Language, Gender and Law in the Judaeo-Islamic Milieu 9789004422179, 900442217X

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Language, Gender and Law in the Judaeo-Islamic Milieu

Études sur le Judaïsme Médiéval Fondées par Georges Vajda Rédacteur en chef Paul B. Fenton Dirigées par Phillip I. Lieberman Benjamin Hary Katja Vehlow

tome lxxxii

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/ejm

Cambridge Genizah Studies Edited by

Ben Outhwaite Geoffrey Khan Michael Rand Eve Krakowski

VOLUME 10

Language, Gender and Law in the Judaeo-Islamic Milieu Edited by

Zvi Stampfer Amir Ashur

LEIDEN | BOSTON

With the collaboration of the Research Authority of Orot Israel College Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Stampfer, Y. Zvi, editor. | Ashur, Amir, editor. Title: Language, gender and law in the Judaeo-Islamic milieu. Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, [2020] | Series: É tudes sur le judaïsme médiéval, 0169-815X ; vol. 82 | Summary: “The articles in this volume focus on the legal, linguistic, historical and literary roles of Jewish women in the Islamic world of the Middle Ages. Drawing heavily on manuscript evidence from the Cairo Genizah, the authors examine the challenges involved in the identification and interpretation of women’s letters from medieval Egypt, the registers of women’s written language, the relations between Jewish women and the Muslim legal system, the conversion of women, visions of women in Hell and gendered readings in the aggadic tradition of Judaism”—Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2019059355 (print) | LCCN 2019059356 (ebook) | ISBN 9789004422162 (hardback) | ISBN 9789004422179 (mobi) Subjects: LCSH: Jewish women—Islamic Empire—History—To 1500. | Cairo Genizah. | Islamic Empire—Civilization. Classification: LCC HQ1172 .L36 2020 (print) | LCC HQ1172 (ebook) | DDC 305.48/89240956—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019059355 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019059356 Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. ISSN 0169-815X ISBN 978-90-04-42216-2 (hardback) ISBN 978-90-04-42217-9 (e-book) Copyright 2020 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi, Brill Sense, Hotei Publishing, mentis Verlag, Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh and Wilhelm Fink Verlag. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

Contents Notes on Contributors ix Editorial Statement x Members of the Workshop “Language, Gender and Law in the JudaeoIslamic Milieu” xii 1 Genizah Sociolinguistics: the Language of Women 1 Esther-Miriam Wagner 2 The Challenge of Reading Women’s Letters from the Cairo Genizah 14 Renée Levine Melammed 3 Jewish Women in Muslim Legal Venues: Seven Legal Documents from the Cairo Genizah 38 Oded Zinger 4 Captives, Converts, and Concubines: Gendered Aspects of Conversion to Judaism in the Medieval Near East 88 Moshe Yagur 5 No (Jewish) Women in Hell 110 Tali Artman-Partock 6 Portrayals of Biblical Figures in Lost Aggadic Traditions from the Cairo Genizah: Feminist Considerations 140 Moshe Lavee Index of Sources 187 Index of Names and Subjects 190 Index of Genizah and Other Manuscripts 194

Notes on Contributors Dr Esther-Miriam Wagner is the Executive Director of the Woolf Institute, Cambridge; her main research interests include Judaeo-Arabic, historical linguistics of Arabic and Yiddish, sociolinguistics, and scribal practice. Prof Renée Levine Melammed is a professor of Jewish History at the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem. She has published numerous articles and books on the conversos (Heretics or Daughters of Israel, A Question of Identity), on Salonikan Jewry (An Ode to Salonika) and is working on a project dealing with women’s letters in the Cairo Genizah. Dr Oded Zinger is a post-doctoral fellow in the Martin Buber Society of Fellows at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. His research focuses on issues of gender and law in medieval Egypt based on documents from the Cairo Genizah. Dr Moshe Yagur is a post-doctoral research fellow at the Center for the Study of Conversion and Inter-Religious Encounters at the Ben Gurion University of the Negev. Dr Tali Artman-Partock is a Lecturer in Rabbinics at Leo Baeck College, London, and teaches Jewish studies at the Faculty of Divinity at the University of Cambridge. Her research focuses on Jewish-Christian dialogue and the transformations of Classical political heritage in Late Antiquity. Moshe Lavee is a senior lecturer of Rabbinic Literature and director of the eLijah-lab and the digital humanities program at the university of Haifa. His thematic studies deal with conversion, identity and gender in rabbinic literature. He also works on the reception of aggadic Midrash as recorded in the Cairo Genizah. And with thanks to Dr Timothy Curnow for his editorial assistance.

Editorial Statement The intersection of law, language and gender perceptions should be a source of much interest for scholars. The theory and practice of law influences and is influenced by conceptions of gender, and the language used to frame legal arguments is not static – it affects social perceptions of gender and is in turn adapted to reflect the changing needs of the people who use it. However, it seems that it is only recently, in historical perspective, that the language of legal discourse – whether in the realm of legal theory or in the practical spheres of legislation and judicial precedent – has taken up the challenge presented by the changing perceptions of gender, and in particular, gender equality, as a relevant determinant in the formulation of modern legal doctrine Dr Ben Outhwaite, Head of the Genizah Research Unit, my colleague Dr Amir Ashur and I organised a workshop in 2015 at Cambridge University Library in order to examine the junction between these three worlds, using the remarkable resource of the medieval manuscripts of the Cairo Genizah as a case study, aiming to illuminate the ways in which law, language and gender perceptions influence and are influenced by each other in the Judaeo-Islamic milieu of the medieval Middle East. The Cairo Genizah Collection is one of the foremost medieval collections, a huge ‘accidental archive’ recovered 100 years ago from a synagogue storeroom in Fustat (now a suburb of Cairo, but originally the first capital of Islamic Egypt). Beginning in the late 10th century and continuing all the way to the 19th, the Jewish community of Fustat deposited their discarded writings into this storeroom, out of respect for the written name of God. While they did deposit hundreds of religious works – worn-out prayer books, Torah scrolls, treatises on religious law – they also stored away many more secular and even ephemeral pieces of writing: poetry in vast amounts, personal letters, hundreds of legal deeds (including a huge variety of divorce and marriage contracts), commercial documents, and so on. The Genizah material is a remarkable source for the social history of the medieval Mediterranean world, and in the documents and letters it has preserved pertaining to the women of that world, it gives us an opportunity unlike any other to examine through primary sources women’s role in a thriving medieval society. To date, little concerted work has been done on gender relations in the Cairo Genizah and on women’s place in that society, aside from the general works of history produced by S.D. Goitein (‘A Mediterranean Society’, 5 vols, 1967–1985), which, while remarkable for their day, are distinctly ‘of their time’ in regards to questions of gender roles and the place of women. Our workshop represented the first major foray into using the documentary

Editorial Statement

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sources and judicial monographs preserved in the Cairo Genizah for this type of research. The workshop brought together researchers working on medieval Jewish and Islamic law, on historical gender studies, on legal theory and legal practitioners. The overall aim of the papers that were delivered at the workshop and collected in this volume is to demonstrate collectively the degree to which the classical sources highlighted by each of the speakers, with particular emphasis on materials found in the Cairo Genizah, reflect the gender sensitivity of the legal discourse and cultural norms of the historical periods and geographical settings to which these sources relate. This sensitivity informed not only the theoretical exegesis expressed in the biblical and rabbinic sources highlighted by the speakers, but in the practical day-to-day aspects of the norms – in language as well as substance – implemented in the documents and decisions studied and presented by the workshop participants. It may be safely stated that this discourse and these norms were “well ahead of their time” vis-à-vis gender equality, and while any conclusion in this regard must be tempered by due consideration of the prevailing norms of the surrounding societies in which Jewish societies functioned, the papers collected in this volume present a compelling argument regarding the relatively progressive attitudes toward gender that are reflected in the documents under study. We open the volume with two articles on the language of women in the Cairo Genizah by Dr Esther-Miriam Wagner and Prof Renée Levine Melammed, who analyse the language of women found in the Genizah from a sociolinguistic perspective. Following these two linguistic articles we present two with a more historical perspective on gender, language and law. Dr Oded Zinger examines seven legal documents from the Cairo Genizah dealing with Jewish women in the Muslim legal sphere; and Dr Moshe Yagur examines aspects of conversion to Judaism that relate to gender in the medieval Near East. We close the volume with two articles focusing on the relations between gender and language in another popular genre of the Genizah, the rabbinical Midrash. Dr Tali Artman-Partock analyses Jewish traditions about women in midrashim, and Dr Moshe Lavee shows the existence of feminist considerations in the portrayals of biblical figures in Genizah midrashim. We hereby make available the fruits of this scholarship to the broader public, scholars and laypeople alike, who seek to enhance and enrich their appreciation of the history of legal norms as expressed at the juncture of law, language and gender and as reflected in the documents of the Cairo Genizah. Zvi Stampfer

The Genizah Research Unit of Cambridge University Library and The Research Authority of Orot Israel College

Members of the Workshop “Language, Gender and Law in the Judaeo-Islamic Milieu” Dr Keren Abbou-Hershkovits, Ben Gurion University of the Negev Dr Tali Artman-Partock, University of Cambridge Dr Amir Ashur, The Research Authority of Orot Israel College Dr Hanan Birenzweig, Tel Aviv University Prof Mordechai Akiva Friedman, Tel Aviv University Judge Ben Zion Greenberger, Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Jerusalem District Court Ms Wissem Gueddich, EPHE-Sorbonne Dr Juni Hoppe, Abraham Geiger Kolleg, Universität Potsdam Dr Ronit Ir-Shai, Bar-Ilan University Dr Moshe Kahan, Ben Gurion University of the Negev Dr Elizabeth Lambourn, De Montfort University Dr Moshe Lavee, University of Haifa Rabbi Dr Reuven Leigh, University of Cambridge Prof Renée Levine Melammed, Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies – Jerusalem Dr Yifat Monnickendam, Tel Aviv University Dr Ben Outhwaite, The Genizah Research Unit of Cambridge University Library Dr Benjamin Porat, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Dr Melonie Schmierer-Lee, The Genizah Research Unit of Cambridge University Library Mr Gregor Schwarb, University of London Att Bana Shoughry, Hebrew University of Jerusalem Dr Zvi Stampfer, The Genizah Research Unit and The Research Authority of Orot Israel College Dr Esther-Miriam Wagner, Woolf institute and the University of Cambridge Mr Moshe Yagur, Ben Gurion University of the Negev Dr Marzena Zawanowska, Jewish Historical Institute, Warsaw Dr Oded Zinger, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

CHAPTER 1

Genizah Sociolinguistics: the Language of Women Esther-Miriam Wagner 1

Gender-Specific Registers

Men and women are said to have different ways of communicating. Popular works on the subject, such as Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus have caused huge debate, with many feminists arguing vehemently against genderbased differences, but there are a convincing number of empirical studies on spoken language which demonstrate that these differences do indeed exist, particularly in countries where there are substantial social and economic differences between men and women. Such gender-specific characteristics of feminine speech include so-called hedging, when women employ expressions such as ‘sort of’ or ‘kind of’, increased politeness by using equivalents of ‘would you’ or ‘could you’, the tendency to leave sentences open, the use of minimal responses to signal involvement in active conversation, and increased frequency of emphatic particles such as ‘so’.1 In short, women are said to speak more cooperatively and non-competitively, which implies that many of the genderspecific linguistic dynamics derive from inherited paradigms of power versus powerlessness. Gender-specific differences present themselves not only in oral conversation but also in the writing of male and female authors. Texts can show gender-specific characteristics, although much of this depends on text genre: differences may be much more noticeable in emails than in novels or academic writing. In some languages, women are thought to have particular language registers which can be found in writing. Most famously, in Sumerian, EME.SAL was proposed as a register with particular phonological and lexical properties reserved for women.2 In other languages, differences are more subtle, but sociolinguistic investigations of Middle English, for example, have shown that the 1  For older works, see for example the pioneering book by Lakoff, Language and Woman’s Place; and the excellent annotated bibliography in Thorne, Kramarae, and Henley, Language, Gender and Society. For more recent examples, see Kendall and Tannen, “Discourse and Gender”. 2  A critical article on EME.SAL as a women’s register can be found in Whittaker, “Linguistic Anthropology”.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004422179_002

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language used by women in letters is distinct from that of contemporary men.3 Not only is the gender of the writer decisive, but the gender of the addressee is of equal importance.4 To investigate phenomena relating to gendered language, documents and letters in particular tend to be the most suitable: they are immediate, and are not subjected to copying and editing at a later stage. The text is preserved as it was created, at a particular time by a particular person. The linguistic information gathered from the source can be dated and placed in a particular social and historical context. When we turn to women’s letters in the Genizah, we touch on a number of issues, such as literacy, the social and socioeconomic situation, access to scribes, and a need for prestige. For example, medieval Genizah letters written in a crude hand appear to be sent by and to women proportionally more often than they are sent by or to men. There are many possible reasons for this. Women may have been able to write their own letters: Goitein describes how girls received primary education, at least during particular historical periods.5 This may have enabled them to write, but without the refinements of secondary education, we might not expect penmanship exceeding crude handwriting. If women did not write themselves, they may have employed their children to write their letters for them. Since women’s letters are usually sent within the family context, there is also less need for prestige, that is, there is no need to employ a scribe for his more elegant handwriting. In addition, women may not have had the financial means to employ a scribe, or perhaps not have had access to a scribe. As a consequence of all these factors, many of the crude-hand letters sent by women were probably dictated to family members who were less familiar with letter-writing conventions than professional writers. Investigations into the subject are thus complicated by the fact that many of the letters with female senders are obviously written by male scribes, while female penmanship can be assured in only a few cases. Letters sent by and to women do, however, also show unusual features when written by experienced male scribes: they appear to be composed in less normative orthography and grammar than when scribes take dictation from men. The reason that women’s dictation shines through even in male scribes’ writing is that, generally, writing behaviour changes when someone is taking dictation from someone of a different gender and/or age group. In the English Paston letters, scribes may alter the forms they employ if 3  Bergs, Social Networks, pp. 180–181. 4  Bergs, Social Networks, pp. 181–183. 5  Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, vol. 2, pp. 183–185.

Genizah Sociolinguistics: the Language of Women

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they write for their elders and, in particular, for their mothers by using more conservative forms than they would employ in their own writing, which would allow for more progressive language forms.6 It is thus not necessarily women’s literacy shaping the letter writing, but the scribe’s expectations – how does a man think a woman would write? To include both letters written or dictated by women into a single corpus to be investigated for linguistic peculiarities is therefore methodologically not particularly troublesome. There is another category of correspondence as well, which I have not included here but which should be examined in future studies. This consists of letters written to female addressees, as writing to people of different gender may be equally responsible for a change in linguistic style. In the Genizah context, letters written to women are often sent by other women, and therefore a large number of letters will belong to both categories. 2

Women’s Language in English and Arabic

As Bergs has pointed out, in the Paston letters men writing for women tend to employ more conservative language forms. In most European languages, women are known to use more standard forms than men, who tend to use nonstandard expressions.7 Hence, the Paston writers would use more conservative forms for their mothers than for themselves, as Middle English men would tend to favour more progressive forms. In the case of the linguistic dichotomy of Arabic – really a spectrum with literary Arabic on one side and vernacular Arabic on the other – it is very unlikely that women’s language or writing dictated by women would show more conservative traits. Conservative linguistic forms are associated with Classical Arabic and high-level education, and given the medieval (lack of) literacy of women, these do not correlate with women’s language. Rather, the registers used by women are much more likely to show a higher proportion of Middle and Mixed Arabic forms. As is shown in the conference proceedings of the excellent AIMA (International Association for the Study of Middle and Mixed Arabic), which have furthered the field of Middle and Mixed Arabic studies to an immense degree, the use of such colloquial forms has to do with language

6  Bergs, “Linguistic Fingerprints”, p. 124. 7  See, for example, Leopold, “Decline of German Dialects”; Trudgill, “Sex, Covert Prestige and Linguistic Change”; and Labov, Principles of Linguistic Change, vol. 2, pp. 261–293.

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immediacy.8 Writers will employ a less formal register to communicate in a less formal setting and to connect more intimately with their readers. Within the context of the multiglossia of Arabic, there is less need for women to demonstrate their education in normative Arabic, and with most of the communication occurring in a family context, there is also a greater need to connect emotionally to the addressees of their writing, which in turn favours colloquial expressions. Thus we would expect colloquial forms to be far more likely to occur in women’s registers than in men’s registers. The term “colloquial expressions” here refers not only to lexicon, but includes orthographical features, for example the spelling of the third person masculine suffix as ‑u(h), and morphological innovations such as the use of the bi-imperfect. In short, what we call a colloquial expression may be any deviation from the normative language of the time that has a basis in the spoken language. It is important to note that the normative language of the time is not necessarily Classical Arabic or the post-Classical Arabic standard used by Muslims, but the language used in the majority of Judaeo-Arabic documents of the time. As already explained, within the context of the multiglossia of Arabic, the use of colloquial forms has to do with language immediacy: writers will intentionally choose a less formal register over a more formal one (which would be more oriented towards Classical Arabic norms) to connect more intimately with their readers. This explains why even very educated writers employ colloquial forms to connect with their audience: when they discuss very intimate matters with a close friend, dispense comfort, or address female family members. In examples from twelfth-century and eighteenth-century Arabic, we see that when writers are angry or aggressive, they are also more prone to use colloquial expressions.9 Vernacular phrases are thus often correlated with emotional pleas or outbursts (which makes them perhaps more commonly used in the context of private letters), and a modification in the formality of an epistolary register may be used as a tool to signal a change in immediacy between writer and reader. Hence, colloquial expressions may be employed both by scribes, who use them to convey intimacy between themselves and their readers, and by untrained writers, who do not know the corresponding high-variety equivalent 8  The volumes so far are Lentin and Grand’Henry (eds.), Moyen arabe; Zack and Schippers (eds.), Middle and Mixed Arabic; and Bettini and La Spisa (eds.), Au-delà de l’arabe standard. For Judaeo-Arabic, see also Wagner, “Challenges of Multiglossia”. 9  For a twelfth-century example, see Wagner, Linguistic Variety, pp. 167–168. For eighteenthcentury Arabic, examples are presented in Wagner and Ahmed, “From Tuscany to Egypt”, which deals with Arabic letters that were on a ship looted by English privateers in 1759.

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to their spoken expressions. The occurrence of colloquial forms can thus be assumed to be higher in writing by and for women. In the writing of untrained scribes, colloquial forms may be used because of a lack of literacy regarding more literary and “higher” Arabic registers. In the case of (professional) scribes, vernacular forms are employed because, when they write for women, they feel less constrained to write in a higher register, and also because of ideas about the type of language women would use if they wrote themselves. In short, (professional) scribes may write more colloquially for women to sound more authentic, whereas untrained scribes may additionally employ less normative language because of their linguistic ability. 3

Writing for Women, Writing for Men

For the reasons laid out above, and because women in the Genizah rarely corresponded on an official level but mostly within families, it would be natural to find more colloquial Judaeo-Arabic and more deviation from normative standards of Judaeo-Arabic in letters written by women. As for dictated letters, a male family member or a male scribe taking dictation for a woman may feel less need to render the colloquial speech he would be hearing into formal Arabic, unlike what he may feel obliged to do when writing for a man in an official context. This may then also translate into more colloquial and less normative language. To investigate whether the described social factors really translate into more colloquial language and less normative orthography in women’s correspondence, we would need a comprehensive study of the linguistic peculiarities of letters composed by female and male writers in the Genizah. Such a study would only be achievable with an exploitable database of multidimensional linguistic data, including syntactic and semantic analyses of free text, as has been successfully set up for various other languages, such as the Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Middle English.10 Such a database is necessary as every letter can only be compared to other material from the same time period; the diachronic changes in phonology/orthography, morphology, and syntax are substantial, and reliable empirical statements can only be made based on reasonable sample sizes.11 As such a database of documentary Judaeo-Arabic, or 10  For the technical aspects of such an XML database, see Kroeze, Bothma, and Matthee, “Constructing an XML Database”. 11  See Wagner, Linguistic Variety, for the diachronic linguistic variety in Judaeo-Arabic letters.

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in fact of medieval Arabic in general, is still a desideratum, the ideas brought forward in this article are thus based on my experience of cataloguing and reading Genizah correspondence. I am aware that this is anecdotal and perhaps methodologically unsound, but as we lack empirical evidence to prove the change in writing behaviour when scribes write for men or women, I will in the following present two different studies relating to women’s letters. First, I will analyse a letter written for a woman, which shows a large number of unusual linguistic features. Secondly, I will introduce a study of four letters written by a single scribe, Ṣedaqa b. ʿAyyāš, a North African trader, of which two were written for men, and two for women, to see whether any differences can be observed. I hope that this small corpus will highlight some of the points which could be investigated in a larger sample. 4

L-G Arabic 2.129

The talk on which this paper is based was prompted by observations made over the course of many years of cataloguing thousands of Genizah letters. When I came across letters sent by women, I regularly noticed deviations from prescriptive standards of Arabic, and it seemed to me that these deviations were much more frequent than in letters sent by men. I am aware of researcher bias, and understand the danger of seeing things because one is looking for them, and I also understand that I am to a degree cherry-picking particular phenomena in the following analyses. Yet, as many manuscript experts know, gut feelings based on many years of studying texts can be a valuable tool, and I would thus like to raise the distinct possibility that women’s letters show more deviations from the norms of the time than comparable correspondence composed by men. One such letter, which is a good example of what I would like to suggest as the intellectual thrust of this contribution, comes from the Lewis-Gibson collection, formerly the Westminster College collection, which was recently jointly acquired by the universities of Cambridge and Oxford. L-G Arabic 2.129 was penned by a certain Ibrahim (who introduces himself on the verso side), but was dictated by a female family member.12 From the use of feminine verbal forms and from the address, we learn that the letter is sent to another woman, Ibrahim’s mother, who may be in Qūṣ (Upper Egypt), because that is mentioned as the place where she is asked to sell a belt (l. 21). The letter is interesting also for its social content: a slave woman by the name of Ṣayd is pregnant 12  This section was first written up for Wagner, “The Language of Women”.

Genizah Sociolinguistics: the Language of Women

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and wants to marry another slave, which apparently causes great distress for her owners. Her children are also mentioned, as are her intentions of suing the addressee of the letter for child support. Goitein mentions this letter in a section on remarriage, but appears to have misinterpreted some of the key sentences of the letter.13 The language of the letter could be judged emotional and not very structured, which is typically for a dictated letter rather than a well-thought-out missive. For example, the writer repeats numerous times rhetorical expletives such as ‘don’t ask what happened to us’, ‘don’t ask what’s on my heart’, and so on. Linguistically, it shows a number of very colloquial forms that are unusual for a letter of the time. The unusual linguistic features in the letter are orthographical, morphological, and syntactical in nature. In many examples, short vowels are spelled plene, mostly -[u] and -[i], as in many of the feminine perfect forms such as ‫‘ כנתי‬you were’ (e.g. l. 15), but also short [a], as in line 11, ‫‘ מארת‬she went’. After reporting that her daughter and a certain Abū l-Ḥasan fell from the roof into the courtyard, the sender of the letter adds that God was merciful and ‫‘ לם יציבהם ש‬nothing happened to them’ (ll. 8–9). The ‫ ש‬is probably a misspelling of šay, but may also point to the negation particle -š, which would be a chronologically extremely early example, as it can normally only be found in Late Judaeo-Arabic texts. First singular n-imperfect forms occur, for example in ‫קאלת אנא נכון ממלוכה‬ ‘she said: I am a slave’ (l. 16) and in ‫אנא אבראהים נקבל ידיין אלשיך אבו אלחסן‬ ‘I, Ibrahim, kiss the hands of the elder Abū l-Ḥasan’ (ll. v5–6), which additionally shows the tanwīn ‫ ידיי‬in a genitive construction, as does ‫תבוסי עינין אם‬ ‫‘ אסמעיל אכתי‬kiss the eyes of Umm Ismail, my sister’ (l. 25). The possessive particle bitaʿ, which typically appears only in Late Judaeo-Arabic, can be found in ‫ואללה אללה סאעה וקופך עלי האדה אלאחרף תנפדי‬ ‫‘ אלחלק בתאעי מע בנת כאלך סת נסרין‬quickly, when you read these lines, send my ring with your cousin Sitt Nisrīn’ (ll. 18–20). In one example, the article is spelled in assimilation, ‫‘ אשיך אבו אלחסן‬the elder Abū l-Ḥasan’ (l. v13), although the rest of the letter shows the article in al-šayḵ in morphophonematic spelling (for example, ll. v6 and v14). I wonder whether this may be a deliberate decision: the Abū l-Ḥasan who resides with the senders of the letter (as opposed to the adult of the same name who occurs in greetings as being in the household of the addressees) is mentioned as having fallen from the roof and appears to be a child, as evident from the request to buy a nice present for him from the proceeds of a belt which is to be sold 13  Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, vol. 3, p. 275.

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(ll. 22–23). By using the colloquial form of ‘the elder’ it may give an ironical touch to the title and convey the meaning of ‘little elder’. 5

Ṣedaqa b. ʿAyyāš

In the case study above, I chose a woman’s letter that exhibited a particularly large number of unusual forms. It is, however, methodologically difficult to put such a letter into the context of contemporary letters if no other examples of writing from the same scribe can be established with certainty. In the following, I will therefore analyse four letters written by a single scribe, Ṣedaqa b. ʿAyyāš, a North African trader active in Qayrawān, Mahdiyya, and Alexandria, paying special attention to their linguistic peculiarities.14 Two of these letters were by men: Cambridge University Library T-S 13J23.14, which was either dictated by or written for Judah b. Joseph in Qayrawān, to be sent to ʿAyyāš b. Nissim (the writer’s father) in Fusṭāṭ; and Bodl. Heb. d. 66.15, which Ṣedaqa himself wrote in Alexandria to a member of the powerful Tustari merchant family in Fusṭāṭ. Two further letters, T-S 12.261 and T-S 12.262, were dictated by or written for a woman: Ṣedaqa composed them both for the sister of Ismail b. Barhūn Tahertī in Mahdiyya, from where they were sent to Ismail in Fusṭāṭ. With the lack of reliable empirical data for eleventh-century Judaeo-Arabic, the best way to compare the set of letters is by their degree of deviation from prescriptive Classical Arabic. Those features which follow the norms of medieval Judaeo-Arabic and which occur equally in all letters without exceptions, such as the lack of orthographic representation of hamza, the replacement of nominative plural case endings by the oblique case, and the loss of the indicative plural, are not discussed in the following. Other common features are included, however, as they vary considerably between different time periods and between individual writers, such as the plene spelling of short vowels. The writing pattern of the short vowels in this case yields some tentative results. In the letters to men, we find, for example, ‫‘ מיתל‬like’ in line 1 in T-S 13J23.14, although even this example is a little dubious as Ṣedaqa has a very cursive writing and it is possible to read it simply as ‫מתל‬. Bodl. MS Heb. d. 66.15 has ‫‘ לאך‬lacquer’ in line v7, but this is a common spelling to distinguish it orthographically from laka ‘for you’. The letters dictated by women show ‫‘ יואכדכם‬may he punish you’ (T-S 12.261/10) and ‫‘ לא יועדמני‬may he not deprive

14  All four letters have been edited and translated into Hebrew in Gil, In the Kingdom of Ishmael, vol. 2, pp. 458–472. All his readings were checked against the original manuscripts.

Genizah Sociolinguistics: the Language of Women

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me’ (T-S 12.262/7).15 Both forms may also be interpreted as displaying vernacular verbal morphology. T-S 12.262 has ‫‘ ואסמיתהא‬and her name’ in line 18, and ‫‘ ואסמאה ברהון‬his name is Barhūn’ in line 20. The evidence from the letters vaguely suggests that plene spelling of short vowels occurs slightly more commonly in women’s letters, but this would have to be quantitatively substantiated. In both letters written for the woman and in the letter dictated by the man and sent to his own father, Ṣedaqa spells ‫‘ נעמאך‬your well-being’ (T-S 12.261/1, T-S 12.262/1, and T-S 13J23.14/1), whereas he writes ‫ נעמתך‬in Bodl. MS Heb. d. 66.15 in line 2. This could reflect a Middle Arabic choice, but may equally reflect the process of a maturing writer: the first three letters were written in North Africa in 1018–1020, whereas the fourth letter dates from 1027 and was written when Ṣedaqa was already in Egypt. One of the woman’s letters shows a spelling after the preposition fī that may reflect a third singular masculine suffix ‑Ø:16 ‫הדא כאן אמלה פי‬ ֗ ‫אנא נערף אן‬ ‘I know that this was his hope in it’ (T-S 12.261/15). A quantification of data such as this would be needed, as only thorough statistical analysis could show whether such phenomena occur more commonly in women’s letters. A valuable point of comparison between the letters are the forms used for the first person imperfect. In the letters by women, unambiguous forms of nafʿal for the first singular imperfect appear in ‫‘ אנא נערף‬I know’ (T-S 12.261/15), ‫גית נלבס‬ ‘I came to dress’ (T-S 12.261/20), ‫‘ נקטע כתבי ענכם‬I broke off my correspondence with you’ (T-S 12.262/14), ‫‘ אני נתלדד‬that I am perplexed’ (T-S 12.262/14), and ‫‘ אנני נחאדתכם‬that I inform you’ (T-S 12.262/15).17 Further forms which are very likely first singular, based on the context, are ‫‘ נחב ונשתהי‬I would love and wish’ (T-S 12.262/7) and ‫‘ לם נרא‬had I not seen’ (T-S 12.262/13). These forms are all the more important if we compare them to the first singular imperfect forms which occur in T-S 13J23.14, written at roughly the same time in North Africa, which show overwhelmingly the type ʾafʿal, such as ‫‘ ארגו‬I hope’ (T-S 13J23.14/10), ‫‘ אחתאג אסתעמלהא‬I need to work them’ (T-S 13J23.14/15), and ‫‘ אעלמהא‬I will know them’ (T-S 13J23.14/25), although the type nafʿal also occurs: ‫‘ לם נדכרהא‬I did not mention them’ (T-S 13J23.14/17). Here, quantitative analyses of a large corpus would be most illuminating.

15  In T-S 12.261, l. 10, what looks like an example of plene [i] in ‫ תציח‬should actually be read ‫‘ תצות‬she shouts’. 16  See also Blau, Diqduq ha-’Aravit-Hayehudit, §268b. 17  For a discussion of nafʿal see Blanc, “The nekteb–nektebu Imerfect”, and the summary in Wagner, Linguistic Variety, pp. 77–81.

