but it is not a dowry list. Perhaps the inventory of an estate of a wealthy merchant. There are interspersed comments about people who have taken specific items, e.g., the wife of Sulaymān, Ṣemaḥ b. Yosef (although he denied this in court), and Abū l-Ṭāhir. On the other side, there is the end of what is probably a second record (#2), two more complete records (#3 and #4), and the beginning of a fifth (#5). Records #3–#5 are all dated Iyyar 1390 Seleucid , which is 1079 CE. Record #3 involves Abū l-Fakhr(?) the former partner of Abū l-Faraj, and Avraham ha-Kohen, and a quantity of cloves. Record #4 is a declaration by Daniel b. Aharon ha-Kohen made prior to traveling to the Maghrib, in which he makes arrangements for his assets should he die on the journey. Some of the assets are in al-Mahdiyya. Mentions the names Moshe b. Aharon ha-Kohen and al-Talmid. Witnessed by Avraham b. Yiṣḥaq ha-Talmid. Record #5 involves someone named Seʿadya b. [...].

Query and response in the hand of Efrayim b. Shemarya, who was the leader of the Jerusalem congregation in Fustat between 1007 and 1050. Bareket notes that there are fragments of his legal writings in the Geniza and suggests that these were collections of responsa (Bareket, Jewish Leadership, 120). The many amendments in the manuscript suggests that this is an answer he has composed himself, thus providing further confirmation to Bareket's suggestion that he used to compose responsa literature. It is hard to understand the nature of the responsum at hand due to its state, but it seems like it deals with a woman who appointed her sister's husband as a representative for the marriage. It appears that she sought to re-marry her previous husband while her brother-in-law agreed to a marriage with another man. The woman claimed that she did not intend to appoint him as her representative and that there were no witnesses to such an appointment. The Rabbi decided that the marriage to the other man were invalid and the woman may marry her previous husband. If the marriage to the other man had been conducted she would have been forbidden by Jewish Law to her previous husband This manuscript should be added to the corpus of manuscripts of Efrayim b. Shemarya published by Bareket, Jews of Egypt 1007-1055.

Legal note, or less likely a letter. In the hand of Ḥalfon b. Menashshe. There is no formal introduction. The document has to do with an upcoming marriage, a sum of 10 dinars, and a gift to the girl. The name Sitt al-Sirr bt. Netanʾel appears on verso.

Legal record. In Judaeo-Arabic. Dated: Heshvan '29. Concerning a partnership between Munajjā and Hiba al-Zakiyy in glass goods.

Deed of compensation (שטר פיצוי). In Judaeo-Arabic. Dating: Second half of the 11th century. In which Abū ʿAlī Yefet Tif'eret ha-Qahal b. Avraham confirms that Abū Yaʿqūb Yequṭiel b. Moshe (the Peqid ha-Soḥarim) has paid all the money that he owed to Abū ʿAlī's brother, Ya'ir the Judge. Information in part from M. A. Friedman, Jewish Polygyny, 280 n. 1.

Deed of sale. In Hebrew. Location: Fustat. Dated: 1 Heshvan 5294 AM, which is 1533 CE. Yaʿaqov b. Moshe בכוש and his brother Efrayim sell a Torah scroll to Masʿūd b. David דוארה for 325 large medins (מאידי, not שקודי). Scribed and witnessed by Natan Sofer b. Avraham. Second witness: Ismāʿīl b. Avraham Sh[..]la.