10

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Interestingly, while nafʿal forms are used for both singular and plural in the same letter written for the sister – ‫‘ נחן כלנא נליהא‬we all help her’ (T-S 12.261/13f) vs ‫‘ גית נלבס‬I came to dress’ (T-S 12.261/20) – we only find the form nafʿalū in the letter which Ṣedaqa writes for himself. Bodl. MS Heb. d. 66.15 has ‫‘ נקדרו‬we can’ (l. left margin 6) and ‫‘ נערפו‬we inform’ (l. v16), which are at odds with the rather Classical Arabic style of the letter. We also find ‫‘ אנא נחמל‬I will send’ in line left margin 10, while other examples in the letter include prescriptive ʾafʿal forms, such as ‫‘ ארגו‬I hope’ (l. top margin 4 and 14), and ‫‘ אטן‬I think’ (l. v5), and nafʾal for the plural: ‫( ונחן נוסק‬l. v7) ‘we will load’. The colloquial verbal stem itfaʿʿala is used only in one of the woman’s letters: ‫‘ אתערית‬I was naked’ (T-S 12.261/21). Noteworthy is the preservation of the old ending -tumū before a suffix in the woman’s letters, which may show an adherence to Classical Arabic morphology: ‫‘ כליתמוה יכרג‬you let him go out’ (T-S 12.261/14); ‫‘ מא עודתמוהם‬what you used to do with them’ (T-S 12.261/v15); ‫‘ כברתמוה‬you informed him’ (T-S 12.262/13). This may be evaluated as a conservative Maghrebi form.18 Perhaps by using these, the writer added further Maghrebi flavour to the letters. As Nevalainen has pointed out, linguistic registers are usually not entirely progressive or conservative, but show a mix of progressive and conservative phenomena.19 Similar phenomena have been observed in Ottoman traders’ letters, which mix progressive and conservative linguistic traits.20 In the same way, the women’s register may not be only more colloquial, but also contain some conservative literary elements, in particular if those conservative elements are typical Maghrebi forms. The colloquialism of women’s letters may thus extend to what are perceived as typical regional forms, even if they originate in a more conservative register. The form ḏāka is found in ‫‘ בדאך‬with this’ in one of the woman’s letters (T-S 12.261/22), which is part of the Classical Arabic repertory for indirect deixis. It might have been preferred over ḏālika or hāḏā because it was morphologically closer to the colloquial pronoun da. In the same letter, examples of the relative particle ʾan preceding an attributive clause occur: ‫‘ ווקת אן דכלו אלי‬and when (lit. the time that) they came to me’ (T-S 12.261/20). Perhaps the most convincing argument for the existence of a particularly colloquial female register is provided by the use of vernacular vocabulary. In one of the letters dictated by the woman we find a number of colloquial forms, 18  See Wagner, Linguistic Variety, pp. 227–228. 19  Nevalainen, “Words of Kings”, pp. 111–116. 20  See Wagner, “Socio-Linguistics of Judaeo-Arabic Mercantile Writing”.

Genizah Sociolinguistics: the Language of Women

11

such as the question particle lēš ‘why’ (T-S 12.261/9) and the demonstrative hon ‘here’ (T-S 12.261/12). In contrast, Bodl. MS Heb. d. 66.15, the letter Ṣedaqa writes for himself to a member of the distinguished Tustari family, shows phenomena that are distinctly non-colloquial, and part of the literary, more Classical Arabic – informed registers: we find counted nouns in the accusative after the numerals 20–99 (for example in ll. 11 and 16), which is only rarely found in documentary Judaeo-Arabic, and al-ʾuḵrā is spelled ‫ אלאכרי‬as in Classical Arabic, with an additional marking of the Arabic reading sign ḍamma above the aleph/alif to indicate the reading [u]. To sum up, differences in the letters seem to manifest on various levels, but analyses in many cases are quite complex, and many factors in addition to gender difference must be taken into consideration. The letters written for women appear to contain more Middle Arabic and Mixed Arabic elements than those written for men, for example in spelling, in the verbal stems, and in the lexicon. What sets the female letters apart from the male letters seems to be the use of colloquial forms with distinct regional marking. 6 Conclusions Two different case studies were presented here, which attempt to demonstrate that letters dictated or written by women show a greater number of Middle and Mixed Arabic forms than comparable letters dictated or written by men. The first case study demonstrates linguistic phenomena gathered from a letter dictated by a woman to a male scribe, which displays a large number of features originating in colloquial language or substandard, non-prescriptive registers of Arabic. Compared to other Genizah letters from roughly the same time period, the high incidence of Middle and Mixed Arabic forms in the woman’s letter seems noteworthy. In a second study, we compared four letters written by a single scribe, of which two were dictated by or written for men and two were dictated by or written for a woman. Again, the woman’s letters appear to show more colloquial elements in orthography, morphology, and lexicon than the men’s letters, with a particular preference for regional forms. By no means do I wish to announce definite proof of distinct differences between female and male writers in the Genizah. Yet, on the basis of the above analyses, I would like to suggest that there is a possibility that Judaeo-Arabic women’s letters show a higher percentage of colloquial forms and linguistic deviations than contemporary men’s letters. I hope to be able to work on the analy­ sis of a wider corpus in the future and gather comprehensive data on this topic.

12

Wagner

Bibliography Bergs, Alexander, “Linguistic Fingerprints of Authors and Scribes”, Letter Writing and Language Change, eds. Anita Auer, Daniel Schreier, and Richard J. Watts, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015, pp. 114–132. Bergs, Alexander, Social Networks and Historical Sociolinguistics: Studies in Morphosyntactic Variation in the Paston Letters, Berlin: de Gruyter Mouton, 2005. Bettini, Lidia and Paolo La Spisa, Au-delà de l’arabe standard: Moyen arabe et arabe mixte dans les sources médiévales, modernes et contemporaines, Florence: Dipartimento di scienze dell’antchità, medioevo e rinascimento e linguistica, Università di Firenze, 2012. Blanc, Haim, “The nekteb–nektebu Imperfect in a Variety of Cairene Arabic”, Israel Oriental Studies 4 (1974), pp. 206–226. Blau, Joshua, Diqduq ha-’Aravit-Hayehudit Šel Yeme ha-Benayim, 2nd edn, Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1980. Gil, Moshe, In the Kingdom of Ishmael: Texts from the Cairo Genizah [Hebrew], Jerusalem: Mosad Byalik, 1997. Goitein, S.D., A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza, vol. 2: The Community, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971. Goitein, S.D., A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza, vol. 3: The Family, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978. Kendall, Shari and Deborah Tannen, “Discourse and Gender”, The Handbook of Discourse Analysis, eds. Deborah Schiffrin, Deborah Tannen, and Heidi E. Hamilton, Malden: Blackwell, 2001, pp. 548–567. Kroeze, Jan Hendrik, T.J.D. Bothma, and Machdeel Matthee, “Constructing an XML Database of Linguistic Data”, The Journal for Transdisciplinary Research in Southern Africa 6 (2010), pp. 139–174. Labov, William, Principles of Linguistic Change, vol. 2: Social Factors, Malden: Blackwell, 2001. Lakoff, Robin, Language and Woman’s Place, New York: Harper & Row, 1975. Lentin, Jérôme and Jacques Grand’Henry (eds.), Moyen arabe et variétés mixtes de l’arabe à travers l’histoire, Louvain-la-Neuve: Peeters, 2008. Leopold, Werner F., “The Decline of German Dialects”, Word 15 (1959), pp. 130–153. Nevalainen, Terttu, “Words of Kings and Counsellors: Register Variation and Language Change in Early English Courtly Correspondence”, Scribes as Agents of Language Change, eds. Esther-Miriam Wagner, Ben Outhwaite, and Bettina Beinhoff, Berlin: de Gruyter Mouton, 2013, pp. 99–119.

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Thorne, Barrie, Cheris Kramarae, and Nancy Henley (eds.), Language, Gender and Society, Rowley: Newbury House, 1983. Trudgill, Peter, “Sex, Covert Prestige and Linguistic Change in the Urban British English of Norwich”, Language in Society 1 (1972), pp. 179–195. Wagner, Esther-Miriam, “Challenges of Multiglossia: The Emergence of Substandard Judaeo-Arabic Registers”, Scribes as Agents of Language Change, eds. Esther-Miriam Wagner, Ben Outhwaite, and Bettina Beinhoff, Berlin: de Gruyter Mouton, 2013, pp. 259–273. Wagner, Esther-Miriam, “The Language of Women, L-G Arabic 2.129”, Cambridge University Library Fragment of the Month, January 2015, http://www.lib.cam.ac .uk/collections/departments/taylor-schechter-genizah-research-unit/fragment -month/fragment-month-january. Wagner, Esther-Miriam, Linguistic Variety of Judaeo-Arabic in Letters from the Cairo Genizah, Leiden: Brill, 2010. Wagner, Esther-Miriam, “The Socio-Linguistics of Judaeo-Arabic Mercantile Writing”, Merchants of Innovation: The Languages of Traders, eds. Esther-Miriam Wagner, Bettina Beinhoff, and Ben Outhwaite, Berlin: de Gruyter Mouton, 2017, pp. 68–86. Wagner, Esther-Miriam and Mohamed A.H. Ahmed, “From Tuscany to Egypt: Eighteenth Century Arabic Letters in the Prize Paper Collections”, Journal of Semitic Studies 62 (2017), pp. 389–412. Whittaker, Gordon, “Linguistic Anthropology and the Study of Emesal as (a) Women’s Language”, Sex and Gender in the Ancient Near East, eds. Simo Parpola and Robert M. Whiting, Helsinki: Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project 2002, pp. 633–644. Zack, Liesbeth and Arie Schippers (eds.), Middle and Mixed Arabic, Leiden: Brill, 2012.

CHAPTER 2

The Challenge of Reading Women’s Letters from the Cairo Genizah Renée Levine Melammed* The first scholar to discuss women’s letters in the Cairo Genizah was Shlomo Dov Goitein.1 It is worth examining when and how often he refers to them in his path-breaking chapter entitled “The World of Women”, which appears in the third volume of A Mediterranean Society.2 Here he states that the Genizah contains “countless begging letters written or dictated by men, none by women”.3 Women, he explains, would never turn to strangers for help, but appealed to family members, or men with positions in the establishment such as judges, community heads, or welfare officials. His first specific reference to a woman’s letter in this chapter fits neatly into this category of men with positions, for it was addressed to none other than a nagid: a widow from Alexandria informs the head of the community, Mevorakh b. Saadya (1080–1112), that she went to a qadi because the Jewish court was not taking proper care of her predicament.4 Yet later on in this chapter, Goitein recounts a story about the daughter of a pietist who herself wrote a letter to her sister with instructions explaining her last wishes. “The writer of our letter informs her sister that she wants her baby daughter to receive taʿlīm, formal instruction, so that she might

* I am indebted to Oded Zinger who read a draft of this article and offered many helpful comments, questions, and references, as noted below. Uri Melammed helped polish the final draft. 1  The comments that follow pertain solely to what appeared in the third volume of Goitein, A Mediterranean Society; as Joel L. Kraemer pointed out, Goitein had “already highlighted the value of women’s letters for understanding the mentalité of Mediterranean people” and had edited, translated, and quoted many letters elsewhere; see Kraemer, “Women Speak for Themselves”, p. 179. 2  For a gendered analysis of this chapter, see Levine Melammed, “S.D. Goitein’s ‘World of Women’ Revisited”. 3  Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, vol. 3, p. 325. 4  Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, vol. 3, p. 332. T-S 28.19. This document is transcribed and translated in full by Miriam Frenkel in “Ha-Ohavim ve-ha-Nedivim”, pp. 426–432; note ll. 18, 52–54 in particular.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004422179_003

Reading Women ’ s Letters from the Cairo Genizah

15

be able to emulate her pious grandmother.”5 Goitein surmised that this letter was written in “her own hand”, assuming that her mother had educated her, teaching her to read and to write, for he repeatedly refers to her as “the writer”.6 Perhaps women refrained from writing official letters on their own. However, when he contemplated women’s education or the lack thereof, this scholar estimated that of “all the letters found in the Genizah, a few dozen at most were sent by women; of only a few of them is it likely, and of none absolutely certain, that they were personally written by a woman”.7 Here appears what seems to become a central concern: were any of the letters sent by women actually penned by them or not? This concern will be addressed presently, but before doing so, it is worth considering whether any other scholars dealing with the Cairo Genizah were also noticing the presence of women’s letters.8 In 1972, Aryeh Leo Motzkin published an article in Hebrew containing the transcription and translation of three letters concerning women.9 Two of the three were sent by women: the first by Umm Makhin, a poor widow in Bilbays,10 and the third by Umm Daud, the sister of Judge Elijah who was the chief judge in the rabbinical court in Fustat and had been appointed by Avraham Maimonides.11 Motzkin believed that each of the two women had written her own letter. One cannot determine if the poor widow, whose son was studying in Fustat and had neglected to maintain contact with his mother, had received any education. Yet it is also unlikely that she could have afforded to hire a scribe; only her name appears at the close of this somewhat desperate plea. The name of no male relative who might have been asked to record her words appears here. The second of the letters in Motzkin’s article was penned by the male sender himself, for Shlomo b. Elijah was a well-known scribe who sent this particular letter to his paternal aunt with an offer to wed her daughter.12 The fact that he turned to her and not to her husband to consider his offer 5  Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, vol. 3, p. 353; ENA NS 48.6. My thanks to Amir Ashur for providing me with the updated catalogue number. 6  Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, vol. 3, p. 354. 7  Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, vol. 3, p. 355. Joel Kraemer and I have identified more than a hundred letters and if one includes women’s petitions, at least another fifty documents can be included. 8  This discussion will be limited to letters in Judaeo-Arabic from the classical period of the Genizah, 950–1250. 9  Motzkin, “Mikhteve Nashim”. 10  Cambridge University Library T-S 13J22.7. 11   T-S 13J34.9. 12  Motzkin published a great deal about this figure, who was interested in marrying his paternal aunt’s daughter. After this plan did not materialise, he turned to his maternal

16

Melammed

indicates that she was a widow and the head of her family. This very aunt reappears in the third letter as its author, and Motzkin clearly believed that Umm Daud (Sitt al-Jamal) had written it herself. As a member of an elite rabbinic family, she appears to be an educated woman with a knowledge of the Bible which is reflected in the quotations appearing in the letter. Motzkin felt that even her handwriting was appropriate to her status.13 This widow was in charge of her daughter’s future as well as of family financial affairs. Her letter began with a detailed description of the wedding celebration which she had arranged (to a different groom). Motzkin did not consider it to be unusual to assume that these women authored their letters, each of which presented vivid pictures of personal predicaments or family developments. The first scholar to analyse women’s letters in depth was Joel L. Kraemer, who published three relevant articles between 1991 and 2002.14 His primary focus was on the fact that these women actually speak for themselves. Of course, they often dictated their letters to scribes or to relatives or friends, depending on their level of literacy, and in such cases there may have been interference and stylization. However, scribal copies may be of great value as when they preserve the actual speech of the woman as she dictated, mistakes and all.15 In his first article, Kraemer occasionally notes that a scribe signed a woman’s letter,16 but also points to letters in which siblings admonished sisters for not having written.17 It is impossible to know if, in such cases, writing and sending were seen as separate acts or verbs that were interchangeable. Kraemer himself is not always specific as to whether or not he should be taken literally

relatives in Alexandria, marrying a different first cousin, Sitt Ghazal, who suffered tremendously from this marriage. 13  Motzkin, “Mikhteve Nashim”, p. 56. 14  Kraemer, “Spanish Ladies”; Kraemer, “Igrot Nashim”; and Kraemer, “Women Speak for Themselves”. The third article is an expanded version in English of the second, which is in Hebrew. 15  Kraemer, “Spanish Ladies”, p. 244. This particular article refers to letters in Hebrew, Judaeo-Spanish, and only one in Judaeo-Arabic, with an emphasis on the sixteenth century when Spanish exiles arrived on the scene. For a follow-up article relating to Spanish women, see Levine Melammed, “Spanish Women’s Lives”. 16  Kraemer, “Spanish Ladies”, p. 251, regarding a Hebrew letter from Safed to Cairo, T-S NS 298.11. 17  Kraemer, “Spanish Ladies”, p. 257, CUL Or. 1080 J 194.

Reading Women ’ s Letters from the Cairo Genizah

17

when he remarks that a woman “writes to her in-laws”18 or a woman “writes a Judaeo-Spanish letter from Palestine”.19 Interestingly enough, he dates his “romance” with women’s letters as blossoming after encountering the letter sent to Maimonides by his sister Miriam.20 Like the aforementioned poor widow from Bilbays, Miriam had sent her son to the big city and had not received any news of his progress or even of his whereabouts. Although she was most likely an educated woman, a scribe recorded her dictation; his name, Yaakov the Hazan, appears in a note in the margin, identifying him as the writer. Yet this very letter, not penned by Maimonides’ sister, but recording her thoughts, opinions, and requests to her brother, piqued Kraemer’s curiosity to the extent that he began a systematic search for women’s letters.21 Thus the very title of his second publication, “Women’s Letters from the Cairo Genizah: A General Survey”, reflects the change in focus which occurred after conducting a seminar at the University of Chicago on this topic.22 Kraemer explains that the writing he encountered is often spontaneous, unpretentious, and laced with the vernacular, with writing errors, and with slips of the pen as well as corrections.23 Elsewhere he added that socially “inferior as they were, their mode of address is informal and unceremonious”.24 He also discovered that these documents deal extensively with family ties, with all stages of life, and with all economic and social ranks, and cover the whole Mediterranean basin.25 As is the case for all premodern societies, knowing how to read is a skill that must be separated from that of writing. An individual who reads does not automatically know how to write, regardless of gender. Kraemer chose to view female illiteracy as a “blessing in disguise”, because even if a letter was dictated, one can discern what he terms “natural speech”, which is more authentic.26 An actual writer can, if need be, edit, correct, and improve upon what he or she has written, whereas direct dictation gives a more direct record of the speaker’s thoughts and language. The practice of editing seems to be more pronounced when writing to officials and thus is more commonly found in men’s letters. 18  Kraemer, “Spanish Ladies”, p. 259. In n. 90, he explained that she wrote a marginal note in Arabic despite the fact that the letter was in Hebrew; she then translated her Arabic into Hebrew for the recipients. 19  Kraemer, “Spanish Ladies”, p. 260. 20  This is T-S 10J18.1. Goitein published it in 1963, “Otograf”, pp. 190–191. 21  See Kraemer, “Women Speak”, p. 179. 22  See Kraemer, “Igrot Nashim”, p. 161. 23  Kraemer, “Igrot Nashim”, p. 161. 24  Kraemer, “Women Speak”, p. 179. 25  Kraemer, “Women Speak”, p. 181. 26  Kraemer, “Women Speak”, p. 187.

18

Melammed

The higher the status of the recipient, the greater the need felt by the writer to elaborate and to strive to display a more impressive style. This is in contrast to women’s styles, which are more straightforward and to the point, even when the letter was being dictated to a paid professional scribe.27 One must not forget that scribes often edited letters in order to make stylistic improvements, but this was not related to gender, for men, both literate and illiterate, employed scribes quite frequently as well. In an analysis of epistolary Judaeo-Arabic, Esther-Miriam Wagner notes that if a letter was written in a “crude hand”, it was often being sent by or to a woman. In her opinion, letters sent by women were most likely dictated to family members; these relatives were not as familiar with the conventions of letter writing as were the professional scribes.28 Yet even if dictated to a scribe, changes in the text might occur because of the discrepancy between the age or gender of the sender and the scribe. Language tended to be more colloquial, perhaps because the sender was hoping to make an emotional connection. Wagner makes an interesting comment that what shapes letter writing is not necessarily a question of women’s literacy. Perhaps the scribe himself had an image of how he should be presenting the information and how, in his mind, a woman would be writing.29 I am not certain that these women were not supervising the content, having their letters read aloud to them prior to sending, and objecting to undesirable changes or orally correcting the language that was to be recorded. At any rate, if they utilised untrained scribes, this would also explain the appearance of a different register from that of trained scribes. Yet, as Wagner points out, men also used the vernacular in their letters, so this was not necessarily an indication of their level of education; it might have been a means of aiming to connect with the reader.30 Is there such a thing as women’s script as opposed to men’s? Can one identify gender on the basis of handwriting? Motzkin intimated that Umm Daud’s handwriting reflected her status, but other than noting different levels of erudition, one wonders how this can be discerned. It seems presumptuous to assume that script is gendered; examples of papyri from earlier periods support this contention, for the findings there reveal that women’s script is just like any other. As a matter of fact, there is proof that women even noted that they

27  Kraemer, “Women Speak”, p. 188. Miriam’s aforementioned letter is distinctively Spanish in its style and script, and would have been whether she or her scribe had composed it. See Goitein, “Otograf”, p. 189. 28  These comments appear in a pre-publication draft of an article by Wagner, “Register and Layout”. 29  Wagner, “Register and Layout”. 30  Wagner, “Register and Layout”.

Reading Women ’ s Letters from the Cairo Genizah

19

themselves had carried out the writing.31 While language most certainly was gendered, whether spoken or written, it might be wisest not to judge a script without taking additional considerations into account. As for family letters, should one assume that if a woman could not afford a scribe, she would feel comfortable asking a family member or neighbour to perform this service for her gratis? One would imagine that the content of the letter might play a part in her decision. If the family member was involved in the matters discussed, then even an inexperienced child might be enlisted for help. The letter sent by the daughter of the long-absent merchant in the sixteenth century is the most well-known example. After Goitein concluded that Najmiya served as the clerk for her pregnant mother, he then proceeded to analyse this Spanish girl’s Judaeo-Arabic.32 Whether or not there were errors in the letter, one’s first impression is that the daughter wrote this letter as the family representative; her mother and siblings were suffering from the absence of the head of household. Since it cannot be proved otherwise, Najmiya will remain the viable letter writer, even though it is somewhat unusual for a female child to be the literate member of the family. In letters to and from immediate family members, declarations of love or other personal comments made by either a wife or a husband might prove to be problematic, for it would be inappropriate for anyone to be privy to them other than the couple. Could a scribe record it without embarrassment or might a proxy read it to the recipient, such as a wife?33 Can one assume that the woman involved would write or read such a letter on her own? At the same time, letters contain numerous complaints and expressions of dissatisfaction about family members, ranging from husbands to siblings to 31  I would like to thank Oded Zinger for bringing this fact to my attention. See the third century AH (816–913 CE) “Letter to a woman concerning the delivery and dispatch of various items” in Khan (ed.), Arabic Papyri, pp. 143–150. This letter is from one sister to another and the opening blessings used are incredibly similar to those found in the Genizah documents. The wording in l. 3 is: “I am writing to you, (my letter to you), my sister …”. On the verso side, l. 1, she signed: “From Rujhan the freedwoman”. But perhaps the most unusual line is l. 13, the penultimate line, which usually contains regards as does this one: “The woman scribe sends you her best wishes.” There is no doubt here that the letter was ‫ة‬ penned by a woman, ���‫كا ت�ب‬ � ‫!ا ل‬ 32  See Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, vol. 5, p. 222. The document is T-S 13J24.22; Kraemer discusses it as well in “Spanish Ladies”, pp. 248–249; see also Levine Melammed, “Spanish Women’s Lives”, pp. 101–103, for a detailed discussion, as well as a transcription, photograph, and translation on pp. 105–108. See also Wagner, “Goitein and Girlish Prose”; and Friedman, “Goitein’s Allegedly Simplistic Analysis”. 33  See the letter by a trader to India, who began modestly in case someone might be reading the letter to his wife. At first, he includes his son as a recipient, but his emotions belie him as he slips into the second person singular and speaks directly to her. See Goitein, Letters, pp. 220–226, and Friedman, “Ha-Isha”.

20

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children to in-laws. Might one think twice before expressing dissatisfaction with one’s spouse to a scribe? How uncomfortable might it be to air one’s grievances before a paid stranger? On the other hand, was it preferable to express these feelings among family members and possibly create friction and dissention? A somewhat surprising letter was dictated by the daughter of Hillel, the Baghdadi cantor, who was the wife of Halfon b. Menasse ha-Levi, a judge in the Fustat rabbinical court in the second half of the twelfth century. Her letters, ranging from notes to long missives intended for her brother, were written in what has been identified as her husband’s beautiful hand.34 This woman describes herself as forlorn and lonely, despite the fact that her husband not only hears but even records these sentiments in her name. Ha-Levi’s wife is by no means the only sister who declares to her brother that without him, she suffers from loneliness and feels abandoned. On the contrary, Kraemer and Goitein emphasise the strong ties that existed between brothers and sisters in this mobile society.35 When siblings are separated either due to a husband’s business needs or because the sister is residing with or near her husband’s family, the alienation experienced is significantly increased. In this case, ha-Levi’s wife did not seem to be self-conscious about expressing her true feelings to her brother, nor was she concerned about offending the scribe, namely her husband! Halfon did not omit or censor these declarations, but rather transmitted them obediently. Perhaps he was offended, but perhaps also he was able to empathise with his wife if he too had a beloved sister who was not living nearby and whose absence saddened him or her. Oded Zinger pointed out the fact that these expressions are meant to convey the preciousness of their relationship and are “performances for an end” or “cultural tropes that people use and recognise”.36 Perhaps she was not actually alienated from her husband, who was, after all, serving as her scribe. Nevertheless, within a family, the greatest number of overlapping years of life are with one’s sibling, as opposed to a parent or spouse. This fact might also be significant in understanding why these siblings felt so close to one another. In the end, it is hard to determine the precise reason for this strong connection. Goitein pointed to the bonds created by blood, especially in extended patrilineal clans;37 obviously 34  See Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, vol. 3, p. 22; Cambridge University Library Mosseri VII.138.2 and T-S 13J20.22. 35  See Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, vol. 3, pp. 20–24, and Kraemer, “Women Speak”, pp. 202–205. 36  Personal correspondence, March 2018. 37  Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, vol. 3, p. 1 and vol. 1, p. 73. “Men could repudiate their wives, and often did so, but a sister was a lifelong responsibility” (vol. 1, p. 21). Men can divorce their wives, but not their sisters.

Reading Women ’ s Letters from the Cairo Genizah

21

they cannot be severed, unlike the bonds of matrimony. In contrast, Krakowski places a greater emphasis on a family’s sense of honour. “Women’s honor, not sexual but social and reflected in their economic security and status within the households that they joined at marriage, seems to have weighed especially heavily on their kin”;38 this would clearly apply to how a brother would deal with his sister’s needs. A detailed letter, believed to have been written by a woman in the eleventh century, was sent by the sister of Isma‌ʾil b. Barhun of the well-known Taherti merchant family from Mahdiyya, Tunisia.39 The style is rather informal, perhaps an indication that she wrote it. The recipient was none other than her brother, presumably on a trip to Egypt; she sometimes uses the second person plural, as though there might be another brother in the picture, but by the time she signs off, on the second side of the page, she specifies her brother Isma‌ʾil. The letter itself, possibly sent from Qayrawan,40 is as follows:41 1. I write to you, my brother, my master and dear42 one, may God grant you a long life and perpetuate his favour to you, protect and guard you and not 2. withdraw (his) success from you. (Dated) Rosh Hodesh Av, I am well and healthy, thank the masters of security and peace but I yearn terribly to see you. 3. May God speed up our meeting in the best of circumstances since He is capable of doing anything He desires. 4. Your letters reached us in which you write that you are well, thank God, after anxiety and worries (on our part), and after I fasted 5. and I prayed that God would be gracious to you as is His wont which is in the past and recently. 6. I ask God to extend your life and to place me as a ransom for you (from evil) and to protect me by your life.43 And may 38  Krakowski, Coming of Age, pp. 15–16. 39   T-S 12.262. Goitein discovered that the original Barhun of Qayrawan fathered four sons and each named his son after their father; see A Mediterranean Society, vol. 3, p. 6. 40  This is Goitein’s assumption in A Mediterranean Society, vol. 3, p. 319. Moshe Gil assumed the letter was sent from Mahdiyya to Fustat; see Be-Malkhut Yishmael, vol. 2, p. 470. 41  A transcription with a Hebrew translation of this letter appear in Gil, Be-Malkhut Yishmael, vol. 2, pp. 470–472. Differences in transcription will be noted. Kraemer translated ll. 4–8 and 14–15 fairly similarly to mine in “Women Speak”, p. 203. 42  Gil somehow missed the word ‫ עזיזי‬in Be-Malkhut Yishmael, p. 470. 43  This statement, according to a private communication from Oded Zinger, implies that by keeping her brothers alive, she is being protected by God, because a woman’s protection depends upon whether or not she has male kin.

22

Melammed

7.

He reunite us as we want and desire. This is a great concern to me.44 May God not [deprive me]45 8. of you, not withhold from you success, and not allow your hopes to dissipate. As for what you wanted to know about [the members of] your household,46 my brother, 9. they are in the best condition. Najiyya is as you wish for, and even better and likewise Mawlat,47 may God the exalted 10. [fulfil]48 your best hopes for them and may He let me witness a male child of yours very soon and with all this, my brother, if only I 11. … this is hard for you, may God make her49 fortunate and blessed by your good health, God willing. My brother, 12. your letters arrived to your families reporting your well-being. I went to the courier and he read to me all that you 13. reported. I was troubled because I did not see regards for me from any of you, not to mention a letter. That which forced me 14. to write to you was that my heart does not allow me to stop writing to you50 and actually, I enjoy 15. writing letters to you; I imagine that I am actually talking to you. As for Najiyya, she is constantly mentioning you, 16. may God the almighty and glorious reunite you with her and fulfil your hopes for her. And Mawlat is more radiant than Najiyya,

44  Here the expression is ‫ ;עלי קלבה‬according to Friedman, Milon ha-Aravit-Yehudit, pp. 130– 131, something like grief, sadness, joy, or concern is expressed when this term is used. 45  This verb is missing. 46  Gil read ‫ דארכם‬instead of ‫ דארך‬and ‫ כמה‬instead of ‫כמא‬. 47  These are his two daughters. 48  There is no verb here; Gil filled it in with ‫ יבלגך‬whereas ‫ ויתם לך‬seems better (l. 9). 49  Gil translates the ‫ הא‬in ‫ יגעלהא‬as a feminine ‘this’ versus ‘her’; this expression appears again in l. 19. Oded Zinger noticed this repeated usage. 50  Cutting off correspondence had social ramifications then, like now. Frenkel equates this with ending a friendship, and a cause for distress; see Ha-Ohavim, p. 228, for examples suggested by Oded Zinger. In the saga of Shlomo b. Elijah, this difficult individual was highly offended by not receiving any communication from his father-in-law, to whom he sent numerous unanswered letters. As translated by Krakowski, he wrote: “You no longer consent to correspond with me, for which I am diminished, abased, and degraded, a reproach among men, despised among people, a lowly worm”; see Coming of Age, p. 285. In her discussion, she adds: “The letters preserved in the Genizah were written not just to communicate information, but as a means of creating, signalling, and maintaining personal relationships, and hence the personal honor that these relationships could generate”; p. 296.

Reading Women ’ s Letters from the Cairo Genizah

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17. [bring] them, my brother, anything that is appropriate for them, even though you are not someone who needs advice, and do likewise for their mother. 18. To Abu al-Fadl, may God protect him, a baby girl was born, and I called her by my mother’s name, Surura.51 19. May she enter a fortunate and blessed household.52 And may they (fem.) be fortunate and blessed, may God grant you what will 20. uplift your hearts.53 And so in the matter of Abu al-Surur, may God grant him life, he had a son born to him and he named him 21. Barhun, may God, the mighty and glorious, grant this child life and may He make him (the father) witness his (son’s) joy at his wedding.54 There was a large celebration55 22. as we will witness in your case in the near future. Bring with you (when you come) anything that is appropriate for him, may God make us witness … 23 …56 I send you the best regards and Najiyya and Mawlat and their mothers send you 24. regards and (the blessing of) health.57 Abu Zikri, may God grant him life and joy, and Abu Said, may God protect him … 25. and Sedaka, may God grant him life, sends the best regards to all of you. Everyone here 26. sends you greetings.

51  It is interesting that she says the baby received her mother’s name, when it was actually their mother’s name, as one brother was the baby’s father and the recipient of the letter was another brother. The name Surura appears in Goitein’s discussion of women’s names in A Mediterranean Society, vol. 3, p. 319, and was noted as well in his Sidre Hinukh, p. 25; see also A Mediterranean Society, vol. 3, p. 497 n. 11. Regarding the Taherti family’s mercantile and marital connections with Nahray b. Nissim, see Goldberg, Trade and Institutions, pp. 33–34. 52  Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, vol. 3, p. 49, claims that the only wish made upon the birth of a girl was for her to marry well; he translated this line as “to come into a blessed and auspicious house”. 53  Goitein assumed this meant a son. Other letters reveal that Isma’il and his brother had only daughters at the time; see Sidre Hinukh, p. 25. 54  See Friedman, Milon ha-Aravit-Yehudit, p. 716, for a discussion on the term ‫ פרח‬as a wedding or huppah. 55  In honour of the birth of the son. 56  Gil read ‫ אלתופיק‬in l. 23, p. 469. This is not certain. 57  Gil thought that ‫ סלאמה‬was a personal name, p. 472, l. 24.

24

Melammed

Above, backwards: My brother, Mawlat, has wed and it was a terrible wedding. We read all the beautiful things about Abi Ibrahim Yizhak which you described. May God give him life. May God cause you to witness joy from Mawlat and Najiyya. May God be his protector. Second side: (to) My brother, lord and master, dear to ??58 Abi Ibrahim, may God extend his life, Isma‌ʾil ben Barhun, may his soul rest in peace. God is my Lord. From his sister, may it arrive, God willing, to … (?)59 This letter is filled with many classic phrases, ranging from “God willing”, to asking for a long life for the recipient, or for protection and success of that individual. In addition, there are the ever-present hopes of allowing the family to be reunited. The letter begins with appropriate phrases but does not overindulge, and by the second line it already begins to update the brother. By the fourth line, the sister is revealing that her worried state led her to fast and pray, classic ploys used by men as well as women, which may have been carried out or may simply have been an exaggeration intended to induce guilt. This is followed by another dramatic, but by no means unusual, declaration in line 6, that the writer is willing to forego her own life if it were to serve to ransom her brother from harm or evil. Having informed him of her own good health, she finally updates him about the rest of the family. Because he has only daughters, she hopes he will be blessed with a son, sooner or later. Here and there she uses the plural rather than singular even though it seems that one brother is travelling abroad while the other is living near her and the absent brother’s family. For example, in line 4, ‫ כתבכם תדכרו סלאמתכם‬appears, but later the second person singular reappears. Was this a figure of speech? Was this letter addressed to any other absent family members?

58  This construction is confusing. The ‫ כ‬and ‫ ב‬are identical so Abi or Achi are both possibilities (Gil mistakenly read Abu). At the same time, since she pointed out above that her brother does not yet have sons, the father of Ibrahim might well refer to their father; this discrepancy was noted by the astute copy editor, Tim Curnow. One must note that if it is referrring to the father, it is nonetheless a bit odd because she does not include the ‫נ׳נ‬ after his name as she does note when referring to him at the end of the letter. 59  An address is missing here.

Reading Women ’ s Letters from the Cairo Genizah

25

The sister’s feelings were clearly hurt when the courier arrived with letters for other family members, but not for her; there was not even a mention of passing on regards to her in the others’ mail. She informs him that the courier read these letters to her. Can one assume on this basis that she was illiterate? Or that he, as the courier, was responsible for delivering these letters, and was not about to hand them over to her. Another possibility is to interpret ‫ואקפנהא‬ ‫ עלי‬in line 12 as meaning that the courier recounted news of her brother to her from other sources which included some letters he was carrying, although this option seems to be somewhat unlikely. She refers to writing to her brother throughout the letter and explains that if she had received a letter from him, she would have had to respond. His sister informs him that she enjoys writing to him, that her heart will not allow her to stop writing, and then explains how writing serves to psychologically lessen the distance between them. When she writes, this woman envisions her brother and imagines that she and he are having a conversation. This line perfectly exemplifies a comment made by Kraemer in a footnote: “The letter as a substitute for actual presence is a topos, part of the formal ritual of epistolary style.”60 Perhaps the experience of dictating served as an imaginary conversation, albeit one-sided, for her. The reading and writing of letters undoubtedly played a central role in her life! In a different letter sent by one sister to another, the writer expresses concern for various family members, especially because earlier letters she sent either were not received or not answered. Note the wording she chose: 61.‫והדא תלאת כתאב כתבתה אליך ומא אדרי הל וצלו אליך‬ ‘And this is the third letter I wrote to you and I don’t know if any reached you.’ This sister of Umm Salama does not state that she sent three letters, but rather that she wrote three letters. Whether or not she dictated or actually physically wrote the letters, in her mind, she had indeed authored them. Time and again, one faces this challenge of determining if a woman wrote or dictated her letters. Elsewhere, Maliha, the sister of Abu Said and Solomon, 60  Kraemer, “Women Speak”, p. 194 n. 77. “When members of the Genizah society wrote a letter, they frequently expressed the wish that the letter itself would serve as a substitute for their physical presence”; Franklin, “More than Words”, p. 287. Franklin even uses this letter as an example, stating that “the act of writing is wishfully conceived by the writer as enabling a direct, face to face encounter with an absent loved one”; p. 292. I thank Oded Zinger for bringing this article to my attention. 61   T-S 8J22.19, l. 12.

26

Melammed

wrote to her two brothers from somewhere in the Byzantine Empire seeking their help. This Hebrew letter was published by Mann and translated into English by Kobler.62 In considering whether or not she was capable of writing it herself, after a fresh study of the manuscript, Kraemer declared that he was unwilling to assume that she could not have written it down herself. After all, he concluded, she was from a learned family and “may well have been literate. At least, there is no internal evidence that someone else wrote the letter for her.”63 However, the fact that it is in Hebrew makes one wonder why she would not have written in her native tongue since she was from Egypt. Perhaps it was in Hebrew because this was the language accessible to the Byzantine scribe. There are two surviving versions of a further letter sent by a sister to her brother, Joshua b. Isma‌ʾil. Both versions are rather long, each containing more than forty lines, not counting the address.64 The widowed sister dictated her words to Alush, the shamash;65 Gil dates the documents to around 1065 and notes that her brother was in the import–export business.66 The two versions are not identical. There has been some discussion as to whether one copy was a draft; if so, the other would be the final copy. One theory is that the wording in version A sounds more like a woman’s direct speech, so would have been the first draft. It was then improved upon in the second draft, version B. This claim also points to neater handwriting in version B, the result of a more careful act of copying the second time around.67 At the same time, it is just as likely that two nearly identical letters were sent to the brother in Fustat, with the sister playing it safe in case one of them went astray.68 It seems that the hand is identical in both, although the scribe only identifies himself in one version (B). This phenomenon would support the draft theory since Alush would not feel a need to include a mention of himself until completing the letter and preparing it for mailing. Of course, a situation in which two nearly identical copies are found could easily occur in epistolary documents, regardless of gender. Regarding the 62  Mann, The Jews in Egypt and Palestine, vol. 2, pp. 306–307; Kobler, Letters of Jews, vol. 1, pp. 145–146. 63  Draft of an edition of T-S 13J11.4 in my possession that Kraemer was transcribing with comments. 64  These are T-S 10J19.20v (version A) and T-S 10J14.20v (version B). Moshe Gil published a transcription of the second of these along with a Hebrew translation; see Be-Malkhut Yishmael, vol. 3, pp. 71–74. 65  Goitein remarked that a shamash (beadle) who had good handwriting might also serve as a scribe; see A Mediterranean Society, vol. 2, p. 84. 66  Gil, Be-Malkhut Yishmael, vol. 3, p. 71. 67  Goitein commented that, in his opinion, “the beadle was such a good scribe that he permitted himself to write a second version of the same letter rather carelessly”; this seems to refute the above opinion. See A Mediterranean Society, vol. 2, p. 540 n. 81. 68  See Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, vol. 1, p. 304, for a discussion regarding this custom.

Reading Women ’ s Letters from the Cairo Genizah

27

whereabouts of the sister, there are differing opinions as to her location.69 She refers to the disaster brought about by al-Rum, “for the Byzantines burned the world” (‫)לאן אלרום חרקו אלדניא‬.70 However, since all agree that she was situated outside Egypt, why would both versions, rather than just the final copy, turn up in the Cairo Genizah?71 This woman describes her financial situation as horrendous. Goitein assumed that her situation was the result of an invasion of Tunisia by Italian pirates, while Gil assumed there were hardships in Libya because the Normans were waging war against Sicily.72 Whatever her location, the descriptions of her situation do not alter: 73.‫וחלת באלדין פי בלד צייק באלדין ואלגוע‬ ‘For I have sunk into debt in a destitute place, in debt and hunger.’ ‫[ איש‬crossed out] ‫וחק הדה אלחרוף אן כנא נקים יום וט׳ו׳ יום מא נערף‬ 74.‫אלכ׳בז ולא ד׳ואקה‬

‘And (I swear) by the truth of these words that I sustained (myself) (whether) for a day and (even) fifteen days … I didn’t know bread and did not taste it.’

69  Joel Kraemer placed her in Mahdiyya in Tunisia (in his handwritten notes) as did Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, vol. 1, p. 259. The latter also included these documents as examples of determining the arrival of boats with mail from Tunisia; see vol. 1, p. 482 n. 32. Goitein believed that her dire situation was the result of attacks on the community during the Norman invasion of Tunisia towards the end of the eleventh century, thus dating it later than Gil; see vol. 1, p. 259 and p. 465 n. 182. Gil assumed that this woman was residing in Libya, since her scribe, whose name also appears in other documents, was known to hail from Tripoli, Libya; see Be-Malkhut Yishmael, vol. 3, p. 71. 70   T-S 10J14.20, l. 25 and T-S 10J19.20, l. 27. This term, al-Rum, meaning the land of the Romans, referred to Byzantium, but was also used to refer to Christian Europe; see Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, vol. 1, p. 43. Goitein discovered another letter (T-S NS J145) addressed to Joshua b. Samuel by his nephew, in which he informs him that al-Mahdiyya had been sieged by al-Rum; Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, vol. 1, p. 465 n. 182. This seems to be the source which led Goitein to determine that the sister was also in Tunisia. 71  Drafts of many documents are indeed found in the Genizah; for example, there are copies of Maimonides’ responsa made by scribal trainees placed there because the Jewish court met in the Ibn Ezra synagogue. 72  See Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, vol. 1, p. 347 and Gil, Be-Malkhut Yishmael, vol. 3, p. 71. 73   T-S 10J19.20v, l. 4. 74   T-S 10J19.20r, ll. 20–21.

28

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Similarly she wrote that on Purim, they went to bed without dinner, unable to observe the mitzvah of the Purim meal. On Passover, she scavenged for food, and boiled a wild herb called hurrayq;75 this herb is only mentioned in one of the versions, as the two do not have identical details. Numerous times she reiterates that her situation is unbearable, that she has sunk (‫ )וחלת‬into debt, is in a quagmire, and turns to her brother to save her: 76.‫אחסבני שבויה גית ליך תפדיני פאנצ׳ר אלי יאכ׳י ולא תכ׳לי‬ ‘Consider me a captive woman that came to you. Release me and help me, my brother, and don’t forsake me.’ If her situation was as awful as described, how could she afford to pay the scribe, whether for only one letter or for two? Another long letter was written by a widow in Aden to her son in the 1220s.77 Kraemer and Goitein note that the first two lines were probably composed by a rather unprofessional scribe while the remainder was dictated by this woman to him. In the first two lines, this simple scribe tries to follow the accepted formulas, but without success.78 There are a number of unusual characteristics in these lines; for instance, the first abbreviation is ‫( בע״ד‬blessed is he who helps the weak), not commonly found in Genizah documents.79 Thus he began the letter: ‫מן אלואלדה אלעזיזה תכץ חצרה אלולד אלעזיז אלמופק ופקה אללה תע‬ ‫ ואנעם‬/‫ עלי אסר חאל‬/‫ וסהל סרעה לקאה‬/‫ואנא בטול בקאה‬ 80… ‫ במנה וכרמה‬/‫באל‬ 75   T-S 10J14.20v, l. 4. Goitein describes this herb as being native to al-Mahdiyya or a nearby island, a herb “eaten in springtime, raw or cooked, when the Norman invaders had destroyed the crops in the country and when on that desolate island nothing else was to be had”. Its seeds turned to nettles after spring, and were used for medicine. See Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, vol. 4, pp. 245–246. 76   T-S 10J14.20r, ll. 25–26. 77  Goitein was able to estimate the date as being between 1226 and 1229 because of information included in the letter, namely, that those were the only possible years when the Muslim feast of breaking the fast and Rosh Hashana coincided while the nagid mentioned was still alive. See A Mediterranean Society, vol. 5, p. 568 n. 19. 78  Bodl. Heb. d. 66.21. See Goitein, Ha-Temanim, p. 48; a complete transliteration and translation into Hebrew appears on pp. 48–32. Kraemer’s comment was made in a personal notation. 79  This is an abbreviation for ‫ברוך עוזר דלים‬, read incorrectly by Mann in 1926. See Goitein, Ha-Temanim, p. 48 n. 19. 80  Ll. 2–4. The phrases that rhyme are noted by the use of slanted lines.

Reading Women ’ s Letters from the Cairo Genizah

29

‘From the dear mother who sends regards to her dear and successful son, may God the exalted make him succeed and me, by extending his life, and may God ease our reunion quickly in a joyous situation and in good spirits by His loving kindness and His honour.’ On the second page, a quote from Psalms 118:6 (“God is on my side; I have no fear”) appears quite unexpectedly. One wonders why this woman was not able to find a more capable scribe in Fustat, unless, of course, he was a relative more or less doing her a favour by recording her words after inserting his less-thanprofessional opening lines. Another explanation is that scribes who had mastered the “various registers of polite classical Judaeo-Arabic when writing for women did not experience the pressure of having to adhere to prescriptive standards in the same ways as when they wrote for men”.81 Yet this does not seem to be the case here. Goitein described her as a widow displaying her authority who, even when addressing a grown son, represented one of “the most outspoken female letter writers”.82 He considered her to be rather insensitive towards this son and quite domineering.83 Be that as it may, her choice of a less-than-impressive scribe is somewhat baffling. A letter sent by a mother to her son Yosef piques one’s interest. This letter was dictated to the well-known scribe, Shlomo b. Elijah,84 although it appears to be written with a literary flair that is not present in his other writings. It seems that Yosef’s mother instructed the scribe to utilise her wording, which is rather impressive in its own way. Knowing that there was a problem with the son’s poll tax payment and that he was being harangued by the tax collectors, she declared: 85.‫ולו אביע מלחפתי וכל מא ע[נ]די חתי אפדיה מן הדה אלשביה אלתי הו פיהא‬ ‘Even if I have to sell my robe and all of my possessions, I would redeem him from this captivity.’

81  Wagner, “The Language of Women”. 82  Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, vol. 5, p. 222. 83  Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, vol. 5, p. 223. In Hebrew, he described this ‫ גבירה‬as ‫אשה‬ ‫ גברתנית ותקיפה‬who used harsh language and whose scribe had no choice but to do as she commanded, ‫ ;ועט הסופר נשמע לציווייה‬Ha-Temanim, p. 48. 84  This is ENA NS I.99. Oded Zinger brought this document to my attention, and it was he who noted the divergence from Shlomo b. Elijah’s usual style. For information about this scribe and his family, see Motzkin, “Arabic Correspondence”. 85   E NA NS I.99, ll. 11–13.

30

Melammed

She chose to use the third person even though it is clear that she is directing her words to him. Later on in the letter, she described her personal anguish: ‫ואנא פי שדה אנא באכיה ליל [ונהאר] ואדא גית דברתך בכל וג׳ה ולו נתגטא‬ 86.‫באלכסא ואנת תעלם מחבתי פיך‬

‘I am in distress, I am crying night and day and if you come, I will care for you in every way and even if I have to cover myself with a sheet (plain cloth). And you know my love for you.’ At this point, there is no doubt that she is speaking directly to her beloved son. Here she refrained from invoking the classic ploys of taking extreme measures such as those mentioned above, whether they be fasting, refraining from bathing, and the like. She is forthcoming about her sadness while declaring her love openly, metaphorically describing the extremes to which she was willing to go: if she must relinquish her entire wardrobe, she would gladly do so, and cover herself with the simplest of fabrics. This echoes her earlier declaration in which she was willing to sell all of her possessions; her altruism or her sense of sacrifice seem to have no limits. Her son needs to realise the depth of her love and commitment to him and her willingness to care for him. She adds one last declaration towards the end of the letter, emphasising the pain caused by her suffering, which was burning up her heart: 87.‫יא ולד אלנאר פי קלבי מן גהתך לאגל תעדים‬ ‘Oh my son, there is suffering88 in my heart because of you because of (your) absence.’ This is an example of a letter written in the handwriting of a scribe employed by a woman whose voice reverberates clearly throughout every single line. A letter like this reinforces the contention that, while a letter might not be in a woman’s hand, it is not as significant as the fact that the woman’s words resound throughout the text. Goitein describes one letter as being sent by an “old woman in Fustat who adjures her son in the countryside89 ‘by the milk with 86   E NA NS I.99, ll. 17–20. 87   E NA NS I.99, ll. 23–24. 88  Literally, ‘fire’. See Friedman, Milon ha-Aravit-Yehudit, p. 506. 89   See n. 92 below; he was not located in the countryside but in a Jewish quarter.

Reading Women ’ s Letters from the Cairo Genizah

31

which I have nursed you, do not neglect your boy’ who was probably staying with his grandmother”.90 Interestingly enough, this letter opens with a word in Arabic, “my letter”.91 This is followed by a greeting, which appears to be to her dear father rather than to her son, and might be a scribal error (or quite possibly her error):

‫ت‬

92‫كا ب�ى אלי אלואלד אלעזיז‬ �� My letter, to the dear father [sic] The rest, however, is addressed to the son, Abu al-Fada‌ʾil al-Bawaridi, to whom she directs her comments. In four different lines, she begins with the phrase ‫‘ לא תסאל‬don’t ask’.93 The intention here is to emphasise the deplorable state that she and her family are in, for after each ‘don’t ask’, she proceeds to describe some hardship. This document also contains the writing of two different hands, one on each side of the page; could one of them be hers? Another less common feature in women’s letters appearing here is inclusion of the address in Arabic letters:

َ ‫� ص� ا ل ا ��س � ن ة‬ ‫ ا ل ا �ل��ق�����م �ة ���س��ل ا ل ا � ش‬94‫� ��س��ة‬ )‫ل�������ي�� خ ا ب�و ا �ل��ف�� ض�����اي�ل (ا �ل��ف�� ض�����ا ئ�ل‬ ‫�ك��د ر�ي�� ا �ل���م��حرو‬ ‫ر ي م ى‬ ‫ى‬ ‫ي��� ل ى‬ �

�‫ا ��لي���هود �ي� ا ��ل�بوا رد �ي‬

‘To be sent to Alexandria the protected to the district of al-Qamara to the Sheikh Abu al-Fada‌ʾil the Jew, preparer of cold dishes.’ While it is impossible to determine if she wrote the Arabic, this mother clearly missed her son, who was residing in Alexandria. She felt the need to inform him of various difficulties she was facing and to include instructions regarding

90  This is T-S 13J18.29v; the quote appears in Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, vol. 3, p. 246; see the original, ll. 14–16, where Goitein chose ‘milk’ in place of ‘teats’. The mother of the sage, R. Sheshet, in BT Bava batra 9b, uses a similar expression, “from the breasts from which you nursed”: .‫ובחק אללה עליך ובחק אלבזה אלדי רצ'עתך לא תנסא סלימאן ולדך‬ 91  See Wagner, Linguistic Variety of Judaeo-Arabic, pp. 99 and 230, for discussion about the appearance of this term at the beginning of letters. 92   T-S 13J18.29v, l. 1. 93   T-S 13J18.29v, ll. 4, 11, 13, and on reverse side, l. 1. 94   Al-Qamara was a central Jewish quarter in Alexandria; see Frenkel, “Ha-Ohavim”, p. 625 n. 1.

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his children as well as some financial matters. While mixing personal and business affairs was commonplace in Genizah letters, the writing style of women was usually less formal than in men’s letters. The standard blessings at the beginning of this letter are common, but not as elaborate as those found in men’s letters. After writing to her dear son/father, she added: 95.‫אטאל אללה בקאה ומן חסן אלתופיק לא אכלאה וג׳מעני ואיאה‬ ‘May God prolong his life. And may He not deprive him of (his) success and may He reunite me with him.’ Kraemer noted that this script contains large clear letters. He then speculated that if “curling ch. [sic] of woman”, then she wrote it herself.96 Again, one weighs the evidence and attempts to determine if the script or if even part of it was penned by the mother/grandmother or if she employed a scribe. In this case, there are signs that point to the possibility that she had a “hand” in writing her own letter and again, the expressions that appear clearly belong to her. Letters from wives to husbands differ considerably from those sent to brothers, sisters, or sons. In a brief letter from an unhappy wife, there is a clear dissonance between the content of her letter and her opening lines. The first lines contain seemingly acceptable and appropriate blessings:

‫ רחמ׳‬ ‫בשמ׳‬ ‫כתאבי אלי סיד כלף [א]ט(א)ל אללה בק(א)ה ואדאם‬ ‫[ע]זה ונעמאה וגמעני [ואיאה] עלי אסר‬ 97.‫חאל ועאפיה‬

‘In your name, (O Merciful One) [this is] my letter to you, Lord Khalaf, may God prolong his life and perpetuate his honour and favour, and may He join you and me with him together (reunite us) soon in the happiest of circumstances and in good health.’

95   T-S 13J18.29v, ll. 1–2. 96  This comment appears in his personal notes, which were given to me. The notes have “ch.” as an abbreviation, perhaps meaning if curling is characteristic. 97   T-S 6J3.22, ll. 1–4. Goitein mentions this letter in A Mediterranean Society, vol. 3, p. 178.

Reading Women ’ s Letters from the Cairo Genizah

33

The rest of the letter, however, is nowhere as polite or flattering. Like the opening lines, it is also written in the first person; below are some examples. ‫ בה אני מן חית אן‬98‫אלדי נעלמך‬ ‫יקצי לי‬ ֗ ‫כנת קאעדה חאירה מא ענדי מן‬ ‫כרגת למן כליתני מא קדרת‬ ֗ ‫[חא]גה ואנת‬ ‫תבעת לי כתאב מתל אלנאס אן כנת כרה[תנ]י‬ .‫תעאלא כלצני‬

‘I wish to inform you that since I have been sitting forlorn I have had no one to take care of my needs Furthermore, from the time you deserted me, you have not been able To send me a letter as people ordinarily do. Now if you have spurned [hated] me, [God], the exalted will certainly rescue me.’99 One does not get a sense that a scribe is present in this brief letter; perhaps this woman was indeed as capable of writing, much as she was capable of expressing her feelings. There are differing opinions as to who penned another letter which was also sent to an absentee husband. In this case, he was adamant about his refusal to join his wife. Her declaration of a hunger strike until death did not seem to move him in the least.100 The writer of this letter had a nice square script, and, if it was a man, then perhaps he had some training in writing biblical codices; there are some signs appearing above and below certain letters which might point to the style of a trained scholar. Yet it is interesting to note that while both Goitein and Kraemer commented on the unusual script and style of this letter, neither dismissed the possibility that the wife might have written it herself.101 On the reverse side is what Goitein describes as a “hasty answer” to

98  This is the classic use of ‘we’ for the first person singular, most often a sign of a writer’s Maghrebi or Moroccan origins. See also Wagner’s discussion of the first person imperfect nafʿal in “Genizah Sociolinguistics”. 99  Or, ‘come and set me free’, namely, grant me a divorce. For a discussion of the terms used when requesting a divorce, see Friedman, “Mashber be-Nisuʾin”, pp. 85–88. 100   Lewis-Gibson Arab. II.51. This appears in l. 14. See Friedman, Milon ha-Aravit-Yehudit, p. 543, for a discussion of the term ‫ מתנאקל‬/ ‫ אנתקל‬as dying. 101  See, for example, Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, vol. 3, p. 195, where he refers to this as an extraordinary letter, possibly written by the woman.

34

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the wife’s declaration.102 In truth, the script on this page, most likely her husband’s handwriting, is nowhere nearly as aesthetic. A further letter to relatives was sent by a woman and is signed “from her son Joseph”.103 It seems to make sense that the letter is being dictated by his mother to Joseph. The recipients, apparently relatives of this woman, are addressed in feminine singular as well as masculine plural. The original assumption by both Goitein and Kraemer was that the woman sending the letter was writing to her relatives in Tripoli, Libya. However, there is no mailing address on the second side of the page, but rather the aforementioned signature from her son and underneath, the location in Libya. It seems more logical to conclude that the letter was sent from Libya to Fustat, which would explain how a copy was preserved in the Genizah.104 The sender seems to be trying to clear her name – the relatives to whom she is sending the letter have accused her of neglect or oversight with regard to keeping an eye on their sickly but grown son, who was living in the same locale as she was. When she uses the feminine singular, she is speaking to the mother of the fellow under discussion, for example when she says ‫ותלומיני‬, ‘you (fem.) blame me’.105 Joseph’s mother makes it clear that she had no part in any of the decisions made by this relative, in particular regarding his marriage and the heartless conditions he set for his orphaned wife/servant. Goitein points to her apologetic tone when she admits that he had reached the point where he indeed needed a carer, which is why he hired an orphan girl; he eventually wed her. However, his decisions following this union are not conducive to viewing him as noble by any means. He informed his wife that before he returned to his city (home), he planned to divorce her. There is no clue as to whether or not he included a reasonable delayed payment in her ketubah or was simply taking advantage of the fact that she was an orphan.106 Either way, the sender let his family know that there was a limit to the degree to which they could hold her responsible for their son’s actions, especially since she herself was ill when some of these developments occurred. He had made his own decisions:

102  Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, vol. 3, p. 196. 103   T-S 8J19.29. 104  Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, vol. 3, p. 494 n. 145; Kraemer noted this in his personal notes. I came to this conclusion following a comment by Oded Zinger and a discussion with Uri Melammed. 105   T-S 8J19.29, l. 5. 106  See Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, vol. 3, p. 306, part of his discussion about heirs and orphans.

Reading Women ’ s Letters from the Cairo Genizah

35

‫ואנתם פקד אכדתמוני באלאמר אל‬

107‫אכדת]מוני בדלך והל אזוג׳תה לבנתי‬ ‘You (pl.) blamed me in this matter. … Don’t blame me for this. Did I marry him to my own daughter?’

Obviously, if the bride who was being treated unjustly were her daughter, the situation would have been completely different. This very personal letter penned by Joseph, recorded a woman dictating her feelings of outrage and defensiveness, and setting limits as to how responsible one can be for a grown man’s actions, especially when that man was not her own son. Yet it is not clear to what his family objected; quite possibly to the fact that he had married beneath his station, choosing a penniless orphan.108 There are no clear indications as to the cause of their anger. Almost all of the informal letters sent by women were to relatives, most often sons and brothers, but also husbands, uncles, sisters, and other assorted relatives as exemplified by the above correspondence.109 Unlike merchants, most of these women did not have many dealings with individuals outside their family circle. Yet their letters reveal a tremendous amount about their lives and those of the people around them; their voices are heard, whether or not they themselves actually penned their letters. It may be hard to determine who used a scribe when no name appears as a signature, yet even when scribes were involved, whether professional or not, the women were dictating to them and in charge of the content. Their language ranges from the literal to the figurative. Many had difficult lives; their woes, often due to the distance between family members, frequently monopolise the page. It is indeed challenging to read and interpret these letters, and to determine the essence of their messages. Although only a sample has been presented here, these epistolary documents are essential for understanding this medieval Mediterranean society.

107   T-S 8J19.29, l. 12–13. 108  This possibility was suggested by Oded Zinger; if he was planning to divorce her, he would not have to return home with an inappropriate spouse. 109  “Women’s relationships with their own relatives were central to their lifelong social and economic welfare”; Krakowski, Coming of Age, p. 66.

36

Melammed

Bibliography Franklin, Arnold E., “More than Words on a Page: Letters as Substitutes for an Absent Writer”, Jews, Christians and Muslims in Medieval and Early Modern Times, ed. Arnold E. Franklin, Brill: Leiden, 2014, pp. 287–305. Frenkel, Miriam, “Ha-Ohavim ve-ha-Nedivim”: Elit Manhigah be-Kerev Yehude Alexandriya bi-Yeme ha-Benayim, Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute, 2006. Friedman, M.A., “Goitein’s Allegedly Simplistic Analysis of T-S 13J24.22 (Response to March 2012)”, Cambridge University Library Fragment of the Month, 2013, http:// www.lib.cam.ac.uk/Taylor-Schechter/fotm/response-march-2012/index.html. Friedman, M.A., “Ha-Isha ve-Sahar Hodu”, Rishonim ve-Akharonim, ed. Y. Hacker et al., Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center, 2000, pp. 152–185. Friedman, M.A., “Mashber be-Nisuʾin bi-Teʾudot ha-Genizah ve-Ha‌ʾaramah baHalakha bi-Teshuvat ha-Rambam u-Mekhkarim”, Pe’amim 128 (2011), pp. 69–103. Friedman, M.A., Milon ha-Aravit-Yehudit mi-Yeme ha-Benayim: Li-Teudot ha-Genizah shel Sefer Hodu ule-Textim Aherim, Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute and Hebrew University, 2016. Gil, Moshe, Be-Malkhut Yishmael bi-Tekufat ha-Geonim: Ktavim mi-Genizaht Kahir, Jerusalem: Tel Aviv University, Bialik Institute, Ministry of Defense, 1997. Goitein, S.D., Ha-Temanim: Historya, Sidre Hevra, Hayye ha-Ruah, ed. Menahem Ben-Sasson, Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute, 1983. Goitein, S.D., Letters of Medieval Jewish Traders, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973. Goitein, S.D., A Mediterranean Society, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978. Goitein, S.D., “Otograf Shel ha-Rambam u-Mikhtav Elav me-Akhoto Miryam”, Tarbiz 32 (1962–1963), pp. 184–194. Goitein, S.D., Sidre Hinukh, Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute and Hebrew University, 1962. Goldberg, Jessica L., Trade and Institutions in the Medieval Mediterranean: The Genizah Merchants and their Business World, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Khan, Geoffrey (ed.), Arabic Papyri: Selected Material from the Khalili Collection, London: Nour Foundation, 1992. Kobler, Franz, Letters of Jews throughout the Ages, London: Ararat Publication Society, 1953. Kraemer, Joel L., “Igrot Nashim min ha-Genizah ha-Kahirit: Skira Klalit”, Eshnav leHayyehen Shel Nashim be-Havarot Yehudiyot, ed. Yael Azmon, Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center, 1995, pp. 161–179. Kraemer, Joel L., “Spanish Ladies from the Cairo Genizah”, Mediterranean Historical Review 6 (1991), pp. 237–266. Kraemer, Joel L., “Women Speak for Themselves”, The Cambridge Genizah Collections: Their Contents and Significance, ed. Stefan C. Reif, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002, pp. 178–216.

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Krakowski, Eve, Coming of Age in Medieval Egypt: Female Adolescence, Jewish Law, and Ordinary Culture, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018. Levine Melammed, Renée, “S.D. Goitein’s ‘World of Women’ Revisited”, Nashim 32 (2018), pp. 102–110. Levine Melammed, Renée, “Spanish Women’s Lives as Reflected in the Cairo Genizah”, Hispania Judaica 11/2 (2015), pp. 93–108. Mann, Jacob, The Jews in Egypt and Palestine under the Fatimid Caliphate, London: Oxford, 1920–1922. Motzkin, Aryeh Leo, “The Arabic Correspondence of Judge Elijah and his Family: A Chapter in the Social History of Seventeenth Century Egypt”, PhD dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1965. Motzkin, Aryeh Leo, “Mikhteve Nashim min ha-Geniza”, Mehkarim bi-Toldot Am Yisrael ve-Eretz Yisrael, vol. 2, eds. B. Oded et al., Haifa: Haifa University Press, 1972, pp. 83–92. Wagner, Esther-Miriam, “Genizah Sociolinguistics: The Language of Women,” in Language, Gender and Law in the Judaeo-Islamic Milieu”, Leiden: Brill, 2019, pp. 1–13. Wagner, Esther-Miriam, “Goitein and Girlish Prose: T-S 13J24.22”, March 2012, http://www .lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/departments/taylor-schechter-genizah-research-unit/ fragment-month/fragment-month-15-0. Wagner, Esther-Miriam, “The Language of Women, L-G Arabic 2.129”, Cambridge University Library Fragment of the Month, January 2015, http://www.lib.cam.ac .uk/collections/departments/taylor-schechter-genizah-research-unit/fragment -month/fragment-month-january. Wagner, Miriam-Esther, Linguistic Variety of Judaeo-Arabic in Letters from the Cairo Genizah, Leiden: Brill, 2010. Wagner, Esther-Miriam, “Register and Layout in Epistolary Judeo-Arabic”, Jewish History 32 (2019), in press.

CHAPTER 3

Jewish Women in Muslim Legal Venues: Seven Legal Documents from the Cairo Genizah Oded Zinger* In a recent article, I explored the different ways Jewish women used Muslim legal venues in medieval Egypt. I showed that Jewish women sued Jewish men in Muslim courts more than the other way around and that there was a marked tendency to secure women’s monetary rights in Muslim legal instruments. The Jewish community did not look favourably on women who utilised these venues, and enacted a variety of legal measures to prevent them from doing so. Women who persisted in their claims tend to be depicted more negatively than men in the documents of the period. Beyond the common explanations given for Jewish use of Muslim courts, such as legal difference and greater enforcement, in that article I argued that Muslim legal venues (qāḍī courts, the Muslim government, and muftis) offered Jewish women a way to resist the pressures they encountered in Jewish communal institutions and at home. When dealing with these institutions, a woman’s success was often dependent on the involvement of her close male relatives. But what if the conflict was with those very men? In those instances, Muslim legal venues offered Jewish women a more neutral arena in which to operate than that enabled by the socially embedded Jewish institutions. Thus, going outside the community assisted women to renegotiate relationships with their closest male relations – brothers and husbands.1 I relied on a core corpus of 55 cases and 28 additional cases in the aforementioned article.2 The number and range of cases indicated that Jewish women’s use of Muslim courts was a widespread and multifaceted phenomenon that * This study was supported by the Israel Institute for Advanced Studies and the Jewish Memorial Foundation. I would like to thank the Syndics of Cambridge University Library, the Bodleian Library and the library of the Jewish Theological Seminary for the permission to display the images of the documents. 1  See Zinger, “She Aims to Harass Him”. 2  Since submitting that study, I have come across ENA 4011.73 (unpublished), L-G Misc. 11 (edited in Gil, In the Kingdom of Ishmael, doc. 78), T-S Misc. 8.23 (unpublished, brought to my attention by Craig Perry) and T-S NS 224.22 + 29 + 33 (unpublished, joined by Amir Ashur), which should be included in the core corpus.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004422179_004

Jewish Women in Muslim Legal Venues

39

cannot be explained by a single factor. Moreover, it provided the basis for a rudimentary quantitative analysis and allowed me to survey the contours of the phenomenon in terms of subject, geographic place, period, social status, and more. However, this approach came at the expense of a close reading of specific cases. In this companion study, I edit seven previously unpublished Genizah documents (six from the core corpus and one of the additional cases) that attest to Jewish women’s use of Muslim courts. While these documents are not representative of the varied and somewhat eclectic corpus, they do provide a sense of the different ways that Jewish women utilised Muslim legal venues. Delving into specific cases and following their individual trajectories fleshes out the phenomenon, turning it from a shelf-mark in a footnote or a numerical statistic in a graph to a narrative with names, aspirations, predicaments, and plenty of ambiguities. This complements the bird’s-eye view of the phenomenon of the first article with a direct and intimate familiarity gained from close examination of individual stories. The seven documents studied in the present article are not representative of the larger corpus from which they come in two particular ways. First, the documents edited here, while occasionally fragmentary and elusive, offer more substance than the average document in the corpus. While all the documents in the corpus involve a Jewish woman and Muslim legal venues, in many of them the evidence is fleeting, and they tend to raise more questions than they answer. Three examples will suffice to demonstrate this. First, in a Judeo-Arabic letter from the wife of a well-known court clerk to her brother, her husband (who wrote the letter) added a short note to his brother-in-law in the margins of the letter. Among other things, he writes: “Do not ask what hardships we endure from the wife of Khalaf, whose marriage I arranged among you, she intends to appeal to the government (sulṭān).”3 Though we get the sense that the court clerk resents the actions and intentions of Khalaf’s wife, we are left in the dark regarding the subject of her threat and whether she carried out her intentions. As a second example, in a page that appears to be an irregularly shaped court register from 1221, we find an entry stating that the daughter of Tuwayr al-ʿIshā gave birth to a child outside of wedlock (mamzeret).4 An additional note explains that “her mother apostatised, and she (i.e. the mother) is the wife of Ephraim al-Damīrī. He did not write her a bill of divorce and she married (A)bū ʿAlī bin Yaʿlamū (‘Abū ʿAlī son of someone’) in a Muslim court 3  T-S 13J20.22, top margins, transcribed in Levine Melammed, “A Look at Women’s Lives”, pp. 84–85. 4  Tuwayr al-ʿIshā literally means ‘little bird of the evening’, and probably means ‘moth’, ‘evening butterfly’, or ‘bat’. It is likely a name of a former slave.

40

Zinger

(dine goyyim).” Although we see here that the Muslim court was used for marriage, the note raises a series of questions regarding the religious identity of the parties and their appearance in the Muslim court.5 The third example is from a letter written in 1140, where a resident of the town of Qalyub writes to his older brother, a well-known India merchant, about an ongoing conflict he was having with some young men (ṣibyān) who owed him money. When, accompanied by a messenger of the head of the Jews, he tried to collect the debt, the young men sought the help of their Muslim neighbours, complained that he was harassing them every day when they were ill, and threatened that their mother would go and protest to the government (sulṭān).6 Here the participants and the context are clear enough, but one wonders whether the mother is supposed to make an appeal to the government merely because her children claim to be ill, or whether her biological sex conferred on her some gendered advantage in appealing or threatening to appeal to the government. The suspicion that we are encountering here a gendered division of labour between the mother and the young men is buttressed by the fact that a few lines down we hear that the young men later protested the matter successfully to the head of the Jews. These three examples highlight the ambiguity and fleetingness of much of the Genizah evidence. The documents published in full for the first time in this article, however, were chosen for their relative clarity and substance.7 The second aspect in which the documents edited here are not representative of the broader corpus is that they are all legal documents. There are two reasons for this. First, as is the case with the two letters mentioned in the paragraph above, a single Genizah letter tends to touch on a broad variety of 5  E NA 2560.6v, edited in Yagur, “Religious Identity and Communal Boundaries”, doc. 27. Since the child is called a mamzeret, we assume that Abū ʿAlī was also a Jew (the child of a nonJew and a Jewess is not considered a mamzer). If the wife of Ephraim al-Damīrī apostatised before her marriage to Abū ʿAlī, we must assume that Abū ʿAlī was also an apostate, since it is unthinkable that a Muslim court would marry a Muslim woman to a non-Muslim man. However, if they were both Muslim, why would the Jewish court bother to record the status of their offspring? Were they still circulating in Jewish circles? Could the daughter or one of her parents return to the fold? Perhaps the marriage took place before their apostasy or that apostasy was not the cut and dried binary transformation that we tend to assume. For further discussion, see Yagur, “Religious Identity and Communal Boundaries”, 191, 251 and 258. 6  T-S 13J19.13, in Goitein, Friedman, and Ashur, Ḥalfon, doc. VIII, 78, pp. 423–430, and especially pp. 426–427 n. 31. 7  Documents 1 and 2 were previously edited in my unpublished dissertation, “Women, Gender and Law”, as documents 6 and 2 respectively. Document 3 in this article was transcribed but not translated in Gershon Weiss’s unpublished MA thesis, and a few lines from documents 4 and 5 were edited in Yeḥezkel David’s unpublished PhD dissertation.

Jewish Women in Muslim Legal Venues

41

topics. Thus, a reference to a woman using a Muslim legal venue is usually only a small part of a longer, far-ranging letter. In contrast, legal documents tend to be focused on a single legal act, or at least revolve around a given issue, and when they relate to a woman’s use of Muslim legal venues, it is as a more central concern. The second reason is that letters have long been at the forefront of Genizah studies and to some extent have tended to eclipse court records.8 This is especially true when it comes to topics relating to women, where the tendency has been to study (and translate) women’s letters in order to recover women’s voices.9 However, legal documents are often a rich source of information regarding the daily lives of women. While it is true that legal language is often obtuse and thus constitutes a barrier to those unfamiliar with it, the information that can be gleaned is well worth the effort. This study thus translates seven legal documents into English not only for the light they shed on Jewish women’s use of Muslim legal venues, but also to encourage the use of Genizah legal documents for the study of women, whether by scholars in other fields or in classroom settings.10 To facilitate their use, I strive to offer a clear and accessible English translation, even at the occasional expense of literal fidelity. Each document is preceded by an introduction that presents the specific situation and people involved in each case. The introductions highlight the particular contribution of the document to the understanding of Jewish women and their interaction with Muslim legal venues. In those instances where the text is ambiguous, I offer different interpretative options and possible readings of the case. The appendix at the end of the study contains the images and transcriptions of the documents. It also includes relevant technical information such as the language, material, physical size, and state of preservation of each document, as well as indicating other writings that appear on each fragment, and select previous discussions. 8  On the critical role of letters, especially merchants’ letters, to Goitein’s early orientation, see Miller, “Two Men in a Boat”, pp. 31–33. It is thus not surprising that when Goitein wanted “to make a break in producing large books and turn to writing something short and handy which might be welcome to students, laymen and scholars alike”, he turned to merchants’ letters; see Goitein, Letters, p. vii. 9  See Kraemer, “Women Speak for Themselves”, pp. 178–216. 10  For some Genizah legal documents dealing with women which are available in English translation, see Marmer, “Patrilocal Residence”; Friedman, “Divorce”; Friedman, “PreNuptial Agreements”; Goitein, “A Jewish Business Woman”; and Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, vol. 5, pp. 145–149 and 152–155. Marriage documents can be found in OlszowySchlanger, Karaite Marriage Documents, and in the second volume of Friedman, Jewish Marriage in Palestine.

42

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Abbreviations and symbols used in the translations and transcriptions below: AG = Anno Graecorum, called in Hebrew minyan sheṭarot (the calendar for deeds) AM = Anno Mundi, the Jewish calendar more well known today, counts from “the creation of the world” b. = “son of” (Hebrew ben, Arabic bin/ibn, Aramaic bar) bt. = “daughter of” (Hebrew bat, Arabic bint, Aramaic berat) Mr. = morenu ve-rabenu, “our teacher and master” R. = Rabbi/our Rabbi [Square brackets] indicate a lacuna in the manuscript [[Double square brackets]] indicate a word erased by the scribe Ḍọṭṭẹḍ underneath in a transcription indicates an uncertain reading or an incomplete letter in the transcription //slashes// in the transcription indicate text added by the scribe above the line Italics in a translation indicate a Hebrew word in a Judeo Arabic text. (Parentheses) in a translation indicate words I have added for clarity or to complete abbreviations Abbreviations for shelfmarks of Genizah documents: Bodl. – Oxford, Oxford University, Bodleian Library CUL Or. – Cambridge, Cambridge University Library, Oriental collection ENA – New York, Jewish Theological Seminary, Elkan Nathan Adler collection Halper – Philadelphia, Center for Advanced Judaic Studies L-G – Lewis-Gibson collection, shared between Cambridge University Library and the Bodleian Library Mosseri – currently in Cambridge, Cambridge University Library T-S – Cambridge, Cambridge University Library, Taylor-Schechter collection 1

Document 1: Mubāraka’s Claim to Her Father’s Inheritance (T-S 8J6.8 + T-S 13J30.3)

In the summer of 1034, Ezra b. Samuel b. Ezra, the representative of the merchants,11 asked prominent members of the Jewish community in Fustat (old Cairo) to go and placate his sister Mubāraka. This is how the Hebrew 11  On the representative of the merchants, see Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, vol. 1, pp. 186–192. The title most probably refers to Ezra, the brother of Mubāraka, rather than to Ezra the grandfather.

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deed of testimony, reconstructed by joining together two Genizah fragments, introduces the case.12 This opening sets the tone for the rest of the description that follows. Ezra is presented as being on the same side as the communal leaders to whom he enjoys direct access. Later in the document, we learn that Mubāraka claimed her father’s inheritance, but we are not told the basis of her claim. About three lines of texts are missing, but they seem to have contained mostly a description of the delegation’s appeal to Mubāraka. This appeal included an explicit threat that if Mubāraka persists with her claim she would be cut off from the Jewish community. Mubāraka was not left with many options; she could either capitulate or face the consequences. What she chose to do, however, was to forge her own path. The testimony reports that she ignored the delegation’s speech and went to the highest Islamic legal authority in the Fatimid empire, the chief judge (shofeṭ ha-shofṭim, a Hebrew calque on the Arabic qāḍī al-qudāt). This Muslim judge was remarkably accommodating: he sent footmen to seize her brother, forcing him to flee and causing him humiliation. The testimony goes on to depict Mubāraka in strong negative terms as stubborn and insolent. We also now learn that she has five men supporting her; but rather than explaining the basis for their support, the text instead dismisses it by describing the men as impious. Part of the explanation for this one-sided depiction of Mubāraka is found in the purpose for which the testimony was recorded, namely to be sent to the head of the yeshiva in Jerusalem, the highest Jewish legal authority in the Fatimid empire (in 1034, this was Shelomo Gaon b. Yehuda). The head of the yeshiva was asked to perform something that would “earn him heavenly reward”, probably placing Mubāraka under a ban (ḥerem). In other words, the local leaders in Fustat had already determined who the culpable party was and had prepared the document with the goal of persuading the head of the yeshiva to carry out the desired action. For this reason there was no need to present the case as an argument between two equal sides, each one offering their claims and counterclaims along with supporting documentation. Mubāraka had to be depicted as stubborn and insolent and the actions of the community members as just and reconciliatory (notice how Ezra himself is sidelined in the description). In other words, this testimony was not meant to be a presentation of a fair legal process but, rather, it is a narrative about a failed attempt at taming the shrew.

12  For how the two fragments join, see the image below. The discovery that these two fragments join to form a single document was made by Amir Ashur, Ben Outhwaite, and myself during a Facebook conversation about the dating of the document.

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Another way to explain the unbalanced presentation of Ezra and Mubāraka is to suggest that Ezra’s social status played a part in the court’s responsiveness to his request. Ezra was the representative of the merchants, and he and his father are known from a number of other Genizah documents which portray them as well-connected members of the Jewish elite.13 Indeed, in a draft of a communal letter we see Ezra donating money as part of a special charity collection for the Jews of Jerusalem alongside the elite of the Jewish community in Fustat.14 Notably, among the other contributors were the prominent Tustarī brothers, one of whom was one of the elders who approached Mubāraka and signed the present document. In a marriage document from the 1040s, Ezra served as a legal agent for the Karaite Nasi in Jerusalem for the betrothal of his daughter in Fustat to Yefet b. Abraham b. Sahl al-Tustarī, the son of the nephew of the Tustarī brother from our document.15 Ezra’s standing and social ties in the community go a significant way in explaining the difference in the way the communal leadership responded to his request versus his sister’s claim.16 13  Beyond the documents mentioned in the notes below, Samuel b. Ezra was sent a letter from the lepers of Tiberias in which they describe their miserable state and ask assistance; see T-S 16.18, edited in Gil, Palestine, doc. 262. Interestingly, it seems that the letter was written with blanks where the name of the addressee should appear and then the names Samuel and Ezra were later filled in. A letter in Arabic script from Nathan b. Khalaf was sent to Abū al-Faraj Ismaʿīl b. Ezra and his son Ezra b. Ismaʿīl; see T-S Ar. 38.41. Ismaʿīl is a common Arab equivalent to Samuel, and this letter was written almost certainly to “our” Ezra and his father Samuel (in T-S 16.50, Ezra is called Ezra b. Ishmael b. Ezra). Three other letters in Arabic script were sent to Abū al-Ḥasan Ezra b. Ismaʿīl b. Ezra by Ṭayyib b. Majjānī; see T-S Ar. 38.91 (edited in ʿAodeh, “Eleventh-Century Arabic Letters”, doc. 49); T-S NS 327.11 (in ʿAodeh, “Eleventh-Century Arabic Letters”, doc. 50); and CUL Or. 1080 5.5. ‫ة‬ ‫ة‬ The name that ʿAodeh read as � ‫ �عود‬should be read as �‫�ع ز�ر‬. Even though Ezra is called Abū al-Ḥasan in these letters and Abū al-Faḍl in Bodl. MS Heb. b. 11.10 (on which, see n. 21 below), it is possible that they are the same person (perhaps Bodl. MS Heb. b. 11.10 was written when Ezra was still young and had no children yet?). I was not able to read T-S Ar. 38.41 and CUL Or. 1080 5.5 in a satisfactory manner, and they may yet contain important information on Ezra, Samuel, or Mubāraka. 14   T-S 13J8.14, in Gil, Palestine, doc. 326, and in Ben-Sasson, The Jews of Sicily, doc. 35. The Tustarī brothers are mentioned in l. 4 and Ezra b. Samuel b. Ezra in l. 5. Gil dated this document to 1035. See also the description in Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, vol. 2, p. 472. On the Tustarī brothers, see n. 36 below. 15   T-S 16.50, in Olszowy-Schlanger, Karaite Marriage Documents, doc. 4; see also pp. 60, 65, and 148. Ezra is called here Ezra b. Ishmael b. Ezra; see n. 13 above. 16  Another document which should be mentioned in this context is Bodl. MS Heb. c. 28.67, in Gil, Palestine, doc. 101. This is a letter written by Shelomo b. Judah, the same head of the yeshiva to which our testimony was addressed. In the letter, Shelomo relates that a certain Samuel b. Ezrūn was married to his granddaughter. This Samuel sued a man on behalf of his mother and the matter was brought before both a Muslim judge and Shelomo himself (who passed it to someone else). Ezrūn can be seen as a variant of Ezra (indeed, this

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Finally, there is Mubāraka’s claim to her father’s inheritance. If a woman has a brother, rabbinical Jewish law does not allocate her a share in her father’s inheritance. Thus, reading the document, it seems that Mubāraka was making a claim to money that was not hers by right. However, even if there are male children, parents are permitted to give their daughter a share of their possessions over and above the dowry the daughter was supposed to receive upon marriage. It is possible that Mubāraka claimed to have been given a share of her father’s inheritance through such a gift (made either through a Jewish or Muslim document), which for some reason a Jewish court refused to recognise (we will see an explicit example of this in document 3 below). Another possibility is that Mubāraka’s parents died before Mubāraka was married and her brother Ezra showed no inclination to set aside some of the inheritance for her dowry. Finally, it is also possible that Mubāraka had no legal claim to her father’s inheritance beyond the fact that she wanted or needed it. Muslim law grants a daughter half the share of her brother in their parents’ inheritance. This means that, according to Islamic law, in the absence of any other heir, Mubāraka stood to gain a third of the inheritance, which is better than none at all, which is what she stood to receive from the rabbinical court. As we do not know anything about the siblings’ relationship, we should not rule out motivation based on need, greed, or spite. The picture is further complicated by the fact that Ezra and Mubāraka appear to have been Karaite. Even before the two fragments that make up the testimony were joined, scholars writing on the bottom fragment suggested that the case involved Karaites, as several of the signatories to the testimony are either Karaites or are known to have signed Karaite legal documents.17 Now that the two fragments are joined and we know the full names of the parties, their Karaite identity is certain. In the draft of a letter reporting the special collection for the Jews of Jerusalem mentioned above, Ezra is listed among the Karaite notables.18 We have also seen that he served as a legal agent for the betrothal of the daughter of the Karaite Nasi to a man of the Karaite Tustarī is how Gil sees it in Palestine, vol. 3, p. 738). It is unlikely that Ezra from our document was the great-grandchild of Shelomo, because we would not expect Shelomo to be alive when his great-grandchild is old enough to litigate against someone (and certainly not old enough to reach the position of representative of the merchants). However, it is possible that the Samuel b. Ezrūn from Shelomo’s letter is the son of Ezra, Mubāraka’s brother. This would make Ezra related by marriage to Shelomo and cast the appeal to Shelomo to put a ban over Mubāraka in a different light. However, it is certainly possible that there were several different people with the name Samuel b. Ezra/Ezrūn and that the two cases are unrelated. 17  See the notes to the translation below. 18   T-S 13J8.14, in Gil, Palestine, doc. 326, and in Ben-Sasson, The Jews of Sicily, doc. 35.

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family.19 Furthermore, a letter from a well-known Karaite in Jerusalem to a Samuel b. ʿAzarya b. Mevasser in Fustat includes blessings to the recipients’ two sons, Abū al-Faḍl Ezra and Abū al-Ḥusayn Mevorakh. The writer of the letter informs Samuel about the observations regarding the state of ripening of barley in different parts of Palestine, an important aspect of establishing the Karaite calendar.20 This means that Samuel b. ʿAzarya, whose son Ezra is Mubāraka’s brother, was Karaite.21 According to the view of some Karaite scholars, daughters are entitled to inherit even if they have brothers, so it is possible that Mubāraka’s claim to her father’s inheritance was based on such views.22 This may also explain why her claim to her father’s inheritance was supported by five men “who do not fear God” – perhaps a reference to their being Karaites. The problem with this explanation is that it raises the question of why a mixed Karaite–Rabbanite delegation took Ezra’s side so resolutely and why their testimony was sent to the highest rabbinical authority in the Fatimid empire.23 It seems that the head of the academy in Jerusalem did not have jurisdiction over Karaites, but this issue is highly contested among modern scholars.24 However, there are other examples of legal cooperation between Karaites and Rabbanites in Egypt dating from around this time and, in any case, social practice may not follow neat doctrinal divisions or formal legal jurisdiction.25 The deed is a legal testimony of the notables that Ezra approached, but nowhere are they identified as working as a court. Thus, sending the testimony to the head of the yeshiva can be seen as reflecting Ezra’s creative attempt to obtain an advantage in the dispute with his sister, rather than indicating the formal jurisdiction of the head of academy in Jerusalem over Karaites in Egypt. On her part, even if Mubāraka was a Karaite and not under the formal jurisdiction of the head of the 19   T-S 16.50, in Olszowy-Schlanger, Karaite Marriage Documents, doc. 4. 20  See Rustow, Heresy, pp. 16–17. 21  Bodl. MS Heb. b. 11.10, in Gil, Palestine, doc. 301. This means that the dating of this letter must be pushed back. I find it unlikely that there will be two Karaite men in Fustat, one called Ezra b. Samuel b. Ezra and the other Ezra b. Samuel b. ʿAzarya. 22  For the variety of Karaite views regarding a daughter’s inheritance, see the sources in Olszowy-Schlanger, “Early Karaite Family Law”, p. 287 n. 53. 23  One possible explanation is offered by the possibility explored in n. 16 above: it is possible that Ezra sought to submit the case to Shelomo b. Judah because Ezra’s son was married to Shelomo’s granddaughter. 24  Certainly, it seems that according to Halper 354v, dated by Goitein to around 1036 – only two years after our document – Shelomo b. Judah did not have formal jurisdiction over Karaites. See the discussion in Rustow, Heresy, pp. 93–107 and 293–296. 25  For Karaite–Rabbanite legal cooperation, see the studies mentioned in Zinger, “A Karaite– Rabbanite Court Session”.

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academy, she would still care about being placed under a ban, because she probably had social interactions with Rabbanites.26 Furthermore, even if one does not subscribe to a certain religious group or belief, one would still not like something as terrifying as a ban placed on you by the head of that group. Finally, the Muslim chief judge warrants a short digression. His name was Abū al-Fatḥ ʿAbd al-Ḥākim b. Saʿīd al-Fāriqī (d. 1043), and he belonged to a prominent family of judges.27 He was first a judge in Tripoli (in modern Libya) and then moved to Egypt to become the qāḍī al-qudāt in August 1028, serving in this post until his dishonourable discharge in September 1036. According to Ibn Muyassar (an Egyptian historian, 1231–1278), Abū al-Fatḥ had a contemptible character and frequently ate harīsa and zalābiya while sitting in judgement in the court of the main mosque.28 The cause of Abū al-Fatḥ’s fall from grace was an inheritance scandal that may have relevance to Mubāraka’s case.29 The gist of the story is that in March 1033, a wealthy man died leaving a handsome inheritance. He was survived by his daughter, who soon died as well, leaving the entire sum to her mother, who was formerly a slave.30 There was a long line of men seeking to marry the mother for her money, among them Abū al-Fatḥ, “for one of his reasons”, as the dhayl notes sarcastically. When she turned him down, he gathered four witnesses and wrote a legal document 26  In fact, we know something about Mubāraka’s life after her dispute with her brother. From T-S 13J37.8 we find that she was married to Shelomo b. Ezra and that they had two children, Abraham and Dallāl. Could it be that Shelomo b. Ezra was Samuel b. Ezra’s brother and Mubāraka married her uncle? That may offer another explanation for her claim to her father’s inheritance. 27  There are two main biographical entries on him. The first is in an anonymous continuation (dhayl) to the continuation of Ibn Burd to al-Kindī’s famous book on the judges of Egypt. The second is in Rafʿ al-iṣr ‘an quḍāt miṣr by Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī (1372–1449). Ibn Ḥajar’s main source is Ibn Muyassar. The first entry can be found in al-Kindī, The Governors and Judges of Egypt, pp. 497–500 (in the Arabic section); the second is found in Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, Rafʿ al-iṣr, pp. 308–310. (Ibn Ḥajar’s account also appears in Guest’s edition of al-Kindī, The Governors and Judges of Egypt, pp. 613–614 in the Arabic section, but in a shortened version.) On this family of judges, see Walker, “Another Family of Fatimid Chief Qāḍīs” (on the judge in our case, see pp. 11–12). 28   Harīsa is a dish of ground meat and wheat, and zalābiya is sweet pancake. 29  The events are related with some variations in the continuation to al-Kindī and by Ibn Muyassar as reported by Ibn Ḥajar. While Ibn Muyassar’s version is more polished, the dhayl version contains more details. The dhayl version also does not mention the death of Abū al-Fatḥ, suggesting it might be a contemporary testimony (this entry is the last entry in the dhayl). In the dhayl account, the scandal is tied to the appearance of a star known to herald a period of moral corruption. 30  In Ibn Muyassar’s version, he was simply survived by his daughter who received the entire inheritance per the Ismaʿīlī law of inheritance; see Fayzee, “The Fatimid Law of Inheritance”, p. 62.

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declaring her legally incompetent (safīha), thereby obtaining control of her wealth. However, she fled from him and prostrated herself before the slave girls of the wazīr, Abū al-Qāsim al-Jarjarāʾī, who informed their master. The latter then summoned her and learned of her plight. Abū al-Fatḥ was punished for his transgression, removed from office, and forced to return the money and make significant payments to the woman on a daily basis. Apparently, Abū al-Fatḥ spent the rest of his life in disgrace, confined to his house. These events took place between March 1033 and September 1036.31 The Genizah deed is dated to August or September 1034. Did Mubāraka turn to Abū al-Fatḥ because she knew of his unscrupulous ways when it came to matters of inheritance? 1.1 Translation of T-S 8J6.8 + T-S 13J30.3 (T-S 8J6.8) (1–2) What took place before us, we the witnesses undersigned on this document, on the month of Elul, (3–4) 4994 AM32 (= 1034 CE) in Fustat-Mitzrayim, (5) situated upon the River Nile: Since (6) Ezra the elder b. Samuel b. (7) Ezra, the representative of the merchants, came to us and asked us to go (8) to his sister Mubāraka and reconcile her to return (9) from her way […], we went to her and [… threatened her] (TS 13J30.3) (1) that she would be severed from the congregation of Israel. (2) Mubāraka did not pay heed to our words and went to the judge (3) of judges. The footmen33 seized him (i.e. her brother) and she humiliated him. (4) He was therefore forced to flee from her. She insists (5) on her claims and is stubborn in her insolence, demanding (6) her father’s inheritance from her brother in Muslim courts. (7) She has about five men (8) supporting her who do not fear God. (9) We wrote down as our testimony what we know so as (10) to forward it (i.e. the deed of testimony) to the seat of our lord, the head (11) of the yeshiva, may God protect him, so he may do what will earn him (i.e. the head of the yeshiva) heavenly reward. Peace be on all of Israel. (Signed:) Faraḥ b. Muʾammal, m(ay he rest in) p(eace).34 31  The dhayl claims that four years and eight months passed from the judge’s appointment to the beginning of the affair, and Ibn Muyassar has that the judge’s term in office lasted for eight years and four months. 32  The year should be corrected to 4794 AM. 33  Raglīm in Hebrew means foot soldiers. Here it translates the Arabic rajjāla, footmen answering to the qāḍī or head of the shūrṭa. On them, see Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, vol. 2, p. 370 n. 38–39. This document can contribute to the ongoing discussion regarding whether the Muslim judge had troops at his disposal and his relationship to the shurṭa. 34  As Jacob Mann notes, a man with this name signed a deed of release in Fustat, 1017/8 (T-S 28.2). Bodl. MS Heb. d. 66.69 is a letter of Nathan b. Abraham, the head of the yeshiva, to Peraḥya Rosh ha-Pereq b. Muʾammal he-Ḥasīd; see Mann, The Jews in Egypt and in Palestine, vol. 1, p. 150 and vol. 2, p. 173–174 (also edited in Gil, Palestine, doc. 184).

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Qayyām b. Mevorakh, m(ay he rest in) p(eace).35 Joseph b. Yisra‌ʾel al-Tustarī, m(ay he rest in) p(eace).36 Joseph b. ʿAzarya, m(ay he rest in) p(eace).37 Solomon b. Ḥalfon, of Aleppo.38 Tamām b. Abraham, the money changer, m(ay he rest in) p(eace).39 2

Document 2: Ṣāliḥ’s Former Wife Threatens to Appeal to the Government (Bodl. MS Heb. d. 66.133r)

The one-sided framing of the narrative found in Mubāraka’s case is also present in a page from a notebook of the Jewish court in Fustat. On 9 April 1085, the court received an anonymous tip that the former wife of Ṣāliḥ had been entering his house. Ṣāliḥ must have gotten wind of this and came before the court. He complained that his former wife had been coming to his house, attacking him, and saying: “I will not leave nor go out of this house for it is my house and my dwelling.” The court sent for his former wife and when she appeared, forbade her from entering the house of her former husband. However, she would not hear of it and retorted: “I do not accept this. You took a bribe to divorce T-S 12.347 is a letter to Faraḥ b. Muʾammal from the Karaite scholar Ṭoviyya b. Moshe; see the edition in Gil, Palestine, doc. 295. He is also greeted in a letter of Ṣadoq ha-Levi b. Levi, see the ends of the right margins in T-S Misc. 35.15 + T-S 10J10.5, in Gil, Palestine, doc. 210. He also signed a Karaite deed of release, see T-S 16.131, l. 28. 35  On this name, see Friedman, Jewish Marriage in Palestine, vol. 2, p. 439, where he suggests that Mevorakh b. Qayyām mentioned in BL Or. 5550 (Fustat, 979) is a relative of this person. 36  On him and the Tustarī family, see Rustow, Heresy, pp. 140–147 and 169–171. Also Gil, The Tustaris; our document is mentioned and described on p. 25. 37  As Rustow noted (Heresy, p. 170 n. 34), a man with this name signed a Karaite betrothal deed on the right margins, dated by Olszowy-Schlanger to the 1060s; see T-S 16.109, in Olszowy-Schlanger, Karaite Marriage Documents, doc. 1. This name also appears (together with Faraḥ b. Muʾammal) as a signature on a Karaite deed of release, see T-S 16.131. The name also appears as a signatory to T-S 20.32 (1057), discussed and edited below. Only in T-S 16.131 and T-S 20.32 is the signature similar. However, it is possible that all four documents were witnessed by the same person and that the scribe wrote down Joseph signature in T-S 13J30.3 and in T-S 16.109. As can be seen from T-S 16.131 and T-S 20.32, Joseph was not used to writing in Hebrew. 38  Gil suggested that this might be the son of Khalaf ha-Melammed of Aleppo b. Joshua, who was the emissary of the lepers of Tiberias, see Gil, Palestine, vol. 2, p. 75. Khalaf’s deathbed testament is dated 30 August 1034; see T-S 13J1.8, in Gil, Palestine, doc. 253. Interestingly, Solomon is the only witness whose father is mentioned as still alive, which might suggest that the deed was signed in the first half of the month of Elul. 39  I have found no information about him.

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me (from him). The house is my house and I will not leave it. Otherwise, I will bring this to the government!” The entry also reports that she threatened to commit enormities, perhaps meaning that she threatened to convert, and responded to all those who tried to speak with her with threats and curses. The entry in the notebook is the testimony of the members of the court, intended to serve as evidence for Ṣāliḥ in any future proceedings. Unlike Mubāraka’s case, here we are told what Ṣāliḥ’s former wife claimed: the house belonged to her and the court was bribed to grant the divorce. However, as in Mubāraka’s case, the court does not examine this claim and seems to accept Ṣāliḥ’s narrative that he is the injured party. It is possible that the house was part of her dowry and she was pressured to relinquish it during the divorce. It is also possible that the house did not belong to her, but Ṣāliḥ did not uphold the divorce settlement and she felt that this gave her the right to his property or that only by holding sit-ins in the house could she pressure him to pay what was owed to her. As with Mubāraka’s case, we should also not rule out the possibility that it was a baseless claim she made out of spite to see if she could get away with it. The threat to turn to the Muslim government and, perhaps, to convert to Islam should be seen as a way for Ṣāliḥ’s former wife to resist the pressures of the Jewish court. Coming from an affluent family, Mubāraka resisted the pressures of the Jewish community by appealing directly and successfully to the highest Muslim legal authority in the empire. Coming from what is likely a much humbler background, Ṣāliḥ’s former wife resisted pressures by threating to appeal to the Muslim government and convert to Islam. In both cases, the women were cast into the role of the stubborn woman who resists the instruction of the court and breaks (or threatens to break) the communal fold. 2.1 Translation of Bodl. MS Heb. d. 66.133r (1–3) On Thursday, 6 Nissan 1396 AG (=9 April 1085 CE) according to the dating to which we are accustomed in Fustat-Mitzrayim, situated upon the River Nile, (4) someone came (before the court) and mentioned that [[the wi(fe)]]40 the divorcee of Ṣāliḥ has been entering his house. Ṣāliḥ, (5) who used to be her husband, came forth and complained that she attacks him and enters (6) his dwellings, saying: “I will not leave nor go out of this house for (7) it is my house and my dwelling.” We sent for her, summoned her, and forbade her (8) from entering the dwelling of her divorcee. However, she said: “I do not accept this. You (9) took a bribe to divorce me (from him). The house is my house and I will not (10) leave it. Otherwise, I will bring this to the government! […]” 40  It seems like the scribe first started to write ‘wife’ then deleted it and wrote ‘divorcee’.

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(11) She spoke of (committing) enormities.41 To anyone who addressed her, she responded with (12) threats and curses. On his part, her divorcee, Ṣāliḥ, (continued) protesting, (13) saying: “Relieve me of the burden of her entering my house.” (14) We wrote down what took place before us and signed it so it will be (testimony of) right and evidence. (Signed:) Abraham b. Isaac, m(ay he rest in) E(den).42 Yeshuʿa b. Abraham, m(ay he rest in) p(eace).43 Abraham b. Eli, witness.44 Mevasser b. Ḥalfon, m(ay he rest in) p(eace).45 3

Document 3: Bārra and Ghālib Quarrel over Their Inheritance (T-S 18J2.5)

The next document exhibits some of the features found in the cases of Mubāraka and Ṣāliḥ’s former wife, but unlike them here we get a description of the claims and arguments made by both sides. Bārra and Ghālib were the two children of the late Ḥalfon, a seller of olive oil. Bārra claimed that she had a share in her father’s estate and presented the Jewish court with two deeds to prove it. One was a Jewish deed in the hand of David ha-Nasi b. Hezekiah testifying that her father gave her the upper floor of a small house.46 The second 41  T  akallamat bi-l-ʿaẓāʾim – perhaps threatening to convert. Goitein has “saying other highly improper things”; see A Mediterranean Society, vol. 2, p. 318. 42  He wrote this deed. There are documents in his hand dated from 1077 to 1094, and he was active from 1050 to 1094. On him, see Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, vol. 2, p. 512 n. 10. 43  Currently unidentified. In terms of date, he cannot be the same as Yeshuʿa ha-Levi b. Abraham, on whom see n. 83 below. Another Yeshuʿa ha-Levi b. Abraham was active between 1131/2 and 1147, but he is also too far removed; See Goitein and Friedman, Maḍmūn Nagid, pp. 400–402 and n. 5 there. A bit closer in date is Yeshuʿa ha-Kohen b. Abraham, who appears in T-S NS 224.22 + 29 + 33, dated 1108/9. The dropping of Levi or Kohen is not unheard of, especially considering that in this case it seems that his name was written by another person, as the name of the next witness is written in the same hand. 44  Currently unidentified. Written in the same hand as the previous signature. A man with this name signed T-S 8J36.10v, which is written on the back of a letter from Shelomo Gaon b. Judah, probably too early for our court record. 45  This man, otherwise unknown, also signed the verso of this document. 46  A nasi is a descendant of a Davidic lineage; see Franklin, This Noble House. On David b. Hezekiah, see there p. 195 n. 27, and Beeri, Le-David Mizmor. Our document provides important new information on David ha-Nasi: this is the first explicit evidence for him being in Egypt; this is the first direct evidence that he was involved in communal and legal affairs in an official capacity; and our document, which can be dated to the 1070s, provides a terminus ante quem for David’s death, as both he and his father are mentioned as deceased.

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was a Muslim deed testifying that her father gave her the entirety of the house as her dowry. The court accepted the Jewish deed, but Ghālib argued that the Muslim deed was a forgery and that even a Muslim court would not accept it as proof of ownership.47 Similar to Mubāraka’s case, the court seems to have accepted the brother’s argument and, also as with Mubāraka, Bārra sued her brother in a Muslim court. We do not hear what transpired in that court. Was the document that was considered a forgery in the Jewish court accepted by the Muslim court? We do not know. But because Bārra was perceived as “abandoning the living laws of God”, she was deemed deserving of a ban (ḥerem) by the Jewish court. However, before moving forward with such a drastic step, a respected member of the Jewish community named Abū ʿAlī Yefet b. Abraham was nominated to attempt to resolve the dispute peacefully.48 This was not an unusual development. Jewish courts in medieval Egypt tended to be reluctant to make decisive rulings or declare a ban, and therefore often relied on respectable members of the community, frequently called righteous elders, to mediate a compromise. The siblings and the court witnesses met at Abū ʿAli’s home. It is tempting to read the change of scene, from the court to the private home, as reflecting a change in the mode of justice, from adjudication to mediation. Abū ʿAli tried to convince Bārra to be content with the upper floor confirmed to her in the Jewish deed and to relinquish her greater claim, but she refused to do so. The testimony regarding these events was set down and supposed to be signed so that it could be used by Ghālib as evidence in any future litigation, but for some reason the signing never took place. Instead, the document ends with “This was a long time ago and when” – suggesting that some new development took place that alleviated the need to complete the present document. While this case presents Bārra’s claims in significant detail, she is still portrayed as a stubborn and defiant woman. At crucial points in the narrative the testimony describes her using distinctively negative terms, such as alleging (zaʿamat) and deceiving (tughāliṭ). We never get to hear what her response was to the claim that the Muslim deed was forged, or to find out on what this claim was based. When Abū ʿAlī tried to reach an amicable settlement, we are told that “the aforementioned elder spoke to them [at length] and reproached Bārra”. Only she was reproached and pressured to compromise. Even though 47  Interestingly, we do not hear that her brother or the Jewish court made the argument that Jewish law does not recognise non-Jewish deeds of gift, as opposed to sale and debt. 48  He was a respected member of the Jewish community and an administrator of the state mint, active in the years 1076–1108; see Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, vol. 1, p. 362, and Goitein and Friedman, Joseph Lebdī, p. 157.

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when she was asked about another property, she renounced having any claim over it, she was still presented as overreaching and defiant. In Mubāraka’s case I suggested that her brother’s position as the representative of the merchants and his social ties in the Jewish community probably played a role in the court’s responsiveness to his request. In Bārra and Ghālib’s case we can similarly suggest that Ghālib’s relationship with the Fustat court may have been a motivating factor in the court’s acceptance of his claim that the Muslim deed presented by his sister was forged. In addition to being a cantor, we also know that on at least three occasions Ghālib served as a member of the court and signed legal deeds.49 In fact, in one of the cases when Ghālib was a member of the court, he served alongside Yefet b. Abraham, the very same peace-loving righteous elder tasked with reaching a compromise between Ghālib and Bārra.50 Ghālib’s position in the community is further confirmed by the fact that his two sons followed in his footsteps, serving as both cantors and as members of the court in the decades after him.51 All this points to the ongoing familiarity that middle-class Jewish men enjoyed with the court, as they moved easily between the role of litigants to that of court members and 49  See T-S 16.5 (1076), T-S 20.21 (1076), and T-S 16.192 (no date preserved). Ghālib also appeared before the court to dissolve a partnership in an olive shop (his father’s?) in 1079, see T-S 16.34. These documents give us the best indications for the dating of our document, probably in the 1070s. Two Genizah documents which mention a name similar to Ghālib’s in fact point to different people; see T-S 8J36.2 (Abū Manṣūr Ghālib – but too early) and T-S 6J8.7 (Ghālib b. Ḥalfon marries Sitt al-Ḥusn bt. Berakhot in 1133). 50  See T-S 20.21, dated to 1076. 51  Abū Yaʿqūb Isaac b. Ghālib was active between 1106 and 1124/5. He signed T-S 28.23 + T-S 16.217 + T-S 8.225 (1106 – here his father is not mentioned as dead), T-S 20.3 (1117), T-S 24.15 + T-S 20.62 (1124/5), T-S 12.445, T-S 24.16, T-S 12.130, Bodl. MS Heb. b. 11.31a, T-S 12.497, T-S 12.460, and T-S 12.445 (the dates of all these documents are not preserved). His brother Abū Saʿīd Ḥalfon b. Ghālib was active between 1116 and 1130. He was asked to collect a debt of ten dinars from a widow and spend it on her late husband’s burial in 1116; see T-S 12.631 (here his father is mentioned with a blessing for the dead). He signed T-S 12.120 (1120), T-S 16.44 + T-S 12.613 (1126), Bodl. MS Heb. d. 65.25 (1126/7), T-S 8J5.7 (1127), Bodl. MS Heb. a. 3.40r (1128), T-S 8J5.9 1v (1130), Bodl. MS Heb. b. 11.3 (1130, in Friedman, Jewish Polygyny, pp. 78–82, and see p. 82 n. 15), and PER H 31 (no date preserved). His name also appears in a writing exercise in BL Or. 5566B.21. Finally, the two brothers were involved in an inheritance case following the “famous murder case”; see T-S 8.111 and T-S NS 31.9, both discussed in Friedman, “On Marital Age”, pp. 171–172. If indeed Ghālib and Bārra were the only children of Ḥalfon the oil seller, as suggested by T-S 18J2.5, then it must be Bārra who was married to Mevorakh the cantor mentioned in T-S 8.111 (notice that the sister and aunt of cantors also married a cantor). This would mean that she was the mother and grandmother of the women murdered in the “famous murder case”. Mevorakh the cantor is not mentioned in T-S 18J2.5, and perhaps she married him after her dispute with her brother was resolved.

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back again. While it is impossible to definitely “prove” that this familiarity influenced what took place in the above cases, the smoothness with which Ezra’s and Ghālib’s positions were adopted by the court, to the detriment of their sisters, suggests that it played a significant role. 3.1 Translation of T-S 18J2.5 (1) The testimony of what took place before us, we the undersigned witnesses: (2) Mr. Ghālib the cantor known as Abū Manṣūr b. Mr. Ḥalfon, the seller of olive oil, m(ay he rest in) E(den), quarrelled (3) with his sister from his father and mother, Bārra (‘innocent’) bt. Mr. Ḥalfon the seller of olive oil, m(ay he rest in) E(den), regarding a house (4) that Bārra alleged that her father designated as inheritance for her to the exclusion of her brother, Mr. Ghālib. However, (5) no right was confirmed to her about the house over which they quarrelled except the upper floor (6) of //the small// house when she previously presented the court with //a deed// in the hand of our Lord David, (7) the great nasi, the nasi of all Israel, son of our lord and prince Hezekiah, the head of all the diasporas (8) of Israel, may they rest in honour, indicating that Mr. Ḥalfon, her father, gave her the upper floor (9) of the small house. She (also) presented the court with a deed written (10) in Muslim courts indicating that her father gave her as a dowry the entire aforementioned house, (11) but (the document) was not confirmed that day,52 thus her brother said: “This deed is forged, (12) and no right is confirmed to her by this deed neither in Jewish nor Muslim courts.” (13) Disputes and arguments took place between them and the matter reached the point that (14) she brought him before a Muslim court. She was deemed deserving of a ban by the (Jewish) court for (15) her transgression of bringing her brother to Muslim courts and abandoning the living (16–18) laws of God. Just when she was about to be placed under the ban, the elder Abū ʿAlī Mr. Yefet the elder the glory of the congregation b. Mr. Abraham the elder, m(ay he rest in) E(den), was nominated from among peace-loving righteous elders (to reach a compromise between them). He asked the court (or: the judge53) to grant her a delay (from the ban) until he could convene her (19) with her brother in his home and mediate between them.

52  It appears that the Muslim document was not confirmed by the Muslim institution that issued it, for example, by confirming the signatures or entering the transaction in its records. 53  In Genizah legal parlance, ‘court’ (bet din) can mean the court, the presiding judge, or other members of the court; see Friedman, Ḥalfon, p. 35 n. 93.

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Therefore, we the undersigned entered (20) the house of the aforementioned elder Abū ʿAlī. Mr. Ghālib and his sister were present. (21) The aforementioned elder spoke to them [at length] and reproached Bārra, saying: (22) “Only the upper floor is confirmed to you by the Hebrew deed, and (23) the Muslim [deed] does not confirm to you anything.” She responded deceivingly: “No! My father gave me (24) this house and it is mine!” The aforementioned elder Abū ʿAlī said to her: (25) “And the other house, the large one, which is adjacent to this house, do you have (26) something with which you claim your father gave it to you also?” She said: “No, I do not have (27) any right over the other house at all and no pretext.” We spoke gently with her (28) to take what God made for her lawful and abstain from demanding what is not hers (29) by right, but she refused and did not accept (this). We wrote down what took place before us, signed it, (30) and gave it to Mr. Ghālib the cantor so it will be evidence and testimony. This was (32) a long time ago and when54 4

Document 4: Joseph and Ghaniyya’s Divorce Settlement (T-S 13J8.1)

The leadership of the Jewish community saw the use of Muslim legal forums as a threat to their authority, as well as to the autonomy and integrity of Jewish communal life. The most common way to combat this phenomenon was by adding stipulations in legal agreements forbidding their use. These stipulations are occasionally unbalanced in terms of gender, either mentioning only the woman or dedicating much more space and attention to forbidding the woman from using Muslim venues. This lack of balance suggests that women were suspected of using Muslim legal venues and that greater stringency was used to prevent them from doing so. This imbalance can be seen in Joseph and Ghaniyya’s divorce settlement of 1052. Ghaniyya was given custody of their five-year-old son, Ibrahīm, and Joseph agreed to pay for Ibrahīm’s maintenance.55 The agreement also addressed Joseph’s visits to his son. Once the agreement was concluded, Ghaniyya released Joseph from her ketubah, though we do not hear whether she received any of her delayed dower (meʾuḥar) and how much of the dowry (nedunya) she was able to recover. Finally, she committed to not harass or sue Joseph, neither in the qāḍī courts nor through the government, on penalty of being put under 54  The document was never completed. 55  For the legal views regarding custody and maintenance of children after a divorce, see David, “The Children of the Divorcee”.

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a ban. It is unclear whether this stipulation was added because she had sued Joseph in Muslim legal venues in the past, or if she was suspected of intending to do so. While a valid deed requires the signatures of two witnesses, this divorce settlement was signed by only one witness. 4.1 Translation of T-S 13J8.1 (1) On Monday, 24 Tishrei (1)364 AG (= 21 September 1052 CE), R. Joseph b. R. Ṣedaqa (2) the keeper of a grain store56 and his divorcee Gh[aniyya] bt. R. Ḥasan came before the court. We made the symbolic purchase57 from him according to his will and desire (3) without coercion that he will pay four dirhams every week to R. Salāma the seller of olive oil58 in Cairo (4) to be spent on the maintenance of his son Ibrahīm whose (5) age is now five years. This Ibrahīm will stay (6) with his mother, Ghaniyya. If Joseph would like to visit him on Saturday or (7) during the week, he (i.e. Joseph) will take him (i.e. Ibrahīm) on the condition that he will return him to her. (8) After we verified her identity,59 we made the symbolic purchase from Ghaniyya for a complete release of R. Joseph (9) from her ketubah and from any suspicion and claim.60 She will not harass him, nor sue him (10) in Muslim courts, nor bring him before the government. We made it clear to her (11) that if she were to break (this agreement) she will be banned with her name and ostracised. (12) Then both of them cancelled any prior notification.61 We have written (this) so it will be (a testimony) of right. (13) (Signed:) Ṣedaqa b. Menaḥem, m(ay his) s(oul rest in peace).62

56  Al-fāmī; see Diem and Radenberg, A Dictionary, p. 167. 57  The symbolic purchase (qinyan) is a mean of acquisition in Jewish law. On the different types of acquisition, see Albeck, “Acquisition”. On the symbolic purchase in the Genizah, see Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, vol. 2, pp. 329–330, and Friedman, Jewish Marriage in Palestine, vol. 1, pp. 465–467. 58  In one of his notecards, Goitein suggests that he was Ghaniyya’s brother (see roll no. 1, 16A, card 100856). A certain Salāma b. Ḥasan contributed to a pesiqa in ENA 4100.9c, verso l. 2. However, Cohen dates this list to the first third of the eleventh century, so he may not be the same person; see Cohen, Poverty and Charity, p. 63 n. 139. Another candidate is Solomon ha-Kohen b. Yefet, whose signature was written by the scribe in a 1052 ketubah; see T-S 16.123, in Friedman, Jewish Marriage in Palestine, vol. 2, pp. 155–165, and especially the commentary on l. 17. This Solomon may be the same person as Salāma (‫ )שלאמה‬b. Yefet ha-Kohen, who signed a 1084/5 betrothal agreement; see T-S 8J9.9, in Ashur, “Engagement and Betrothal Documents”, pp. 250–255. 59  When women came to court, their identity was usually verified for the court by a male acquaintance. 60  For this expression, see Goitein, Friedman, and Ashur, Ḥalfon, p. 128 n. 3. 61  For the meaning of notification (modaʿa), see Shilo, “Ones”, pp. 180–181. 62  A certain Ṣedaqa b. Menaḥem came to court in 1039; see T-S 18J2.15.

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Document 5: Ṭoviyyaʼs and Meshullam’s Agreement (Mosseri VII.131)

While we do not know whether Ghaniyya made use of Muslim legal venues, an unnamed former wife of a certain Ṭoviyya not only did so but also obtained a favourable ruling requiring her husband to pay her maintenance. In this case, her actions did not bring about the pronouncement of a ban. Instead, her relative Meshullam reached an agreement with Ṭoviyya in the Jewish court. Since the document is fragmentary, the nature of this agreement is somewhat obscure, as is the mention of a Jewish deed (sheṭar) in the hands of Ṭoviyya.63 What is clear, however, is that Meshullam stood surety for Ṭoviyya’s former wife, his relative, and agreed to pay whatever charges she would incur at the Jewish court. When asked to hand the Muslim deed over to the Jewish court so it could be torn up, Meshullam responded with the somewhat suspicious excuse that the deed was lost. Instead, he promised that should Ṭoviyya be sued in a Muslim court, he would provide for Ṭoviyya all the costs incurred. This example, despite its fragmentary state, provides us with a glimpse of the process that took place within the Jewish legal system following action in a Muslim venue. It also highlights the way that men stood surety for their female relatives, to ensure that the latter would not turn for recourse to Muslim legal venues. 5.1 Translation of Mosseri VII.131 (1) […] Mr. Meshulam [told us]: “This (2) [woman] is my relative and I must […64] her. Whatever the court charges her, (3) I will pay it for her. I take it upon myself willingly and by my choice.” (4) We therefore told him: “She must submit the deed of maintenance in her possession written in Muslim courts (5) to the court and tear it up for her divorcee Mr. Ṭoviyya.” He (i.e. Meshulam) said: “She lost the deed of maintenance (6) and there is no way to submit it now. However, make the symbolic purchase from me and be my witness, instead of her, that if ever (7) she, or her agent, submits this deed of maintenance to Muslim courts and sues him (i.e. Ṭoviyya) (8) for what it contains for the six years written in the Jewish deed which is in the possession of her divorcee (9) and she causes him damage, whether it will be little or much, pennyworth or more, I will provide it to him (10) for her from the best of my possessions. I hereby undertake the surety for him upon me and my heirs (11) after me 63  The likeliest possibility seems to me to be that this was the original divorce settlement, made in a Jewish court. Ṭoviyya’s former wife was unhappy with this settlement and obtained a better one in a Muslim court. It is not clear how the agreement reached between Ṭoviyya and Meshullam compared to the one recorded in this earlier Jewish deed. 64  Probably something like assist, support, vouch for, represent.

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for what remains of the aforementioned six years.” Mr. Ṭoviyya was satisfied with (12) [th]is and said to us: “I ask the court to re[cord] this for me from Mr. Meshullam (13) […] to protect me with all precautions and that the court [will write me] about this a legal deed (maʿase) (14) [to be] (a testimony of) right and evidence. Therefore, [we, the c]ourt65 and those [under]signed with us, performed the symbolic purchase (15) from Meshullam [son of …,] m(ay he rest in) E(den), a complete and rigorous purchase (16) [… not like pro]mises [and not like formularies … 6

Document 6: Bahiyya’s Debt to ʿAmram (T-S 20.32)

While in the great majority of cases Jewish women either sued Jewish men in Muslim courts or secured Muslim deeds against Jewish men, there were also cases in which Jewish men used Muslim courts against Jewish women. As the cases examined above show, Jewish women often used Muslim legal venues to negotiate relationships with the men closest to them: brothers and (usually former) husbands. However, in those cases in which a Jewish man employed a Muslim venue or legal instrument against a woman, the two often do not appear to be relatives. An example of such a case from Fustat’s Jewish upper middle class is found in the 1057 settlement of Bahiyya’s debt to ʿAmram in Fustat. ʿAmram b. Yefet held a Muslim deed of debt against Bahiyya bt. Yaʿīsh.66 Since the beginning of the deed is missing, the exact nature of this debt is unclear. Goitein offers the possible reconstruction that Bahiyya and an unnamed Muslim took an investment loan together from ʿAmram, which they were unable to repay.67 As was done in the case of Ṭoviyya and Meshullam examined above, a process was conducted in the Jewish court to do away with the need to use Muslim venues. After determining that some forty-two dinars, out of the original sum stated in the Muslim deed, were still due, the court arranged 65  Here ‘court’ (bet din) means judge, see n. 53 above. 66  He can probably be identified with ʿAmram b. Yefet, who was sent a letter of praise by Nathan b. Abraham, the claimant to the Palestinian gaonate, in 1039; see Mosseri V.341.1 + T-S 10J15.10, edited in Gil, Palestine, doc. 188. This would make him a prominent member of the Jewish community of Fustat, which fits with Bahiyya owing him the significant sum of more than forty-two dinars. This person also seems to have signed several legal documents (mostly ketubot) around the same time: Bodl. MS Heb. a. 3.45 (1033/4), PER H 160 (1038), T-S 16.32 (no date preserved), T-S Misc. 25.14 (no date preserved, but signed as well by Abraham b. Shabbetay, who also signed Halper 339 + T-S 20.124 dated 1063), and T-S AS 145.136 (no date preserved). It is certainly possible that some of these signatures belong to different people with the same name. About Bahiyya bt. Yaʿīsh, see n. 69 below. 67  Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, vol. 3, p. 330 nn. 78–79.

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a settlement through righteous elders. As an act of benevolence (ḥesed), ʿAmram agreed to receive thirty dinars from Bahiyya’s husband and brother and expressed the hope that he would receive the remainder of the money owed to him from the Muslim. The elders determined that Bahiyya’s husband, Mevorakh b. Ephraim,68 ought to pay half the remaining debt. After initially refusing, he eventually agreed to pay eleven dinars. The rest of the sum, presumably nineteen dinars, was written as a debt against Bahiyya’s brother, Jacob b. Yaʿīsh ha-Kohen.69 That gender considerations were central to the process is clear from such statements as “(ʿAmram) took pity on (Bahiyya’s) honour for she is a married woman”, and “(the court implored) Mevorakh to give half of the thirty dinars so that his wife would not be dragged to Muslim courts”. These statements express the sentiment that a woman’s appearance in court, especially a Muslim one, was shameful and should be avoided. In this case, this sentiment seems to have played to Bahiyya’s advantage: from personally owing ʿAmram some forty-two dinars, her debt was shifted to her brother and her husband, and divided between them. The process in which the debt was divided is a vivid illustration of the tug of responsibilities over a woman between her brother and her husband. Six people signed the deed. Three of them were the members of the court: Yefet ha-Levi b. Ṭoviyya, Nethanel b. ʿAmram, and ʿEli b. ʿAmram, who was probably the head of the court. These three validated the signatures of the other witnesses.70 The top of the document is missing. While the document is in Hebrew, at certain points (noted in the translation) the Hebrew seems to echo Arabic expressions. On the back of the deed there is a draft of a beginning of an Arabic script petition to the Fatimid Caliph al-Ḥākim (996–1021) – this 68  A Mevorakh b. Ephraim signed a ketubah in Fustat, 1043; see Mosseri VII 37.2 + 76.1. 69  As Goitein suggests (A Mediterranean Society, vol. 3, p. 501 n. 78), Jacob and Bahiyya were probably the children of Yaʿīsh ha-Kohen b. Abraham, a communal official (parnas) active in the first half of the eleventh century; on him, see Bareket, The Jewish Leadership, p. 251. Our document is signed by ʿEli, Yaʿīsh’s other son, who was an even more well-known parnas (see n. 85 below). A man cannot serve as a witness to a transaction involving his siblings (even if they only shared a father, as Goitein suggests). However, as Goitein notes, since the deed was signed by six other people, the legal requirements were met. ʿEli haKohen b. Yaʿīsh may have not served as a formal witness, but merely appended his signature to signify he supported the agreement involving his (half?) siblings. In addition, Jacob b. Yaʿīsh ha-Kohen was probably the father of Tamīm ha-Kohen b. Jacob b. Yaʿīsh, who wrote the colophon on T-S 8K22.8, edited in Mann, Jews in Egypt, vol. 2, p. 346 (also see Goitein, “Additions to ‘ha-Rav’ ”, p. 152). 70  The validation clause speaks of two witnesses. However, I suspect that this is merely a result of using a set Aramaic formula, for we are not told who of the four signatories other than the members of the court is intended by “two witnesses”. On the process of validation (qiyyum), see Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, vol. 2, pp. 336–337.

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means that more than thirty years passed between the writing of the petition being abandoned and the legal document on the other side being composed.71 6.1 Translation of T-S 20.32 (1–6) …] Mevorakh b. [Ephraim …] this Jacob and […] dinars72 and […] to the Muslim with these din[ars …] Muslim to ʿAmram. ʿAmram saw fit [to sue?] this Jacob [and Bahiyya] the wife of [Mevora]kh in Jewish courts for he took pity on her honour (7) for she is a married woman. Everyone gathered in court and several court sessions were held. (8) The judge (bet din73) told them: “It is best that you reach a compromise between you (9) in [Jewish] courts rather than go to Muslim courts, for the Muslim deed in (10) ʿAmram’s possession is a verified deed.” The judge and the elders sought to spare the woman, (11) so the elders intervened and negotiated the matter. After they (i.e. the elders) determined that (12) from (the sum) incumbent upon them (i.e. the couple) in the deed they owe forty-two dinars which they need (13) to give ʿAmram today, ʿAmram saw fit, as an act of benevolence to them, to take from them (14) thirty dinars. As for the rest, he planned to ask the Muslim to give it to him as a gift.74 (15) ʿAmram consented to this75 with a symbolic purchase. The elders ruled and implored76 the husband of the wife, Mevorakh, (16) to give half of the thirty dinars so that (17) his wife would not be dragged77 to Muslim courts. He was unwilling to give the half. They cautioned him (18) with soft and beneficial words until he gave ʿAmram (19) eleven good and weighted dinars from the thirty dinars. [The rest was written as] a deed (of debt) (20) against Jacob b. Yaʿīsh ha-Kohen, the brother of Bahiyya, 71  The text of the petition is transcribed in the edition below. The text is quite similar to Rémondon 1, a fragment of a petition to al-Ḥākim from the Louvre collection published in Regourd, “Une requête (petition) au calife fatimide al-Ḥākim bi-amr Allāh”. Regourd is aware of our text (see p. 4), so I do not understand the claim that Rémondon 1 “is, as yet, the only petition addressed explicitly to the Caliph al-Ḥākim bi-amr Allāh which is known to us.” 72  If the suggested completion is correct, then the translation is ‘seventy/ninety weighted dinars’. 73   See n. 53 above. 74  Here we would particularly like to know the nature of this debt and how the Muslim was involved. 75  The Hebrew raṣa ba-khen may echo the Arabic raḍiya bi-dhālika. 76  The Hebrew hiṭriḥu ʿalav here seems to reflect the Arabic ṭaraḥa ʿalā; see Blau, A Dictionary, p. 397. The meaning of ‘imposed upon’ is also possible. 77  The Hebrew megoreret ‘dragged’ seems to reflect the Arabic jarjara, encountered in several Genizah documents in the context of harassing people by dragging them to court; see Zinger, “Women, Gender and Law,” p. 52 n. 112, to which NLR EVR Arab. I (Firkovitch II) 1700, 6r, l. 6, should be added.

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the wife of Mevorakh b. Ephraim. All consented (21) to this compromise. When Mevorakh, Bahiyya’s husband, gave ʿAmram the eleven (22) dinars, he asked that a verified deed of quittance be written for his wife (23) from ʿAmram and to take the Muslim deed in his (i.e. ʿAmram’s) hand. Since what he asked was good, (24) the judge ordered and wrote a deed of quittance for Bahiyya. This is its text: (25) ʿAmram b. Yefet came to the judge and elders undersigned in this deed and said: (26) “Be my witnesses and make the symbolic purchase in every language of right, write and sign for me (27) your testimony. I am neither forced, compelled, nor deceived, but with a willing spirit. (28) I free, release, and clear Bahiyya bt. Yaʿīsh [wife of] Mevorakh b. Ephraim from the deed (29)  I had against her in Muslim courts and I gave78 it to her husband, Mevorakh. No claim remains for me (30) against her either in Jewish or gentile courts. I cancel (31) any notification I may have given or will give from today to eternity.79 I absolve her completely and (32) eternally in this (world) and the next.80 Neither a ban, an oath, (33) a curse, a shifted (oath), nor a Torah (oath) remains for me against her.”81 We made the symbolic purchase from ʿAmram b. Yefet, a complete and rigorous purchase (34) with a fitting instrument, a verified, validated, (and) without faults. Let this deed of release have (35) the weight and veracity of all the release deeds instituted by our rabbis and used in the world. Written on (36) Thursday, 20 of Av in Fustat-Mitzrayim situated upon the River Nile (in the) year (37) 1368 AG (= 24 July 1057 CE). We gave this deed to Bahiyya as a right. “Bahiyya” is written (above the line).82 (Signed:) Yeshuʿa ha-Levi b. Abraham, m(ay he rest in) p(eace).83 78  While Hebrew and Aramaic antecedents exist, it seems like the Arabic sallamtuhu was in the background of the Hebrew shillamtiv. 79  On notification, see n. 61 above. 80  The text here is a bit odd. The more common formula would be ‫מחילה גמורה בפה ובלב‬ ‫‘( בעולם הזה ולעולם הבא‬a complete absolution, with my mouth and heart, in this world and for the next’). 81  “A defendant unwilling to take (an oath that he does not owe anything) but still persisting in his denial of indebtedness, had the right to shift the oath to the plaintiff who, upon taking it, would be entitled to recover …; but the Pentateuchal and Mishnaic oaths could not be so shifted (except when the defendant is a suspected liar)”; see Cohn, “Oath”, p. 619 (and pp. 615–621 on oaths in general). 82  Deeds which have been altered are invalided unless the changes are noted in the text. This addition of “Bahiyya” is not found in the surviving text and must have been found at the missing top of the document. 83  To the documents in which Yeshuʿa b. Abraham’s name appears mentioned in Bareket, The Jewish Leadership, p. 251, we can now add T-S 20.23 (1049), T-S 16.180 (no date preserved), and T-S 12.492 (no date preserved). See also n. 43 above.

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Yefet b. Ṭoviyya ha-Levi, m(ay he rest in) p(eace).84 ʿEli ha-Kohen b. Yaʿīsh, m(ay he rest in) p(eace).85 Joseph b. ʿAzarya, m(ay he rest in) p(eace).86 Nethanel b. ʿAmram.87 Ḥasan b. […] ha-Kohen.88 (40) This deed was validated before us in our court, ʿEli he-Ḥaver b. ʿAmram,89 Nethanel b. ʿAmram, Yefet b. (41) Ṭoviyya ha-Levi, m)ay he rest in) p(eace). [When] two witnesses [came] and showed that these are their signatures, we validated it (i.e. the deed) as is fitting. (Signed:) ʿEli the eminent ḥaver [b. ʿA]mram. Ye[fe]t ha-[Levi b. Ṭoviyya?]. Ne[than]el b. ʿAmram, m(ay he rest in) p(eace). 7

Document 7: Permitting ʿAzīza to Collect Her Ketubah in a Muslim Court (ENA 4011.67)

The Jewish communal leadership did not always object to women using Muslim legal venues. Our last example is an 1145 record of legal proceedings in which a Jewish court permitted a Jewish widow named ʿAzīza to collect her ketubah in the Muslim courts from a Muslim who held property that once belonged to her husband, Abū al-Khayr. The case is particularly interesting because it shows the procedure undertaken by the Jewish court and provides tantalising evidence of the acceptance of Jewish legal documents in Muslim courts. First, ʿAzīza brought her ketubah to the Jewish court. There it was examined, and the court determined that her dower and dowry amounted to 552 dinars, entitling

84  On him, see Bareket, The Jewish Leadership, pp. 136–138 and 271. 85  On him, see Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, vol. 2, p. 78; Cohen, Jewish Self-Government, pp. 110–113; Gil, Palestine, vol. 1, p. 164, §307. 86  This man also signed T-S 16.131, a Karaite deed of release (no date preserved). See n. 37 above for more attestations for this name. 87  This man signed T-S 8J4.8 + T-S 10J5.25 (in joining the two fragments, I was assisted by the “join suggestion” feature in the Friedberg Genizah Project), a 1086 deed whereby a man gives a quantity of opium not in his possession as a gift to another man. T-S 10J5.25 was transcribed in Weiss, “Documents Written by Hillel ben Eli”, doc. 40. Nethanel b. ʿAmram also signed T-S AS 148.206 (no date preserved) and T-S 20.53 (no date preserved). 88  The reading of this name is not clear. 89  ʿEli ha-Ḥaver b. ʿAmram was probably the head of the court. On him see Bareket, “ ‘The Excellent Member’ ” and Beeri, “ʿEli he-Ḥaver ben ʿAmram”.

Jewish Women in Muslim Legal Venues

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her to a sum of over 250 dinars “according to the custom of the land”.90 This places ʿAzīza in the upper middle class. Second, the court examined whether the ketubah included a trustworthiness clause that would absolve ʿAzīza from the need to take an oath.91 Since the ketubah did not contain such a clause, the court ruled that ʿAzīza needed to make a formal oath regarding what she may have received from her ketubah during her husband’s lifetime.92 On Wednesday, 25 April 1145, ʿAzīza came to the synagogue to take the widow’s oath. The members of the court took the Torah scroll from the Holy Ark and she swore that Abū al-Khayr did not leave her anything from which she could collect her ketubah. Because the value of all the property left behind by Abū al-Khayr was less than the sum in her ketubah, she was entitled to all of it (no other heirs are mentioned). The problem was that Abū al-Khayr’s property was in the hands of a Muslim. This requires some explanation. Abū al-Khayr used to own half of a house (the other half belonged to the Jewish pious foundation).93 Apparently, he mortgaged his half of the house, together with some other property, to a Muslim for the sum of 200 dinars. This was done through a form of mortgage the document calls a “conditional sale”.94 While we do not learn what the exact nature of the sale was, it was probably one of the common stratagems for getting around the prohibition on taking interest found in both Jewish and Islamic law.95 The court record reports that at the time of Abū al-Khayr’s death the 90  The real sums of the dowry were occasionally increased to heighten the prestige of the families involved; see Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, vol. 3, pp. 126–127 (see ibid, n. 47 for our document) and Friedman, Jewish Marriage in Palestine, vol. 1, pp. 296–298 (see ibid, n. 27 for our document). 91  On the trustworthiness clause, see Friedman, Jewish Marriage in Palestine, vol. 1, pp. 261– 267. For a parallel case from the very same year in which a trustworthiness clause was found in the ketubah, see T-S 8.168 + ENA 4011.54, unpublished (these manuscripts were joined using the Genazim programme’s join suggestions). 92  This is the “widow’s oath”; see Rivlin, “The Widow’s Oath”. 93  On pious foundations (qodesh/heqdesh/waqf ), see Gil, Documents of the Jewish Pious Foundations. Mentioning this document, Gil seems to have understood that Abū al-Khayr owned the entire house (see p. 15 n. 21). Then he gave one half to the pious foundation and mortgaged the other half, leaving ʿAziza with nothing from which to collect her ketubah. While this scenario is certainly possible, it does not seem to me necessary to read the document in this way. 94  Friedman explains the term as derived from Aramaic, while also pointing to a possible Arabic derivation as “double sale”; see Goitein and Friedman, Joseph Lebdī, pp. 161–162 n. 17. 95  In one of its most common forms, Party A sells a piece of real estate to Party B. Party A continues to live in or use the property and pays Party B rent. After a given time period, Party A buys back the property for the same price for which it was sold. The rent paid is equivalent to interest. Since our document mentions twelve (presumably equal?)

64

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Muslim was entitled to twelve payments. The Jewish court permitted ʿAzīza to recover the property from the Muslim in the Muslim court, sell it to pay the debt to the Muslim, and keep whatever remained as payment for her ketubah. The deed is signed by a well-known judge and the other two members of court. The tantalising evidence for the acceptance of Jewish deeds in Muslim courts is found on the back of the Judeo-Arabic deed. The back contains two sets of writing. The first is a Judeo-Arabic archival note on the top left-hand side which summarises the deed as “the deed (al-sheṭar, ‫ )אלשטר‬about the oath of ʿAzīza”. The second set of writing is two lines in Arabic script in the middle left-hand side of the page which states: “A deed (sheṭār, ‫ )�ش����ط�ا ر‬through

‫ت‬

‫ ) �ك‬after which the wife of Abū al-Khayr … became entitled to her ketubah (‫���ب�ت���ه�ا‬ taking an oath. She swore.” It is possible that the Jewish court summarised in these lines the substance of its proceedings for the benefit of the Muslim court. Another option is that this was written by the Muslim court after the content of the deed was explained to it. In either case, however, we learn that the Muslim court either accepted Jewish legal documents, or that the Jewish court expected the Muslim court to accept them. Furthermore, the note shows that the Muslim court understood such Jewish legal terms as sheṭar and ketubah. Finally, the text in the body of the deed describes how ʿAzīza took an oath on a Torah scroll in a synagogue and then received permission to sue a Muslim in a Muslim court. All of which indicates remarkable cooperation between the Jewish and Muslim legal institutions.96 7.1 Translation of ENA 4011.67 (1) Legal proceedings that took place before us, the court97 and those undersigned with us on this deed:

instalments, perhaps in this case another form was used: Party A sells a piece of real estate to Party B, and later buys it back at a higher price to be paid in instalments. For such stratagems in Jewish law and their legality, see Rivlin, “On Economics and Halakhah”. For such practice in the Genizah, see Rivlin, “Mortgage and Resale”. For a concise mention of such stratagems in Islamic law, see Schacht, An Introduction to Islamic Law, pp. 78–80 and 153–154; for much more detail, see Ismail, “Legal Stratagems”. 96  I plan to explore further the use of Jewish legal documents in Muslim courts in a future study, tentatively titled “A Murder in Tyre and the Acceptance of Jewish Legal Documents in Muslim Courts”. The acceptance of Jewish testimony and legal documents is at the very least problematic from a Muslim legal standpoint. However, since from the perspective of the Muslim state, Jewish courts were part of the Islamic state administration of justice, they had to be accepted for the system to work. On Jewish women taking an oath in the synagogue for a Muslim court, see also the interesting case in P. Prag. I 3 fr. d recto, studied and published in Delattre and Vanthieghem, “Réexamen et mise en contexte d’un rouleau liturgique grec”, pp. 189–191. 97  Here ‘court’ means the judge, see n. 53 above.

Jewish Women in Muslim Legal Venues

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(2) In the month of Nissan, year 1456 AG (=1145 CE) in Fustat (3) by the authority of our lord, Samuel the great nagid may his name endure forever (Psalms 72:17).98 When Abū al-Khayr the elder (4) R. Mevorakh the elder b. R. Meshulam the elder, m(ay he rest in) E(den), known as ‘the dyer’99 died, his widow, ʿAzīza (5) bt. Mr. Elʿazar the elder, m(ay he rest in) E(den), known as ‘the fractured’,100 presented (to the court) the deed of her ketubah. We found in it that she is entitled to (6) 552 dinars by way of delayed marriage gift and dowry according to the custom of the land, (7) i.e. she is entitled by it to a sum of over 250 dinars. We examined whether the ketubah (8) contains a trustworthiness (clause) that would release her (i.e. ʿAzīza) from the oath incumbent upon her when collecting [what she is] entitled to. (9) However, we found nothing of the sort and therefore we obligated her (to take) the (widow’s) oath when she demands (her) ketubah. (10) On Wednesday, at the end of the aforementioned month of Nissan, she came to the synagogue. We took out the holy Torah scroll and exacted (11) the oath incumbent upon her according to all its provisions. By this, she became entitled to what is in her aforementioned ketubah. (12) Among the things she swore to was that Abū al-Khayr the elder did not leave with her (13) anything at all from which she could collect her ketubah. We therefore granted her all the possessions that (14) Abū al-Khayr the elder left her, among them that house, half of which belongs to the pious foundation (qodesh). (15) Her husband, Abū al-Khayr, had mortgaged half of this house alongside other possessions for (16) 200 dinars and sold it in a conditional sale. At his (i.e. Abū al-Khayr’s) death, the owner was entitled to (17) twelve payments. Therefore, we, the members of the court,101 permitted her to recover the possessions from the Muslim, (18) sell all of them to pay the buyer the debt owed to him over the property.102 (We also permitted) her to collect (19) the ketubah to which she is entitled (from) what remains of (the possessions), even if it will suffice only for part (of the ketubah). (20) If she can find something from which she can collect the rest of her ketubah, she can take it.103 98  Samuel ha-Nagid was the head of the Jews in Egypt in the years 1140–1159. 99  This is a single person whose Hebrew name is Mevorakh, his kunya is Abū al-Khayr, his profession is al-aṣbāghī (‘the dyer’), and his father was Meshulam. 100  I assume this is al-mukassar. 101  While in the first line ‘court’ stood for the presiding judge, here ‘courts’ denotes the members of the court. 102  If I understand correctly, in the last two sentences the ‘owner’, the ‘Muslim’, and the ‘buyer’ refer to the same person. 103  The last two sentences are difficult, and I took some liberties with the text so it would make sense. I would like to thank Joseph Witztum for his help in understanding them.

66

Zinger

We recorded all of this (21) so it will be proof and evidence after today. True, clear, and established. (Signatories:) Natan ha-Kohen b. Solomon ha-Kohen, m(ay he rest in) E(den).104 (22) Yefet b. Shemarya, m(ay he rest in) E(den).105 Abraham b. Ḥalfon, (may his) e(nd be) g(ood).106 VERSO: (A Judeo-Arabic archival note at the top of the page:) The deed (al-sheṭar) about the oath of ʿAzīza, the widow of the dyer. (In Arabic script in the middle of the page:) A deed through which the wife of Abū al-Khayr son of the midwife107 became entitled to her ketubah after taking an oath. She swore. Appendix Document 1: Mubāraka’s claim to her father’s inheritance Shelfmark: T-S 8J6.8 + T-S 13J30.3 Document type: a deed Language: Hebrew Written by: not clear Place and date of writing: Fustat, 1034 CE Material: paper Physical size: 17.5 × (17.5 + 26) cm State of preservation: almost complete, with some text missing where the fragments join

104  It seems he was the presiding judge and the writer of the deed. Dozens of documents by him or related to him dated to between 1125 and 1150 survived in the Genizah; see Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, vol. 2, p. 513 n. 17, and Friedman, “Signature Embellishments”. 105  This was probably Abū ʿAlī Yefet, the trustworthy parnas, head of the parnasim, the trustee of the court, b. Shemarya the elder. In Bodl. MS Heb. d. 66.11, he gave a small loan, and in T-S 13J31.6, he took on a more substantial loan; both documents are from 1145, like our document. In 1143, he signed a will in Alexandria; see T-S 18J1.25, in Rivlin, Inheritance and Wills, doc. 50. 106  There are several people with this name mentioned in Genizah documents. It is possible that this man was the grandson of Abraham b. Ḥalfon b. Abraham, who signed at least three legal documents from Cairo and Fustat between 1108 and 1110: T-S 8J4.21, T-S 8J12.1, and T-S 8J4.23 1r. 107  Translation uncertain.

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‫‪Jewish Women in Muslim Legal Venues‬‬

‫‪Other writings on fragment: between the lines on the bottom of the recto and on all‬‬ ‫‪the verso there are difficult to read writings in Arabic script‬‬ ‫‪Previous editions/select discussions: T-S 13J30.3 was first published by Mann, The‬‬ ‫‪Jews in Egypt and in Palestine, vol. 2, pp. 173–174; Gil republished the document as Gil,‬‬ ‫‪Palestine, doc. 44; the two documents were first edited together in Zinger, “Women,‬‬ ‫‪Gender and Law”, doc. 6; for discussion, see Zinger, pp. 103–104, and Rustow, Heresy,‬‬ ‫‪pp. 169–171‬‬

‫‪ . 1‬מה ש[הי]ה בפנינו אנו העדים החתומה‬ ‫‪ . 2‬עידותינו למטה בכתב הזה בחדש אלול‬ ‫‪ .3‬בשנת ֗ד אלפים ותשע מאות ותשעים‬ ‫‪ . 4‬וארבע שנים ליצירה בפסטאט מצרים‬ ‫‪ . 5‬שעל נהר נילוס מושבה כך היה כי‬ ‫‪ .6‬בא אילינו עזרה הזקן בן שמואל בן‬ ‫‪ . 7‬עזרה פקיד הסוחרים ושאלנו ללך‬ ‫‪ . 8‬אל אחותו מבארכה ולפייסה שתשוב‬ ‫‪ .9‬מדרכה ש[ ]לכת [ ] הלכנו‬ ‫‪ . 10‬אליה ו[…‬ ‫‪ .11‬דבר[‬

‫‪. 1‬‬ ‫‪ .2‬‬ ‫‪. 3‬‬ ‫‪. 4‬‬ ‫‪. 5‬‬ ‫‪. 6‬‬ ‫‪. 7‬‬ ‫‪. 8‬‬ ‫‪ .9‬‬

‫‪ .10‬‬ ‫‪. 11‬‬ ‫‪. 12‬‬ ‫‪. 13‬‬ ‫‪ .14‬‬ ‫‪ .15‬‬ ‫‪. 16‬‬ ‫‪ .17‬‬ ‫‪ .18‬‬

‫ושיבדילוה מעדת ישראל והניחה‬ ‫מבארכה זאת דברינו והלכה אל שופט‬ ‫השופטים ולקחוהו הרגלים וביזת אתו‬ ‫והצרך לברוח מפניה והיא עומדת‬ ‫ֻ‬ ‫על דבריה ועל עזות מצחה תבקש‬ ‫מאחיה ירושת אביה אצל דיני‬ ‫גוים ויש לה אנשים כמות חמשה‬ ‫יחזקו ידיה ולא יראו את יי ומה‬ ‫שידענו כתבנו עידותינו בכך כדי‬ ‫להובילו למושב אדונינו ראש‬ ‫שמ צוֿ לעשות מה שיקרבהו‬ ‫הישיבה ֗‬ ‫לצורו ושלום על כל ישראל‬ ‫֗פרח בן מומל נ֗ נ֗‬ ‫קיאם בן מבורך נ֗ נ֗‬ ‫יוסף בן ישראל אלדסתרי נ֗ נ֗‬ ‫יוסף בן עזריה נ֗ נ֗‬ ‫שלמה בן חלפון הצובי‬ ‫ִת ִמ ִא ִם ִב ִר ִא ִב ִר ִה ִם השלחני נ֗ נ֗‬

‫‪Transcription‬‬ ‫‪T-S 8J6.8‬‬

‫‪T-S 13J30.3‬‬

68

figure 1

Zinger

Document 1: Mubāraka’s claim to her father’s inheritance T-S 8J6.8 + T-S 13J30.3, Courtesy of Cambridge University Library

Jewish Women in Muslim Legal Venues

69

Document 2: Ṣāliḥ’s former wife threatens to appeal to the government Shelfmark: Bodl. MS Heb. d. 66.133r Document type: an entry in a page from a court notebook Language: Judeo-Arabic, with some common Aramaic formulas Written by: Abraham b. Isaac (the talmīd), who is the first signatory Place and date of writing: Fustat, 9 April 1085 CE Material: paper Physical size: 12.5 × 23 cm State of preservation: complete page, some of the text is faded Other writings on fragment: the verso contains four other legal entries and a reed trial Previous editions/select discussions: this entry was partially edited in David, “Divorce”, pp. 199–200, and fully edited in Zinger, “Women, Gender and Law”, doc. 2 (see there for editions of some of the entries on the verso); for discussion, see Zinger, p. 22, and Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, vol. 2, p. 318 n. 32, and vol. 2, p. 400 n. 21 Transcription

‫ בחמשה בשבה דהוא שיתה יומי בירח ניסן דשנת אלפא‬. 1 ‫ ותלת מאה ותשעין ושית שנין למנינא דרגיליננא ביה‬.2 ‫ בפסטאט מצרים דעל נילוס נהרא מותבה חצר מן‬.3 ‫ מטלקה צאלח תדכל אליה אלי ביתה וחצר צאלח‬108]]‫ דכר אן [[אמר‬. 4 ‫ אלדי כאן זוגהא ואשתכי מנהא אנהא תהגם עליה ותדכל אלי‬. 5 ‫ מנזלה ותקול אנני לא אברח ולא אכרג מן הדא אלבית פהו‬. 6 ‫ ביתי ומנזלי ואנפדנא אליהא [[ואא]] ואסתחצרנאהא ואנהינִ אהא‬.7 ‫מטלקהא פקאלת אנני לא אקבל הדא אנכם‬ ִ ‫ ען אלדכול אלי מנזל‬. 8 ‫ אכדתם אלברטל חתי טלקתוני ואלבית ביתי ומא‬.9 … [‫ולא אני אלקא פי הדא אלסלטאןִ אל‬ ִ ‫ אברח מנה‬.10 ‫ עליהא תסמעה אל‬109‫ ותכלמת באלעטאים וכל מן יִ נִ ִס ִב‬.11 ‫]] יסתגית‬..‫ תהדיד ואלסב ואמא מטלקהא צאלח אנה [[כ‬.12 ‫ [[פי]] ויקול אכפוני מונת דכולהא אלי ומאי דהוה באנפנא‬.13 ‫אברהם בר‬ ‫ כתבנא וחתמנא למהוי לזכו ולראיה‬.14 ‫נע‬ ֿ ‫יצחק‬ .15 ̇‫מבשר בר חלפון נ̇ נ‬ ִ ‫ ישועה בר אברהם נן‬. 16 ‫ אברהם בן עלי עד‬.17

108  Reading uncertain. The scribe probably intended to write ‫אמראת‬. 109  Reading uncertain.

70

figure 2

Zinger

Document 2: Ṣāliḥ’s former wife threatens to appeal to the government Bodl. MS Heb. d. 66.133r, Courtesy of the Bodleian Library

‫‪71‬‬

‫‪Jewish Women in Muslim Legal Venues‬‬

‫‪Document 3: Bārra and Ghālib quarrel over their inheritance‬‬ ‫‪Shelfmark: T-S 18J2.5‬‬ ‫‪Document type: an incomplete deed‬‬ ‫‪Language: Judeo-Arabic, with some common Aramaic formulas‬‬ ‫‪Written by: Hillel b. ʿEli110‬‬ ‫‪Place and date of writing: Fustat, 1070s CE‬‬ ‫‪Material: paper‬‬ ‫‪Physical size: 18 × 36 cm‬‬ ‫‪State of preservation: the paper is complete and the text well preserved; the deed,‬‬ ‫‪however, was never completed‬‬ ‫‪Other writings on fragment: none‬‬ ‫‪Previous editions/select discussions: transcribed in Weiss, “Hillel ben Eli”, doc. 39‬‬

‫‪. 1‬‬ ‫‪. 2‬‬ ‫‪. 3‬‬ ‫‪. 4‬‬ ‫‪ .5‬‬ ‫‪. 6‬‬ ‫‪ .7‬‬ ‫‪ .8‬‬ ‫‪. 9‬‬

‫‪ .10‬‬ ‫‪. 11‬‬ ‫‪. 12‬‬ ‫‪ .13‬‬ ‫‪. 14‬‬ ‫‪. 15‬‬ ‫‪ .16‬‬ ‫‪ .17‬‬ ‫‪ .18‬‬ ‫‪. 19‬‬ ‫‪ .20‬‬ ‫‪ .21‬‬ ‫‪. 22‬‬

‫‪Transcription‬‬

‫שהדותא דהות באנפנא אנן שהדי דחתמות ידנא לתחתא כן הוה‬ ‫כאן ֗מ גאלב החזן המכונה אבו מנצור בר ֗מ חלפון אלזיאת נ֗ ֗ע תשאגר‬ ‫מע אכתה לאביה ואמה בארה בת ֗מ חלפון אלזיאת נ֗ ֗ע פי דאר זעמת‬ ‫בארה דא אן אביהא געלהא להא ארתא דון אכיהא ֗מ גאלב דנן ולם‬ ‫יתבת להא חקא פי אלדאר אלדין תשאגרא עליהא גיר אלטבקה אלפוקאניה‬ ‫אחצרת קדימא אלי בית דין ‪//‬שטר ‪//‬בכט אדוננו דויד‬ ‫֗‬ ‫מן אלדאר ‪//‬אלצגירה ‪//‬אד כאן‬ ‫הנשיא הגדול נשיא כל ישראל בן אדוננו ונשיאנו יחזקיהו ראש גליות‬ ‫יקתצי אן ֗מ חלפון אביהא והב להא אלטבקה‬ ‫֗‬ ‫כל ישראל מנוחתם כבוד‬ ‫ואחצרת אלי בית דין כתאב מכתתב‬ ‫֗‬ ‫אלפוקאניה מן אלדאר אלצגירה‬ ‫יקתצי אן אביהא צדק עליהא גמיע אלדאר אלמקדם‬ ‫֗‬ ‫בנימוסי הגוים‬ ‫דכרהא ולם יתבת להא יומיד פקאל אכיהא הדא אלכתאב מזור‬ ‫ולם יתבת להא לא בדיני ישראל ולא בנימוסי הגויים בדלך אלכתאב‬ ‫אפצת אלחאל בינהמא אלי‬ ‫֗‬ ‫חק וגרי בינהמא כצאים ומקאולאת‬ ‫כרגת בה אלי משפטי הגוים ואסתוגבת אלחרם מן בית דין עלי‬ ‫תעדיהא ואכראגהא לאכיהא אלי דיני גוים ועדולהא ען משפטי‬ ‫אלהים חיים פלמא אשרפת עלי אלחרם אנתדב מן זקני יושר אוהבי‬ ‫ור‬ ‫מ[ר] ֗‬ ‫ור יפת הזקן תפארת הקהל בר ֗‬ ‫מר ֗‬ ‫שלום אלשיך אבי עלי ֗‬ ‫אברהם הזקן נ֗ ֗ע וסאל בית דין אן ימהל עליהא אלי אן יגתמע ב[הא‬ ‫פחצרנא נחן אלכאת[מין‬ ‫֗‬ ‫ובאכיהא ענדה פי דארה ויתוסט בינהמא‬ ‫וחצר ֗מ גאלב ואכתה ות[טול‬ ‫לתחתא פי דאר אלשיך אבי עלי אלמדכור ֗‬ ‫מכאטבתהמא אלשיך אלמדכור וארדאע בארה דא וקיל ל[הא‬ ‫מא צח לך סוא אלטבקה אלפוקאניה באלכתאב אלעבראני ו[כתאב‬

‫–‪110  Hillel b. ʿEli was the main court clerk of the rabbinical court in Fustat in the years 1066‬‬ ‫‪1108. In Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, vol. 3, p. 435 n. 18, Goitein identifies the writer‬‬ ‫‪as Ḥalfon b. Manasse. However, this must have been a slip, since in vol. 3, p. 437 n. 67 he is‬‬ ‫‪identified correctly as Hillel b. ʿEli.‬‬

72

figure 3

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Document 3: Bārra and Ghālib quarrel over their inheritance Shelfmark: T-S 18J2.5, Courtesy of Cambridge University Library

‫‪73‬‬ ‫‪2 3.‬‬ ‫‪. 24‬‬ ‫‪ .25‬‬ ‫‪ .26‬‬ ‫‪ .27‬‬ ‫‪ .28‬‬ ‫‪ .29‬‬ ‫‪ .30‬‬ ‫‪ .31‬‬

‫‪Jewish Women in Muslim Legal Venues‬‬ ‫אלגוים לם יצח לך בה שי והי תגאלט ותקול לא בל קד אעטאני‬ ‫ואלדי הדה אלדאר והי לי פקאל להא אלשיך אבו עלי אלמדכור‬ ‫פאלדאר אלאכרי אלכבירה אלתי הי לזיקה הדה אלדאר לך פיהא‬ ‫שי תדעי אן ואלדך אעטאך איאהא איצא פקאלת לא מא לי פי‬ ‫אלדאר אלאכרי חק גמלה בוגה ולא סבב פרפקנא בהא אן‬ ‫תאכד מא געלה אללה להא טלק ותתכלא ען טלב מא ליסת [להא?‬ ‫בחק פתאבת ולם תקבל ומה דהוה קדמנא כתבנא וחתמנא‬ ‫למ גאלב החזן דנן דליהוי בידיה לזכו ולראיה וכאן דלך‬ ‫ויהבנא ֗‬ ‫מד זמאן טויל ולמא‬

‫‪Document 4: Joseph and Ghaniyya’s divorce settlement‬‬ ‫‪Shelfmark: T-S 13J8.1‬‬ ‫)‪Document type: a deed (possibly a page from a court notebook‬‬ ‫‪Language: Judaeo-Arabic, with some common Aramaic formulas‬‬ ‫)?( ‪Written by: Ṣedaqa b. Menaḥem‬‬ ‫‪Place and date of writing: Fustat-Cairo, 21 September 1052 CE‬‬ ‫‪Material: paper‬‬ ‫‪Physical size: 18 × 27.5 cm‬‬ ‫‪State of preservation: complete page; one can see when the writer dipped his reed in‬‬ ‫‪the ink and when he continued writing even when the ink was almost gone‬‬ ‫‪Other writings on fragment: none‬‬ ‫‪Previous editions/select discussions: four lines were edited in David, “Divorce”,‬‬ ‫‪pp. 164–165, and see also his “The Children of the Divorcee”, p. 20; see a useful descrip‬‬‫‪tion in Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, vol. 3, pp. 334–335 n. 102‬‬

‫‪ .1‬‬

‫‪ .2‬‬ ‫‪. 3‬‬ ‫‪. 4‬‬ ‫‪ .5‬‬ ‫‪. 6‬‬ ‫‪ .7‬‬ ‫‪. 8‬‬ ‫‪ .9‬‬

‫‪. 10‬‬ ‫‪ .11‬‬ ‫‪ .12‬‬ ‫‪ .13‬‬

‫חצר בבית דין ֗ר יוסף בן ֗ר צדקה‬ ‫שסד ֗‬ ‫ִ‬ ‫בתרין בשבה כד בתשרי‬ ‫אלפאמי ומטלקתה גִ [ניה] ִב ִת ֗ר חסן ואקנינא מנה לרצונו ותאותו‬ ‫בלא אונס אן ידפע אלי ֗ר סלאמה אלזיאת באלקאהרה ארבעה‬ ‫דראהם פי כל אסבוע תנצרף פי מוונה אברהים ולדה אלדי‬ ‫עמרה אלאן כמסה סנין [וא]ן יכון מקאם אברהים הדא‬ ‫ענד גניה ואלדתה ואדא אחב יוסף דנן אן יסתזירה סבת‬ ‫או חול אכדה בחית יעידה אליהא ואקנינא מן גניה‬ ‫לר יוסף דנן‬ ‫דא בעד אן תערפנאהא באלבראה אלתאמה ֗‬ ‫מן כתובתהא ומכל דר ומר ואנהא לא תענתה ולא תטאלבה‬ ‫תערצה אלי שלטון וביינא להא‬ ‫֗‬ ‫במשפטי הגוים ולא‬ ‫אנהא אן תעדת עליה אחרמת באסמהא ואפרזת‬ ‫ואבטלא גמיעא כל מודע וכתבנא דליהוי לזכו‬ ‫צדקה בר מנחם נ֗ נ֗‬

‫‪Transcription‬‬

74

figure 4

Zinger

Document 4: Joseph and Ghaniyya’s divorce settlement Shelfmark: T-S 13J8.1, Courtesy of Cambridge University Library

‫‪75‬‬

‫‪Jewish Women in Muslim Legal Venues‬‬ ‫‪Document 5: Ṭoviyya and Meshullam’s agreement‬‬ ‫‪Shelfmark: Mosseri VII.131‬‬ ‫‪Document type: probably a deed‬‬ ‫‪Language: Judeo-Arabic, with some common Aramaic formulas‬‬ ‫‪Written by: not known‬‬ ‫‪Place and date of writing: place unknown, no date preserved‬‬ ‫‪Material: paper‬‬ ‫‪Physical size: 16.5 × 13 cm‬‬ ‫‪State of preservation: fragment, top and bottom are missing‬‬ ‫‪Other writings on fragment: verso is empty‬‬ ‫‪Previous editions/select discussions: partially edited in David, “Divorce”, p. 205‬‬ ‫‪Transcription‬‬

‫קאל ל]נא מ משולם דנן הדה‬ ‫‪ .1‬‬ ‫‪[ .2‬אלאמר]אה הי קריבתי וילזמני [ ]הא ואיש מא וגב עליהא פי בית‬ ‫ברצאיי ואכתיארי‬ ‫֗‬ ‫‪ .3‬דין אנא אלתזם בה ענהא ואקב[לה] עלי נפסי‬ ‫אלפרץ אלדי בידהא אלמכתתב בדיני גוים‬ ‫֗‬ ‫אחצאר‬ ‫֗‬ ‫‪ .4‬פקלנא לה ילזמהא‬ ‫אלפרץ קד עדמתה‬ ‫֗‬ ‫‪ . 5‬אלי ִביִ ִת די[ן]ותכריקה ען מטלקהא מ טוביה דנן פקאל‬ ‫אנה‪ 111‬מתי‬ ‫עוצהא ֗‬ ‫חצורה אלאן לכנני אקנו מני ואשהדו עלי ֗‬ ‫‪ .6‬ולא סביל אלי ֗‬ ‫אלפרץ הי או וכילהא ענהא אלי דיני גוים וטאלבתה‬ ‫֗‬ ‫אחצרת הדא‬ ‫֗‬ ‫‪ . 7‬מא‬ ‫‪‬‬ ‫מנה פי מדה אלסתה סנין אלמכתתבה פי אלשטר אלדי ביד מטלקה[א‬ ‫תצ ُ‬ ‫‪ .8‬במא ֗‬ ‫‪‬‬ ‫‪ ‬‬ ‫אלקאים‬ ‫ִ‬ ‫‪ . 9‬וכסרתה מא עסא יכון קליל או כתיר משוה פרוטה ולעילא כנת אנא‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫אנץ מא אמתלכה ואלתזם אלדרך לה עלי ועלי וראתי‬ ‫‪ . 10‬לה בה ענהא מן ֗‬ ‫מר טוביה‬ ‫פארתצא ֗‬ ‫֗‬ ‫‪ . 11‬בעדי פי מא בקי מן אלסתה סנין אלמדכורה‬ ‫‪[ .12‬בד]לך וקאל לנא ‪//‬אנא ‪//‬אסאל בית דין אן ית[בת?] לי מן ֗מ משולם דנן עלי דלך‬ ‫מ‪/‬ע]נה ויחתרז לי גאיה אלאחתר[אז ויכתב? לי] בית דין בדלך מעשה‬ ‫֗‬ ‫‪…[ .13‬‬ ‫‪[ .14‬דלהוי ‪/‬למהוי] לזכו ולראיה פענד דלך א[קנינא אנן ב]ית דין ומן דחתים עמנא‬ ‫ ]נ֗ ֗ע בקנין גמור חמור‬ ‫‪[ .15‬לתחתא מ]ן ֗מ משולם [דנן …‬ ‫דלא כאס]מכתא‬ ‫‪ […] [ .16‬‬

‫‪Document 6: Bahiyya’s debt to ʿAmram‬‬ ‫‪Shelfmark: T-S 20.32‬‬ ‫‪Document type: a deed‬‬ ‫‪Language: Hebrew‬‬ ‫‪Written by: not certain‬‬ ‫‪Place and date of writing: Fustat, 24 July 1057 CE‬‬ ‫‪Material: paper‬‬ ‫‪Physical size: 21.5 × 44.5 cm‬‬ ‫‪111  For marking the final heh in this way (see also l. 13), see Friedman, A Dictionary, p. 936.‬‬

76

figure 5

Zinger

Document 5: Ṭoviyya and Meshullam’s agreement Shelfmark: Mosseri VII.131, Courtesy of Cambridge University Library

State of preservation: fragment, top is missing Other writings on fragment: the top of the verso contains a line in Arabic script that is hard to read; in the middle of the verso there is a draft of a beginning of an Arabic script petition to Caliph al-Ḥākim112 Previous editions/select discussions: described in English in Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, vol. 3, p. 330 nn. 78–79, and in Hebrew in Bareket, The Jewish Leadership, p. 271. The draft of the petition is mentioned in Khan, Arabic Legal and Administrative Documents, p. 311 n. 27

112   See n. 71 above.

‫‪77‬‬

‫‪Jewish Women in Muslim Legal Venues‬‬

‫] מבורך בר [אפרים?‬ ‫‪ .1‬‬ ‫ ] … יעקב זה ו‪[.‬‬ ‫‪.2‬‬ ‫‪.] .3‬עם זהובים ‪..‬ול[‪113‬‬ ‫ ]ע לגוי באלו הזהו[בים‬ ‫‪.4‬‬ ‫‪.] .5‬גוי לעמרם ראה עמרם[‬ ‫ [י]ע ִק ִב זִ ִה וא …[…] אשת [מבור]ך בדיני ישראל כי חמל על כבודה‬ ‫ִ‬ ‫‪.6‬‬ ‫כולם לדיִ ןִ ועברו מושבות בינהם בבית‬ ‫ִ‬ ‫‪ .7‬שהיא אשת איש [ו]נִ ִכנסו‬ ‫‪[ .8‬די]ן ואמר בי[ת ד]יִ ן להם כי הראוי לכם שתעשו פשרה בינכם‬ ‫עבור‪ 114‬כי השטר שביד‬ ‫‪ . 9‬בדיני [ישראל] וִ ִל ִא ִתלכו לדיני הגוים ִ‬ ‫‪ .10‬עמרם בדיני גוים שטר מוחזק וחס בית דין והזקנים על האשה‬ ‫‪ .11‬ונכנסו הזקנים ביניהם ונשאו ונתנו בדבר אחר שראו כי‬ ‫‪ . 12‬הנשאר בשטר עליהם שנים וארבעים זהובים צריכים‬ ‫מהם‬ ‫ִ‬ ‫‪ .13‬לתתם לעמרם היום ראה עמרם לעשות עמם חסד ולקחת‬ ‫‪ .14‬שלשים זהובים והשאר קיוה כי הוא ישאל הגוי לתת אותם לו מתנה‬ ‫‪ .15‬ורצה עמרם בכן בקנין וג[[ו]]זרו הזקנים על בעל האשה מבורך‬ ‫הזהוביִ ִם חצים כדי שלא‬ ‫ִ‬ ‫והט ִריחו עליו ליתן מהשלשים‬ ‫ִ‬ ‫‪. 16‬‬ ‫והזהירוהו‬ ‫הח ִצי ִ‬ ‫‪ .17‬תהיה אשתו מגוררת בדיני הגוים ולא אבה לתת ִ‬ ‫‪ . 18‬בדברים רכים וטובים עד ששקל לעמרם מהשלשים הזהובים‬ ‫‪ . 19‬אחד עשר זהוב שקולים טובים והשא[ר נכת]ב [בו]‪ 115‬שטר על‬ ‫‪ .20‬יעקב בן יעיש הכהן אחי בהיה אשת מבורך ִבר אפרים ורצו‬ ‫‪ִ .21‬כוִ ִלם בזו הפשרה וכששקל מבורך בעל בהיה האחד עשר‬ ‫‪[ .22‬הז]הובים לעמרם ביקש לכתוב לאשתו שטר פיצוי מוחזק‬ ‫‪ .23‬על עמרם ולקח השטר שבידו שלגוים וכי זה שביקש אמת‬ ‫וציִ וִ ה‪ 116‬בית דין וכתב שטר פיצוי לבהיה וזה הוא מפורש כי בא‬ ‫‪ִ .24‬‬ ‫עמרם בר יפת לבית דין והזקנים החותמים עדותם בשטר הזה ואמר‬ ‫ִ‬ ‫‪ .25‬‬ ‫‪ . 26‬היו עלי עדים וקנו ממני בכל לשון של זכות [ו]כתבו וחתמו עלי‬ ‫עידותכם ואני לא אנוס ולא מוכרח ולא מפותה אלא בנפש חפיצה‬ ‫ִ‬ ‫‪ .27‬‬ ‫יעיִ ִש [אשת] ִמ ִבוִ ִר[ך] בר ִאפרים ִמהשטר‬ ‫בת ִ‬ ‫‪[ .28‬בר]יתי ופציתי ונקיתי לבהיה ִ‬ ‫‪ . 29‬שהיה בידי עליה בדיני הגוים ושלמתיו לבעלה מבורך ולא נשתיר לי‬ ‫‪ . 30‬עליה שום תביעה בעולם לא בדיני ישראל ולא בדיני עממים וביטלתי‬ ‫‪  .31‬כל מודעין שמסרתי ושאני עתיד למסור מהיום ולעולם ומחלתי לה מחילה‬

‫‪Transcription‬‬

‫‪[.‬שב‪/‬תש]עים זהובים [שק]ול[ים ‪113  A possible completion is‬‬ ‫‪ in other contemporary legal documents:‬עבור כי ‪114  This reading is confirmed by the use of‬‬ ‫‪T-S 8.137, l. 7 (an interesting vocalised Hebrew and Judaeo-Arabic Karaite deed of quit‬‬‫‪tance from Fustat, 1060) and T-S 18J4.21, l. 11 (written by ʿEli he-ḥaver b. ʿAmram).‬‬ ‫‪115  The completion of these lacunas is uncertain.‬‬ ‫‪ (in which case the sentence is lacking a verb like‬ושוה ‪116  Reading uncertain. Perhaps read‬‬ ‫‪‘agreed’ or ‘ordered’).‬‬

78

figure 6a Document 6: Bahiyya’s debt to ʿAmram (recto) Shelfmark: T-S 20.32, Courtesy of Cambridge University Library

Zinger

Jewish Women in Muslim Legal Venues

figure 6b Document 6: Bahiyya’s debt to ʿAmram (verso) Shelfmark: T-S 20.32, Courtesy of Cambridge University Library

79

‫‪Zinger‬‬ ‫‪ .32‬‬ ‫‪. 33‬‬ ‫‪ .34‬‬ ‫‪ .35‬‬ ‫‪. 36‬‬ ‫‪. 37‬‬ ‫‪. 38‬‬ ‫‪. 39‬‬ ‫‪ .40‬‬ ‫‪ .41‬‬ ‫‪. 42‬‬

‫‪80‬‬

‫גמורה מחילת עלמין [בז]ה [וב]בא‪ 117‬גם לא נשאר לי עליה לא חרם ולא שבועה ולא‬ ‫אלה לא בהיסת ולא באוריתא וקנינו מיד עמרם בר יפת קנין גמור חמור‬ ‫בכלי הכשר כדי לקנות בו ומוחזק ומקוים ומתורץ יהיה שטר אביזר זה‬ ‫כחומר וכחוזק כל שטרי פיצוים שהתקינו רבנן ונהגין בעלמא ונכתב יום‬ ‫מותבה‪ 118‬שנִ [ת‬ ‫חמישי בשבת בחדש אב בעשרים יום בו בפסטאט מצרים דעל נהר נילוס ִ‬ ‫אלף ושלש מאות וששים ושמונה שנים לשטרות ונתננו שטר זה ביד בהיה לזכות ‪ //‬בהיה תליי‬ ‫עלי הכהן בר יעיש נ֗ נ֗‬ ‫ישועה הלוי בר אברהם נ֗ נ֗ יפת בן טוביה הלוי נ֗ נ֗ ‬ ‫חסן בר ה‪ 119..‬הכהן‬ ‫ננתאל )!( בר עמרם ‬ ‫יוסף בר עזריה ננ ‬ ‫שטרא דנן קמנא בבי דינא עלי החבר ביר עמרם נתנאל בר עמרם יפת בן‬ ‫אתקיים ִ‬ ‫עלי‬ ‫טוביה הלוי ננ [ומדאת]ו תרי שהדי ואחויאו דחתמות ידיהון דא קיימנוהי כדחזי ‬ ‫נִ [תנ]אל בר עמרם נ֗ נ֗‬ ‫[פ]ת ה[לוי בן טוביה?] ‬ ‫ִ‬ ‫יִ‬ ‫ע]מרם ‪ :‬‬ ‫החבר המעולה [בר ִ‬

‫ٰ‬ ‫‪ .1‬ب���س���م ا �ل�ّ�ل�ه ا �لرح�م� ن� ا �لر�‬ ‫حي�����م‬ ‫‪ .2‬ب���س���م‬ ‫ّٰ‬ ‫ة ّٰ‬ ‫ن‬ ‫‪ .3‬ب���س���م ا �ل��ل�ه ا �لرح�م�� ا �لر�‬ ‫حي�����م ‬ ‫ا �ل�ع��ب�د ا �ل���م���م��لوك �ه��ب�� ا �ل��ل�ه‬ ‫ز ت أ‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ت ّ‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ن‬ ‫�� �‬ ‫�‬ ‫ �ص��لوا‬ ‫‪.4‬‬ ‫ح��ي�ا ��ه و��س�لا �م�ه‬ ‫ ‬ ‫كا��ه و�وا مي� �ك‬ ‫�وا ��ه و� ����ض‬ ‫� ا �ل��ل�ه وب�ر �‬ ‫�ب� ا ب�و �م�����صور ا �لی���ھود �ي�‬ ‫ل‬ ‫ٰ‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫ئ‬ ‫ئ‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ ع��ل �مولا �ا و�����س��ی�د �ا الا �م�ا �م ا �ل‬ ‫�‬ ‫�م ب�ا �مر ا �ل��ل�ه ا �می��ر ا �ل���مو�م��ن ی�� ن� وع��لى ا ب�ا ��ه ا �ل��ط�ا �ھر�ی� وا �ب���ا ��ه‬ ‫حــ�ا ك�‬ ‫‪ .5‬ى‬ ‫� �م�� ن‬ ‫الا كر ی�‬ ‫‪VERSO:120‬‬

‫‪Document 7: Permitting ʿAzīza to collect her ketubah in a Muslim court‬‬ ‫‪Shelf-mark: ENA 4011.67‬‬ ‫‪Document type: a deed‬‬ ‫‪Language: Judaeo-Arabic, with some common Aramaic formulas‬‬ ‫‪Written by: the hand resembles that of Nathan b. Samuel he-ḥaver‬‬ ‫‪Place and date of writing: Fustat, 25 April 1145 CE‬‬ ‫‪Material: paper‬‬ ‫‪Physical size: 17 × 21 cm‬‬ ‫‪State of preservation: complete‬‬ ‫‪Other writings on fragment: none‬‬ ‫‪Previous editions/select discussions: Goitein and Friedman, Joseph Lebdī, pp. 161–162‬‬ ‫‪n. 17; and Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, vol. 3, p. 252 n. 14‬‬

‫‪117  The completion is uncertain.‬‬ ‫‪.‬מושבה ‪118  Perhaps read‬‬ ‫‪.‬ה‪X‬ל ‪119  The name is unclear. It looks like‬‬ ‫‪120  The transcription of the verso was done together with Naïm Vanthieghem and Marina‬‬ ‫‪Rustow, to whom I would like to express my gratitude.‬‬

‫‪81‬‬ ‫‪ .1‬‬

‫‪. 2‬‬ ‫‪ .3‬‬ ‫‪ .4‬‬ ‫‪. 5‬‬ ‫‪ .6‬‬ ‫‪ .7‬‬ ‫‪. 8‬‬ ‫‪. 9‬‬ ‫‪ .10‬‬ ‫‪ .11‬‬ ‫‪. 12‬‬ ‫‪ .13‬‬ ‫‪ .14‬‬ ‫‪. 15‬‬ ‫‪ .16‬‬ ‫‪. 17‬‬ ‫‪ .18‬‬ ‫‪. 19‬‬ ‫‪ .20‬‬ ‫‪ .21‬‬ ‫‪. 22‬‬

‫‪Jewish Women in Muslim Legal Venues‬‬ ‫‪Transcription‬‬

‫מעשה שהיה לפנינו אנן בידינא ומאן דחתים עימנ[א] לתתא סוף שטרא דנן כן‬ ‫הוה בחדש ניסן דשנת אלפא וארבע מאה וחמשין ושיתא שנין לשטרות באלפסטאט‬ ‫רשותיה דאדוננו שמואל הנגיד הגדול יהי שמו לעולם למא אן תופי אלשיך אבו‬ ‫נע דידיע אלאצבאגי אחצרת ארמלתה עזיזה‬ ‫רב משולם הזקן ֿ‬ ‫רב מבורך הזקן בן ֗‬ ‫אלכיר ֗‬ ‫נע דידיע אלמכסאר שטר כתובתה פוגדנא אלמסתחק להא‬ ‫מר אלעזר הזקן ֿ‬ ‫בת ֗‬ ‫פיהא כמסה מאיה אתנין וכמסין דינאר בין מוכר ונדוניא עלי מנהג אלבלד יכון‬ ‫אלמסתחק להא פיהא מא יזיד עלי אלמאיתין וכמסין דינאר פתפקדנא אלכתובה אן‬ ‫יכון פיהא נאמנות תבריהא מן אלשבועה אלואגבה עליהא עלי? אסתיפ[א מא] ִאסתחק[תה‪121‬‬ ‫פלם נגד פיהא שי מן דלך פאלזמנאהא אלימין ענד טלבהא אלכתובה פחצרת פי יום‬ ‫אלארבעא סלך ניסן אלמדכור אלבית הכנסת ואכרגנא ספר תורה המקודש ואסתחלפנאהא‬ ‫אלימין אלואגבה עליהא בגמיע שרוטהא פאסתחקת בעד דלך מא פיה כתובתה‬ ‫אלמקדם דכרה וכאן פי גמלה ימינהא אן אלשיך אבו אלכיר דנן לם יכלף‪ 122‬ענדהא‬ ‫שי אן תאכד מנה שי מן כתובתה באלגמלה ואנזלנהא‪ 123‬פי גמיע אלאמלאך אלדי כלפהא‬ ‫אלשיך אבו אלכיר דנן גמיעהא אלדי מן גמלתהא אלדאר אלדי אלנצף מנהא ללקדש‬ ‫וכאן רגלהא אבו אלכיר דנן קד ארהן נצף הדה אלדאר מע אמלאך אכר לה עלי‬ ‫מאיתי דינארא ואבאעהא בדלך ביע תנואי ואסתחק אלמאלך עליה קבל מותה‬ ‫אתני עשר אגרה פסוגנא להא אנו בתי דינים אסתעאדה אלאמלאך מן אלגוי‬ ‫וביעהא גמיעהא לתופי אלמשתרי מא לה מן אלדין [ע]לי אלאמלאך ואן תסתופי‬ ‫באלבעץ‬ ‫֗‬ ‫אלבאקי מנהא ממא‪ 124‬תחסתחקה )!( מן כתובתה ואן לם יפ[י?] דלך אלא‬ ‫חתי אדא וגדת מא תסתופי מנה באקי כתובתה אכדתה פאתבתנא דלך גמיעה‬ ‫למיהוי לזכו ולראייה לאחר היום שריר ובריר וקיים נתן הכהן בר שלמה הכהן נע‬ ‫סט‬ ‫יפת בר שמריה נ֗ ע֗ אברהם בר חלפון ֗‬

‫‪VERSO:‬‬

‫אלשטר בימין עזיזה‬ ‫ארמלה אלאצבאגי‬

‫ة‬ ‫�خ�� � ن‬ ‫ح���ق� ت� ز� و ج���ة ا ب�و ا �ل‬ ‫�ش����ط�ا ر ب��ه ا �����س��ت���‬ ‫ب� ا �ل���ق�ا ب��ل�� ‪125‬‬ ‫� ير‬ ‫ت‬ ‫�ف ت‬

‫‪Top left-hand corner:‬‬

‫‪Middle of left-hand side:‬‬

‫�ك‬ ‫���ب�ت���ه�ا ب��ع�د ي����مي�� ن����ه�ا وح��ل� ��‬

‫‪121  These completions are uncertain.‬‬ ‫‪122  Reading uncertain, it seems like the word was corrected.‬‬ ‫‪.‬ואנזלנאהא ‪123  Word corrected. The writer probably intended to write‬‬ ‫‪124  It is possible that the writer erased the second mem, thus making the sentence more‬‬ ‫‪intelligible.‬‬ ‫‪125  Reading uncertain.‬‬

82

Zinger

figure 7a Document 7: Permitting ʿAzīza to collect her ketubah in a Muslim court (recto) Shelf-mark: ENA 4011.67, Courtesy of the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary

Jewish Women in Muslim Legal Venues

figure 7b Document 7: Permitting ʿAzīza to collect her ketubah in a Muslim court (verso) Shelf-mark: ENA 4011.67, Courtesy of the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary

83

84

Zinger

Bibliography Albeck, Shalom, “Acquisition”, The Principles of Jewish Law, ed. Menachem Elon, Jerusalem: Encylopaedia Judaica, 1975, pp. 205–210. ʿAodeh, Ṣabīḥ, “Eleventh Century Arabic Letters of Jewish Merchants from the Cairo Geniza” [Hebrew], PhD dissertation, Tel Aviv University, 1992. Ashur, Amir, “Engagement and Betrothal Documents from the Cairo Geniza” [Hebrew], PhD dissertation, Tel Aviv University, 2006. Bareket, Elinoar, “‘The Excellent Member’ or ‘The Excellent Traitor’: A Controversial Leader, ʿEli ben ʿAmram the Head of the Palestinian Congregation in Fustat in the Second Half of the Eleventh Century” [Hebrew], AJS Review 23 (1998): pp. 1–27 (Hebrew section). Bareket, Elinoar, The Jewish Leadership in Fustat in the First Half of the Eleventh Century [Hebrew], Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 1995. Beeri, Tova, “ʿEli he-Ḥaver ben ʿAmram: A Hebrew Poet in Eleventh-Century Egypt” [Hebrew], Sefunot: Studies and Sources on the History of the Jewish Communities in the East 23 (ns 8) (2003), pp. 279–345. Beeri, Tova, Le-David Mizmor: The Liturgical Poems of David ha-Nasi, Son of Hezekiah the Exilarch [Hebrew], Jerusalem: Meqiṣe Nirdamim, 2009. Ben-Sasson, Menahem, The Jews of Sicily, 825–1068: Documents and Sources [Hebrew], Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute, 1991. Blau, Joshua, A Dictionary of Medieval Judaeo-Arabic Texts [Hebrew], Jerusalem: Academy of the Hebrew Language, 2006. Cohen, Mark R., Jewish Self-Government in Medieval Egypt: The Origins of the Office of Head of the Jews, ca. 1965–1126, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980. Cohen, Mark R., Poverty and Charity in the Jewish Community of Medieval Egypt, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005. Cohn, Haim H., “Oath”, The Principles of Jewish Law, ed. Menachem Elon, Jerusalem: Encylopaedia Judaica, 1975, pp. 615–621. David, Yeḥezkel, “The Children of the Divorcee in the Light of Geniza Documents: Custody, Maintenance, and Education” [Hebrew], Sinai 143 (2009), pp. 34–57. David, Yeḥezkel, “Divorce among the Jews according to Cairo Geniza Documents and Other Sources” [Hebrew], PhD dissertation, Tel Aviv University, 2000. Delattre, Alain and Naïm Vanthieghem, “Réexamen et mise en contexte d’un rouleau liturgique grec de l’époque fatimide (P. Prag. I 3 + P. Stras. Inv. K 556)”, Études coptes XV, eds. Boud’hors Anne and Louis Catherine (Paris: De Boccard, 2018), pp. 177–197. Diem, Werner and Hans-Peter Radenberg, A Dictionary of the Arabic Material of S.D. Goitein’s A Mediterranean Society, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 1994. Fayzee, A.A.A., “The Fatimid Law of Inheritance”, Studia Islamica 9 (1958), pp. 61–69.

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Franklin, Arnold E., This Noble House: Jewish Descendants of King David in the Medieval Islamic East, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013. Friedman, Mordechai Akiva, A Dictionary of Medieval Judeo-Arabic: In the India Book Letters from the Geniza and in Other Texts [Hebrew], Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute, 2016. Friedman, Mordechai Akiva, “Divorce upon the Wife’s Demand as Reflected in Manuscripts from the Cairo Geniza”, Jewish Law Annual 4 (1981), pp. 101–127. Friedman, Mordechai Akiva, Ḥalfon and Judah ha-Levi: The Lives of a Merchant Scholar and a Poet Laureate According to The Cairo Geniza Documents (India Book IV/A) [Hebrew], Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute, 2013. Friedman, Mordechai Akiva, Jewish Marriage in Palestine: A Cairo Geniza Study, 2 vols, Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 1980. Friedman, Mordechai Akiva, Jewish Polygyny in the Middle Ages [Hebrew], Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1986. Friedman, Mordechai Akiva, “On Marital Age, Violence and Mutuality in the Genizah Documents”, The Cambridge Genizah Collections: Their Contents and Significance, ed. Stefan C. Reif, Cambridge: Cambridge University Library, 2002, pp. 160–177. Friedman, Mordechai Akiva, “Pre-Nuptial Agreements with Grooms of Questionable Character: A Geniza Study”, Dine Israel 6 (1975), pp. 105–122. Friedman, Mordechai Akiva, “Signature Embellishments and a Unique Method for Noting a Date” [Hebrew], Tarbiz 48 (1978), pp. 160–163. Gil, Moshe, Documents of the Jewish Pious Foundations from the Cairo Geniza, Leiden: Brill, 1976. Gil, Moshe, In the Kingdom of Ishmael [Hebrew], 4 vols, Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 1997. Gil, Moshe, Palestine during the First Muslim Period (634–1099) [Hebrew], 3 vols, Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 1983. Gil, Moshe, The Tustaris, Family and Sect [Hebrew], Tel Aviv: Diaspora Research Institute, 1981. Goitein, S.D., “Additions to ‘ha-Rav’” [Hebrew], Tarbiz 45 (1976), pp. 152–153. Goitein, S.D., “A Jewish Business Woman of the Eleventh Century”, Jewish Quarterly Review 57 (1967), pp. 225–242. Goitein, S.D., Letters of Medieval Jewish Traders, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973. Goitein, S.D., A Mediterranean Society: The Jewish Communities of the Arab World as Portrayed in the Documents of the Cairo Geniza, 6 vols, Berkeley: California University Press, 1967–1993. Goitein, S.D. and Mordechai Akiva Friedman, Joseph Lebdī: Prominent India Trader (India Book I) [Hebrew], Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute, 2009.

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Goitein, S.D. and Mordechai Akiva Friedman, Maḍmūn Nagid of Yemen and the India Trade (India Book II) [Hebrew], Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute, 2010. Goitein, S.D., Mordechai Akiva Friedman, and Amir Ashur, Ḥalfon the Travelling Merchant Scholar: Cairo Geniza Documents (India Book IV/B) [Hebrew], Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute, 2013. Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī, Raf‘ al-iṣr ‘an quḍāt miṣr, eds Ḥāmid ʿAbd al-Majī et al., Cairo: Wizārāt al-tarbiya wa-l-taʿlīm, 1957–1961. Ismail, Muhammed Imran, “Legal Stratagems (Ḥiyal) and Usury in Islamic Commercial Law”, PhD dissertation, University of Birmingham, 2010. Khan, Geoffrey, Arabic Legal and Administrative Documents in the Cambridge Genizah Collections, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. al-Kindī, Muhammad ibn Yusuf, The Governors and Judges of Egypt, ed. Rhuvon Guest, Leiden: Brill, 1912. Kraemer, Joel L., “Women Speak for Themselves”, The Cambridge Genizah Collections: Their Contents and Significance, ed. Stefan C. Reif, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002, pp. 178–216. Levine Melammed, Renée, “A Look at Women’s Lives in Cairo Genizah Society”, The Festschrift Darkhei Noam: The Jews of Arab Lands, eds Carsten Schapkow, Shmuel Shepkaru, and Alan T. Levenson, Leiden: Brill, 2015, pp. 64–85. Mann, Jacob, The Jews in Egypt and in Palestine under the Fatimid Caliphs: A Contribution to Their Political and Communal History, preface and reader’s guide by S.D. Goitein, 2 vols, New York: Ktav, 1970. Marmer, David, “Patrilocal Residence and Jewish Court Documents in Medieval Cairo”, Judaism and Islam: Boundaries, Communications and Interactions. Essays in Honor of William M. Briner, eds Benjamin H. Hary et al., Leiden: Brill, 2000, pp. 67–82. Miller, Peter N., “Two Men in a Boat: The Braudel–Goitein ‘Correspondence’ and the Beginning of Thalassography”, The Sea: Thalassography and Historiography, ed. Peter N. Miller, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2013, pp. 27–59. Olszowy-Schlanger, Judith, “Early Karaite Family Law”, Karaite Judaism: A Guide to its History and Literary Sources, ed. Meira Polliack, Leiden: Brill, 2003, pp. 275–290. Olszowy-Schlanger, Judith, Karaite Marriage Documents from the Cairo Geniza: Legal Tradition and Community Life in Mediaeval Egypt and Palestine, Leiden: Brill, 1998. Regourd, Anne, “Une requête (petition) au calife fatimide al-Ḥākim bi-amr Allāh (Rémondon 1, musée du Louvre)”, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 80 (2017), pp. 465–471. Rivlin, Yosef, Inheritance and Wills in Jewish Law [Hebrew], Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1999. Rivlin, Yosef, “Mortgage and Resale in the Cairo Geniza Documents” [Hebrew], Alei Asor: Proceedings of the Tenth Conference of the Society for Judaeo-Arabic Studies, eds

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Daniel J. Lasker and Haggai Ben-Shammai, Beer-Sheva: Beer-Sheva University Press, 2008, pp. 289–308. Rivlin, Yosef, “On Economics and Halakhah: The Mortgage and the Resale”, Jewish Commercial Law: Essays in Memory of George Webber, ed. Jonathan Cohen, Liverpool, UK: Jewish Law Association, 2009, pp. 206–247. Rivlin, Yosef, “The Widow’s Oath: Between Sepharad and Ashkenaz” [Hebrew], Bar-Ilan Law Studies 2 (2005), pp. 705–720. Rustow, Marina, Heresy and the Politics of Community: The Jews of the Fatimid Caliphate, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2008. Schacht, Joseph, An Introduction to Islamic Law, Oxford: Clarendon, 1964. Shilo, Shmuel, “Ones”, The Principles of Jewish Law, ed. Menachem Elon, Jerusalem: Encylopaedia Judaica, 1975, pp. 178–183. Walker, Paul, “Another Family of Fatimid Chief Qāḍīs: The al-Fāriqīs”, Fatimid History and Ismaili Doctrine, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008, section IV [published originally in Journal of Druze Studies 1 (2000), pp. 49–69]. Weiss, Gershon, “Documents Written by Hillel ben Eli: A Study in the Diplomatics of the Cairo Geniza Documents”, MA dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1967. Yagur, Moshe, “Religious Identity and Communal Boundaries in Geniza Society (10th– 13th Centuries): Proselytes, Slaves, Apostates” [Hebrew], PhD dissertation, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2017. Zinger, Oded, “A Karaite–Rabbanite Court Session in Mid Eleventh Century Egypt”, Ginzei Qedem: Genizah Research Annual 13 (2017), pp. 95*–116*. Zinger, Oded, “‘She Aims to Harass Him’: Jewish Women in Muslim Legal Venues in Medieval Egypt”, AJS Review 42 (2018), pp. 159–192. Zinger, Oded, “Women, Gender and Law: Marital Disputes according to Documents from the Cairo Geniza”, PhD dissertation, Princeton University, 2014.

CHAPTER 4

Captives, Converts, and Concubines: Gendered Aspects of Conversion to Judaism in the Medieval Near East Moshe Yagur A group of Jewish men is approached by two Christian sisters, in an unknown location. The sisters announce that they wish to convert to Judaism, leave all “idolatry and pagan worship” behind, and observe the commandments. Initially, the men are reluctant to perform the conversion, but the two sisters persevere, and even exclaim “if you do not help us regarding this matter, we will complain to heaven about you”. Finally, the Jews agree to convert them. Yet the conversion procedure that follows is quite peculiar. The women are instructed to shave their hair with a razor and to cut their nails. Next, it is reported that they cry in grief for having committed idolatry and recite an appropriate biblical verse concerning the future remorse of the gentiles regarding their false religion. It is only then that the would-be converts are ritually immersed and accepted into the Jewish faith. This unique conversion story, recounted in a court deposition found in the Cairo Genizah, was published by Mordechai Akiva Friedman about thirty years ago. The deposition is the longest and most detailed description of a conversion procedure thus far found in the Genizah, and in fact it is the only one which purports to be a first-hand account by people present at the scene. The reader, however, is left rather perplexed: nowhere in the classical rabbinic texts do we find the physical act of shaving hair and paring nails mandated as part of the conversion process. Yet, we can recall a precedent for the shaving of hair and the paring of nails: Deuteronomy 21, where the ritual is discussed in connection with the laws of war. According to these verses, if an Israelite man goes to war, And you see among the captives a beautiful woman and you desire her and would take her to wife, and you shall bring her into your house, and she shall trim her hair, pare her nails, and discard her captive’s garb. She shall spend a month’s time in your house lamenting her father and

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004422179_005

Captives, Converts, and Concubines

89

mother; after that you may come to her and possess her, and she shall be your wife.1 Why was a biblical commandment which pertained to captive women applied to a case of conversion to Judaism? What was the rationale of this ritual in its medieval implementation and what work did it do? In the present article, I will argue that the medieval custom to which the court deposition attests was based on the biblical verse concerning the beautiful captive woman, and I trace the relevant sources through the geonic and medieval literature. I propose that this custom, which is attested in a range of genres from the medieval Muslim East, helped create a public and visible liminal period for converts to Judaism by use of a physical act that was applicable to men and women alike. I also hope to show that beyond the gender-neutral custom was a deeper notion, namely, that conversion, captivity, slavery, and sexual subjugation were fully entwined, at least when it came to non-Jewish women. 1

The Genizah Court Deposition

The court deposition was written in Hebrew, on the verso of a personal letter written in Arabic script. The Hebrew text is probably a later copy of the original deposition, since the names of the converted sisters were altered to “so-andso”, no date or place name is indicated, and the text is free of misspellings and corrections. The Hebrew text was analysed in full and published by Friedman in 1986. As described above, the deposition narrates a dialogue between some Jewish men and two Christian2 sisters who wished to be converted to Judaism: You should know that we wish to enter the community of Israel – to be part of your community and leave our former community, and not to worship idols and graven images. We wish to be part of your community, to worship God alone and to take upon ourselves the yoke of the kingdom 1  Deuteronomy 21:11–13 (I follow the NJPS translation throughout the article). 2  In the original, the sisters are ʿarelot, literally ‘[of the] uncircumcised’. In Genizah documents, goy usually connotes Muslim, while ʿarel ‘uncircumcised’ connotes Christian; see Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, vol. 2, p. 278. However, there is a theoretical possibility that the two sisters were pagan idol-worshippers (perhaps imported slaves from Eastern Europe, Central Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, or India).

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of heaven and the yoke of the commandments, as do all the righteous and pure daughters of Israel.3 The men tried to dissuade the sisters by emphasising the lowly status of Jews and the many commandments they must observe. In so doing, they were following the Talmudic prescription regarding potential proselytes and how they should be discouraged.4 It is only after the Jews ascertained that the sisters were sincere that they agreed to convert them: And when we saw this we gave instructions [and they shaved] their heads with a razor and cut their nails and cried in grief for having committed idolatry and pa[gan w]orship [and said] “Our fathers have inherited naught but lies, vanity and things wherein there is no profit”5 …, and they immersed according to the requirements of Jewish law, and we read [to them Shema] Israel (ll. 23–26). Since the deposition bears no names, dates, or place names, its provenance is difficult to establish. The style of the script is also hard to pin down, featuring as it does both eastern and Sephardic influences.6 We might speculate that since the two sisters were Christian, perhaps it originated in a Christian land. However, we know from the Genizah that conversion to Judaism also took place under Muslim rule in Egypt itself; the case of a certain Mevorakh, who converted in the early thirteenth-century court of Menaḥem b. Yiṣḥaq b. Sasson, is an example.7 Thus, the conversion might well have occurred in an Islamic region. The dating of our court deposition is also unclear, with the writing style pointing to between the eleventh and twelfth centuries.8 As noted above, the ritual recalls the biblical requirements concerning a beautiful woman taken captive by an Israelite warrior. These verses are discussed by the sages in classical rabbinic sources, and the rabbis regard them as effecting a conversion, albeit under specific circumstances. As nowhere in the classical rabbinic corpus are these requirements mentioned in regard to other 3  C UL T-S 12.232, edited and discussed in Friedman, Jewish Polygyny, pp. 335–339, ll. 3–6. 4  B T Yevamōt 47a–b. See also the English translation and discussion in Cohen, The Beginnings of Jewishness, pp. 198–211. 5  Jer. 16:19. 6  This assessment was made by Dr Edna Engel in private correspondence with me in 2014. M.A. Friedman has also made a similar estimation in private correspondence, revising his preliminary suggestion in Friedman, Jewish Polygyny, p. 336. 7  J TSA ENA NS 21.10, published by Scheiber, “Letter of Recommendation”. 8  See note 6.

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kinds of conversion, however, it remains a custom peculiar to the laws of war. Since the present article leaves aside the different ways in which the biblical commandment was interpreted over centuries, we will move on to the first sources which prescribe shaving hair and paring nails for all converts.9 2

Earliest Literary Evidence for the Custom

As far as I have been able to identify, the first mention of the custom for converts is found in Halakhōt Pesūqōt, the eighth-century Babylonian legal code of the early geonic period.10 In the chapter dealing with circumcision and conversion, it is prescribed for a convert: And they shave his hair and cut the nails of his hands and feet.11 This requirement was reiterated verbatim by the more widely known, ninthcentury Halakhōt Gedōlōt and later appeared in R. Yitzhak Al-Fasi’s eleventhcentury code on the Babylonian Talmud.12 While different rabbinic authorities, such as Maimonides, ignored this custom in discussing conversion procedures, others mandated it, and it is mentioned in several compositions of different genres, as late as Rabbi Moshe Isserles’s sixteenth-century commentary on the Shulḥan Arukh.13 9  On rabbinic interpretations of the “Beautiful Captive”, see Stern, “The Captive Woman”, and the literature cited there. On the legal interpretations of this commandment in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, see Finkelstein, Conversion, pp. 148–158. 10  On this composition and its dating, see Danzig, Introduction to Halakhot Pesuqot, especially pp. 109–129. The exact origin and authorship of this composition remains an open question that is not relevant to our discussion. 11  Danzig, Introduction to Halakhot Pesuqot, p. 584 (this section is not extant in the Aramaic manuscript of the composition, which was first published by D. Sasson in 1951). 12  For Halakhot Gedolot, see Hildesheimer, Sefer Halakhōt Gedōlōt, vol. 1, p. 216; for Al-Fasi, see Tractate Shabbat 137b in Sachs, Hilkhōt Rav Alfas, vol. 1, p. 141. 13  The custom is documented in compositions in a number of genres, throughout Europe. While these sources are outside the scope of this article both in place and time, they attest the preservation of the theoretical rabbinic knowledge about this custom. This custom is mentioned in the exegetical-legal composition Sekhel Tov, Genesis 17 (Buber, Midrash Sekhel Tov, p. 20); Sefer ha-Eshkol, Circumcision (Albeck, Sefer ha-Eshkōl, vol. 2, p. 11); Hiddushei Rabbi Yehonatan mi-Lunel, Shabbat 137b (Metsger, Hiddushei Rabbi Yehōnatan mi-Lunel, vol. 2, p. 481); Liqutey ha-Pardes, Circumcision (Bney Brak edition [no editor mentioned], Sefer Liqutey ha-Pardes, p. 126); Beth ha-Beḥirah, Shabbat 137b (Lange, Beth ha-Beḥira, p. 541); Piskey ha-Rosh on BT Shabbat 137b; Tur, Yoreh Deʿah sec. 268:2 (Shirat Devorah, Arba’ah Tūrīm); Rema on the Shūlḥan ʿArūkh, Yoreh Deʿah sec. 268:7

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Copies of Halakhōt Pesūqōt circulated among the Jewish communities of the Islamic Near East, as is attested by the many fragments of it identified in the Cairo Genizah by Neil Danzig.14 The composition was translated from Aramaic to Hebrew already in the ninth to tenth centuries, and a single manuscript of this Hebrew version has survived. In this Hebrew version, much influenced by the Halakhōt Gedōlōt and known in modern scholarship as Hilkhōt Reʾū, the same custom regarding proselytes is mentioned.15 Halakhōt Pesūqōt was also translated into Judaeo-Arabic, as can be seen in other Genizah manuscripts. One of them includes the original Aramaic as well as a dual translation, both into Hebrew and Judaeo-Arabic. The Judaeo-Arabic version is more detailed than the original Aramaic. For example, the former clarifies that the beard and moustache of the convert must be shaved, and the exact requirements of water for the ritual bath are specified. Here is my translation of part of the Judaeo-Arabic version: And when he accepts upon himself [the conversion], they should circumcise him, and cut all of his hair, and remove his beard and his moustache, and cut his nails. And when he heals from his circumcision, they should immerse him in water collected from rain water or spring water or the like, and once he has done this he becomes like [all] Israel.16 The appearance of this custom in the geonic sources, the vast number of relevant manuscript fragments, and the translations into Hebrew and Judaeo-Arabic, all suggest that shaving the hair and paring the nails was a known requirement for proselytes in the Islamic Near East – at least in theory. The court deposition from the Genizah published by Friedman seems to attest the actual implementation of this custom.

(El Ha-Mekorot, Shūlḥan ʿArūkh). In addition, see the sources, both Rabbanite and Karaite, in nn. 35–39 below. See also the early thirteenth-century Ashkenazi sources which equate converts to Judaism and returning apostates, in Kanarfogel, “Returning”, vol. 1, p. 86 n. 34. 14  See Danzig, Introduction to Halakhot Pesuqot, pp. 50–52, 77–82 on Genizah fragments of the composition; pp. 64–70 on the various translations and apparent dissemination of it. 15  Schlossberg, Hilkhōt Reʾu, p. 1: “ve-gōzezīm min seʿarō ve-nōtlīn lō ẓipornav sheleyadav ve-raglav”. 16   J TSA ENA 2630.2, verso, ll. 12–15 of the main section. The original: ‫פאדא קבולהא עליה‬ ‫וכתנוה ויחלקון שערה כלה ויאכדון מן לחיתה ומן שארבה ויקלמון אט׳פארה פאדא אסתרחת‬ ‫כתאנתה גמסוה פי מא מגתמע מן מא מטר או פי מא נביע או גארי פאדא פעל דלך פקד צאר‬ ‫נט׳יר ישראל‬.

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Rationale of the Custom

Why did the geonic sources take this biblical commandment, originally aimed at very specific circumstances, and apply it to all proselytes? The geonic sources do not explain themselves, nor do they hint at the lack of precedent for this prescription. Arguably, the custom was merely meant to ensure that there would be no ḥaṣiṣa ‘separation’ between the body and the purifying water of the ritual bath.17 Immersion in a ritual bath is, of course, the final requirement in the conversion process, after which conversion is completed. But ḥaṣiṣa does not adequately account for the custom. There is no obligation in rabbinic literature to cut the hair before immersion, certainly not with a razor. Moreover, the rules of immersion for converts in general, and of ḥaṣiṣa in particular, are discussed explicitly in the geonic compositions cited above, just below this requirement. Those passages do not mention shaving; they state only that the rules of ḥaṣiṣa which apply elsewhere also apply to converts and slaves.18 Once the technical explanation for removing hair and nails is ruled out, the biblical commandment regarding the “beautiful captive woman” remains the only possible source for this custom. But what was it in the biblical verses that seemed relevant, at least in the medieval Islamic Near East, to conversion in general? I suggest that the “beautiful captive woman” law, as it was understood by the sages, included two elements which were lacking in the classic rabbinic procedure of conversion. The first is a visible and physical act as part of the conversion process; the second is the outspoken, public rejection of the former idolatrous religion of the convert. The ritual for conversion to Judaism included, of course, a physical act for men – circumcision; however, this physical change was not publicly visible. Female converts, for their part, did not have an equivalent physical act to symbolise their conversion. Both males and females were indeed required to immerse in a ritual bath. Yet immersion for converts was identical to immersion for other Jews, so it could not by itself symbolise a change of identity. The removal of hair and nails, then, was a physical act which was unique for converts, applicable equally to men and women, and visible to the public – at least for the intermediate period until the convert’s hair grew back again.

17  See a citation and rejection of such a claim in the seventeeth century, in Sagi and Zohar, Transforming Identity, p. 161. 18  See, for example, in Danzig, Introduction to Halakhot Pesuqot, p. 584, l. 20: “ve-khol davar she-ḥōṣeṣ bitvīlah ḥōẓeẓ be-ger u-ve-ʿeved meshūḥrar u-ve-nīdah.”

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Renunciation of one’s former religion is not prescribed in classical rabbinic sources as part of conversion to Judaism. In fact, even the formal acceptance of the commitment to follow rabbinic teachings was not introduced as an official part of the conversion process until the eleventh to twelfth centuries.19 However, the classical rabbinic sources understand the biblical commandment regarding the “beautiful captive woman” as including such a renunciation. The Bible states that during the intermediate period of thirty days the female captive should “lament her father and mother”,20 and R. Akiva states that “her father and mother means her idols”.21 Our Genizah snapshot seems to follow this understanding to the letter, as the two sisters “cried in grief for having committed idolatry” (l. 24). In Mishneh Torah, Maimonides’ code of law, he also sees this month-long wailing period as “lamenting her religion”.22 Furthermore, the deposition details how the sisters even quoted a verse from the Hebrew Bible relating to the gentiles’ future remorse concerning idolatry.23 This mourning, lamenting, and remorse took place in the intermediate period; that is, after removal of hair and nails and before immersion in the ritual bath. The biblical commandment, then, supplements the rabbinic procedure of conversion with two important elements – verbal renunciation of the convert’s former religion and a physical and visible act to symbolise the adoption of the new religion. These two elements comprise a liminal stage in the conversion process, a transitional stage which is not evident in the classical rabbinic procedure of conversion to Judaism. The notion of the liminal stage as the intermediate section of a rite of passage was first suggested by Arnold van Gennep, and later developed by Victor Turner. During this stage, the person undergoing the “passage” from one phase to another is found “betwixt and between”, neither here nor there; one is already not what one used to be, but has not yet become what one is going to be.24

19  See Sagi and Zohar, Transforming Identity, pp. 177–193, who date the change to roughly the twelfth century. 20  Deut. 21:13. 21  Finkelstein, Sifre Deuteronomy, passage 213, p. 246. I follow the translation of Hammer, Sifre, p. 225. The same interpretation is found in the Aramaic Pseudo-Jonathan translation for these verses; see Cohen, The Beginnings of Jewishness, p. 257, and see the original in Ginsburger, Pseudo-Jonathan, p. 336. 22  Maimonides, Mishneh Torah: Book of Judges, Rules of Kings and Wars, ch. 8, sec. 5. 23  For additional literary uses of this verse in a similar context by Maimonides and others, see Friedman, Maimonides, p. 91 n. 41. 24  van Gennep, Rites of Passage; further developed and adapted by Victor Turner in multiple studies, such as Turner, “Betwixt and Between” and Turner, The Ritual Process. See also Bell, Ritual, p. 56, regarding female liminal stages specifically.

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As already noted by Sagi and Zohar, such a liminal stage exists in the classical Jewish ritual of conversion only for men – between circumcision and immersion. Classical rabbinic sources dealing with converts give minimal attention to this stage (for slaves, see below). However, the custom discussed in the present article clearly creates such a liminal stage, attributes meaning to it, and applies it both to men and to women. The stage takes place in the intermediate period between circumcision (or, for women, instead of circumcision) and immersion, demarcating the passage between identities. It includes the symbolic removal of physical parts of the former self as well as a verbal renunciation of the former religion. As in various other cultures, the gesture of removing one’s hair and cutting one’s nails signals death and rebirth and serves as a symbolic detachment from previous impurity.25 Notably, the act does not leave an indelible physical mark; rather, the act itself, like the liminal stage, is transient, affecting only body parts which can grow again. Sagi and Zohar, though pointing to the function of the custom as a marker of the liminal stage, minimise its importance by stressing that in the classical rabbinic process of conversion there is no liminal stage.26 I would argue that this is precisely the point. The classical rabbinic ritual is not a public one; there is no specific signification for the intermediate period between circumcision and immersion, and it does not exist at all for women. All of these attributes are evident in the “beautiful captive woman” custom attested in the geonic sources and in the Genizah document at hand. The ritual seems to be implemented equally for both men and women; it is a physical and visible act, and therefore also public in nature; it creates a visible but temporary marker; it constitutes an intermediate stage during which the person in passage officially separates from and renounces his or her former religion, prior to accepting the new one.27 Strikingly, we find a similar custom in an important collection of Muslim legal traditions, aḥādīth, from the eight to ninth centuries; that is, from the very period in which the custom first appears in Jewish legal literature. The well-known transmitter Mujāhid,28 who died in the early eighth century, is cited by Ṣanāni in the early ninth century as saying, in regard to the possibility of sexual intercourse with a female non-Muslim war captive: 25  See Douglas, Purity and Danger, pp. 149–150; van Gennep, Rites of Passage, pp. 166–167. For more examples, see Frazer, Taboo, pp. 284–287. See also Bartlett, “Symbolic Meanings of Hair”. 26  Sagi and Zohar, Transforming Identity, pp. 284–285. 27  On the clear difference between the rabbinic conversion ceremony and the rite of passage model, see Cohen, The Beginnings of Jewishness, pp. 234–236. 28  On Mujāhid, see briefly Rippin, “Mudjāhid b. Djabr al-Makkī”. He was known for transmitting traditions of Jewish and Christian origin.

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And the custom is that she should shave her pubic hair, remove her hair and her nails, and wash herself and her clothes. And she should testify that there is no God but Allah, and pray. But if she refuses, this does not prevent her captor from forcing himself on her, after he waited the waiting period29 of thirty days.30 Here, captivity, conversion, and sexual intercourse are clearly linked with the female captive qua concubine, and the operative mechanism is precisely the custom of shaving and paring, as well as the requirement of a waiting period for the next menstrual cycle – that is, thirty days at the most. The relations between the various traditions await further study, but it seems that the (re)appearance of similar customs aimed at boundary maintenance, sexual intercourse, and subjugation, all in the historical context of early Islamic society, is significant.31 Such a ritual as described in the Jewish sources, with its visual manifestation of a liminal stage and a formal and public rejection of the convert’s prior identity as an “idol worshipper”, was an effective tool for those who wished to demarcate more clearly the boundaries between Jews and non-Jews. This is true not only for the medieval Near East, but also for other regions and periods. The abiding memory of this custom found in European Judaism, not only in the conversion process but also in the reintegration of Jewish converts to Christianity who wished to revert to Judaism, demonstrates this neatly. From a strictly halakhic point of view, no reintegration ritual was required, yet some rabbinic authorities not only stipulated some kind of a ritual, typically immersion, but also mandated just the ritual that we are discussing, the cutting of hair and nails. Thus, the reintegration ritual is comprised of precisely the acts that emphasised the total renunciation of former false beliefs. Sources attesting the implementation of the “beautiful captive woman” ritual abound across Jewish communities in medieval Europe. These sources represent a range of genres and provenances, from the thirteenth up to the eighteenth centuries. The custom is also attested in Inquisition documents, including a clear reference of the origin of the custom to the biblical commandment of the “beautiful captive woman”, as cited from the interrogation protocols of Baruch the

29  See Linant de Bellefond, “Istibrāʾ”. 30   Al-Ṣanʿānī, Al-Muṣannaf, vol. 7, p. 197 (no. 12758). 31  On these issues in classical Muslim legal thought, see Friedmann, Tolerance and Coercion, pp. 175–178. For the general context of post-conquest formation of communal boundaries under Islam, see the recent survey of Papaconstantinou, “Between Umma and Dhimma”.

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Jew in early fourteenth-century Provence.32 While previous scholarship has identified these practices, by and large their roots in geonic sources that discuss conversion to Judaism have been ignored.33 In my view, examining the origins of this custom and its implementation for both converts to Judaism and returning Jewish apostates would shed important light on the custom’s social significance.34 4

Gendered Aspects of the Custom

Thus far, we have identified a unique conversion ritual described in the Genizah, traced it from the Bible through geonic writings, and explained its anthropological rationale as demarcating the liminal stage in the rite of passage. Gender, however, has not yet entered the discussion. Rather to the contrary: we have witnessed the process by which a highly gendered biblical commandment detailing the specific way an Israelite warrior could sexually subjugate a foreign woman captive was transformed into a gender-neutral rite of passage. Yet the sources, legal in nature, betray a more complicated picture. Some of them mention male and female converts, or even use only the masculine form, as is standard in such compositions. Nonetheless, while a few sources state explicitly that this custom should be performed by both men and women, others ascribe it only to women. For example, two Byzantine-Karaite compositions from the early fourteenth century mention this custom only for female converts. Sefer HaMuvḥar, a commentary on the Pentateuch, notes concerning the biblical commandment of the “beautiful captive woman”: “and this is the

32  See Grayzel, “The Confession”, pp. 105–106. Of course, one has to read this carefully, for the connection between the custom and the biblical commandment might be the product of the inquisitors rather than of Baruch himself. 33  For the Inquisition documents, see Yerushalmi, “The Inquisition”. See a survey of the scholarly literature in Kanarfogel, “Returning to the Jewish Community”. Kanarfogel, p. 84 n. 34, adds more sources which prescribe shaving hair and paring nails to relapsed converts. Recently Tartakoff, “Testing Boundaries”, pp. 757–758, has reviewed the social reality behind this custom. 34  See Kanarfogel’s recent article, “Approaches to Conversion”, pp. 232–233, which links the similar custom for converts and relapsed “apostates”. I thank Prof Kanarfogel for sharing his article with me prior to its publication. In the article, Kanarfogel traces the custom back only to Al-Fasi (above, note 12) and not the Halakhōt Pesūqōt and Halakhōt Gedōlōt. Also, Kanarfogel suggests that the prescription of this custom for converts to Judaism might be a result of its application for relapsed apostates, while clearly it predates that.

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law for every female convert who comes under the wings of the Shekhīnah”.35 The legal compendium Sefer Gan ʿEden writes: And it is the same law for every female convert, shaving the hair and paring the nails and removal of her dress, as it is discussed concerning the purification of the female captive.36 The same stress on female converts is found in medieval Ashkenazi sources. Some of the sources mention only females, such as the early thirteenth-century composition Perushim u-Pesakim le-Rabbenu ʾAvigdor, which states: And so he ruled that every female convert must shave her head before her immersion and conversion, and wash herself after the shaving, and remove the abomination of idolatry from her.37 Sefer haParnas, from early fourteenth-century Germany, mentions both men and women in connection to this custom. Interestingly, however, the custom is mentioned only after the conversion of females is discussed, and not in the previous and more detailed section which is devoted to male conversion.38 Another telling source is the thirteenth-century work Kelaley haMīlah, by the German mohel Gershōm ha-Gōzer, which discusses conversion in relation to its main subject of circumcision. While considering conversion in general, the author mentions the custom of shaving hair and paring nails, quoting the exact Aramaic phrase from the Halakhōt Pesūkōt. Following this discussion is another chapter, titled “Rules of Female Converts”. Below this title is a section only a few sentences in length, the first of which begins: A woman who comes to convert to Judaism must fast prior to her immersion for at least one month, excluding the Sabbaths, when she is not to fast.39 35  Aharon b. Yoseph, Sefer Hamuvḥar, Deut. 21, p. 17b; my translation. 36  Aharon b. Eliah, Sefer Gan ʿEden, Seder Nashīm ch. 16, p. 151b; my translation. I thank Prof Daniel Lasker for referring me to these sources and supplying photocopies. On these two important authors, see Lasker, “Aaron ben Joseph”; and Frank, “Ibn Ezra”, pp. 99–101. 37  Hershkovitsh, Sefer Pērūshīm u-Pesakīm le-Rabbenū ʾAvīgdōr Ẓarfatī, Deut. 21, vol. 2, p. 541; my translation. I thank Prof Simcha Emanuel for this reference. 38  Shalmon, Sefer ha-Parnas ha-Shalem, sec. 336, p. 301. I thank Dr Dotan Arad for this reference. 39  Glassberg, Kelaley ha-Mīlah, p. 136. Kanarfogel, “Approaches to Conversion”, quotes the same paragraph from the manuscript of Sefer ha-ʾAssūfōt. Yet it is found also in MS

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This rule, which is not found in any other rabbinic composition of which I am aware, mandates an intermediate period for female converts only. The female convert must fast for thirty days, just as the “beautiful captive woman” must lament for thirty days. The shaving and paring practice, which this source also mandates, would evidently take place during this intermediate period, this liminal stage. The biblical commandment of the “beautiful captive woman” and its gendered signification certainly seem to have been on the mind of the author. The above-cited sources attest that while the ritual of shaving the hair and paring the nails was prescribed for both male and female converts, its gendered origin did not disappear. Although they were written somewhat later and not in the Islamic Mediterranean, these texts indicate a viable literary understanding of the custom in legal sources, which focused on gender control. The Muslim legal source cited above reveals an additional connection between gender, subjugation, and conversion. Let us bear in mind that the court deposition – the only extant evidence for the apparent implementation of the custom – also deals with two female converts. A better understanding of the gendered meaning of this custom seems warranted, and so we now turn to the social reality of converts in the medieval Islamic Near East. 5

Conversion and Marriage

The biblical “beautiful captive woman” ritual, as interpreted by the rabbis, was a procedure by which a Jewish man converted a foreign woman in order to have sexual intercourse with her, through formal marriage.40 The court deposition narrates a conversion which similarly did not end with conversion but rather with the proclaimed desire of one of the men to marry one of the newly converted sisters. The other men seemed reluctant to approve these marriages at first, but finally agreed, under certain conditions which are not entirely clear from the surviving parts of the document. The voyage from non-Jewishness to Jewishness is thus quite similar to that of the biblical commandment – Jewish men encounter non-Jewish women, the women are converted by them, the conversion ritual includes shaving their hair and paring their nails, and the Jerusalem NLI 8.3182, fol. 72b. On the identity of the author and the identification of the different manuscripts see Emanuel, “From First to Third Person”. 40  The heated rabbinic debate about whether the warrior was allowed to have sexual intercourse with the captive a single time before taking her to his home has no direct implications for our discussion.

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process is concluded with the marriage of a convert woman to one of her male converters. The main difference, emphasised in the deposition, is that the conversion was initiated by the women out of their own conviction and accepted by the Jewish men only after due examination. It seems as if the narrator wanted to refute any possible claim regarding the sincerity, and hence the validity, of the conversion and the consequent marriage. The linkage between conversion, marriage, and the ritual of the “beautiful captive woman” is also central to a Judaeo-Arabic query posed to Moses Maimonides (1138–1204). This query concerns a Jewish bachelor who purchased a Christian female slave, cohabited with her, and was suspected of having an illicit sexual relationship with her. The author of the query makes explicit reference to the “beautiful captive” term. He described the purchase of the slave as “a young man who purchased a beautiful slave girl” ( fī baḥūr sheqanah shifḥah yefat tōʾar) – the words “beautiful slave girl”, written in Hebrew within the Judaeo-Arabic text, indicate that the writer perceived them as a technical legal term. Once again towards the end of the query, he asks “does the beautiful female law apply to her” (hal lahā ḥukm yefat tōʾar). Not only did the questioner suggest that the ritual of the “beautiful captive woman” might apply to the female slave, he even changed the term from “beautiful female” (ʾishah yefat tōʾar) to “beautiful slave girl” (shifḥa yefat tōʾar), thereby indicating the similarity of these terms in his eyes. Maimonides’ response is illuminating. He rules that the bachelor should formally manumit the slave, and then marry her lawfully. He clarifies that this decision is contrary to the law, which prohibits a man who has been suspected of having illicit intercourse with a slave girl from marrying her after her manumission. Yet, Maimonides states that not only is this marriage to be permitted, the court should even encourage it: As we have ruled in a number of similar cases, for the sake of encouraging the wrongdoers to repent [mipney taqanat ha-shavīm], and we said “it is better for him to eat the gravy and not the (forbidden) fat itself”.41 Maimonides’ solution renders the case in question even more similar to the original scenario of the beautiful captive (despite rejecting the questioner’s suggestion): a non-Jewish female was brought under the control of a Jewish man; he is suspected of sexually exploiting her; he should manumit and convert her; then he can legally marry her. 41  Maimonides, Responsa, no. 211; my translation. The idiom is based on BT Yoma, 82a.

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The ruling alerts us to another aspect of the social phenomenon behind the custom – the connections between female slavery, concubinage, and conversion. Since slavery was the only legal way that a Jewish man could subjugate a non-Jewish woman in the Middle Ages, this was the only instance where the original purpose of the biblical commandment – the regulation of sexual intercourse between Israelite men and subjugated foreign women – was still of relevance. Slaves in general and female slaves in particular instigated tensions and anxieties because of their liminal and paradoxical social status, and particularly in regard to possible sexual contact.42 Slavery, then, and especially the sexual exploitation of female slaves by their Jewish male owners, is the “missing link” in the tripartite picture of captivity, sexual subjugation, and conversion. 6

Slavery and Concubinage in Medieval Near Eastern Judaism

Slavery was a common phenomenon in the Islamic Near East, and the Jewish communities in that region were no exception. Most of the slaves worked in private households. According to Jewish law, the procedure by which a Jewish person purchased a non-Jewish slave involved a special kind of conversion. The newly purchased slave was immersed in a ritual bath, male slaves were also circumcised, and from then on the slave, either male or female, was obligated to perform the same commandments as free Jewish women. Nonetheless, the slave was not yet Jewish, or as Maimonides put it in his code of law: “Slaves, once they are immersed for the purpose of slavery, and accepted upon themselves those commandments which are incumbent upon slaves, are no longer considered gentiles – but are not yet considered Jews.”43 This liminal position, neither here nor there, could be dissolved once the slave was manumitted, since manumission also entailed full conversion.44 Since the procedure of enslaving followed by manumitting was actually an expanded version of conversion to Judaism, it is not surprising to find the 42  See Stein, “A Maidservant”, pp. 377–379. For a thorough discussion of this subject in the Crown of Aragon, see Nirenberg, “Love Between Muslim and Jew”. 43  Maimonides, Mishneh Torah: The Book of Holiness, Illicit Intercourse, ch. 12, sec. 11; my translation. Compare the translation of Rabinowits and Grossman, Mishneh Torah: The Book of Holiness. 44  See Maimonides, Mishneh Torah: The Book of Holiness, Illicit Intercourse, ch. 12, sec. 17; ch. 13, secs. 11–13. On slaves in the Genizah, see Goitein’s general survey in his A Mediterranean Society, vol. 1, pp. 130–146. More recently, see Perry, “The Daily Life of Slaves”.

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custom of shaving hair and paring nails also applied to slaves. A query to Rav Natronai Gaon, in the mid-ninth century, wonders whether a newly purchased slave should remove his hair and nails … (Answer) Yes, he should, since he is removed from his non-Jewishness and comes under [becomes obligated to] some commandments … he should [perform] all customs that relate to a manumitted person.45 The gaon was not alone in applying this custom to slaves. The Byzantine composition Halakhōt Keṣūvōt, probably from tenth-century southern Italy, also mentions this custom, but does not mandate it.46 Legal queries to the geonim and various Genizah documents all point to the widespread phenomenon of sexual exploitation of female slaves by their Jewish owners.47 All sexual relations between Jews and slaves were prohibited by Jewish law. As already noted, if a Jewish owner was suspected of sexually exploiting his slave girl, he was not permitted to manumit and marry her, but had to sell her. In reality, evidence of sexual misconduct between Jewish men and non-Jewish female slaves is abundant. One example will suffice – a query to Abraham Maimonides and his response, which were found in the Genizah and were published by Friedman: Concerning an Israelite who has a wife, and had children with her in Alexandria. And he left her, and went and purchased a slave girl, and she is not a servant, but either a concubine or the mistress of the household … and he went to al-Fayūm with her, and abandoned his children as orphans and his wife like a widow during his lifetime. And he proclaimed no one can see and everyone can do as he pleases, and no one considers.48 Teach us, is it permissible to cohabit with her without a ketūbba … Or is it permissible for a Jewish bachelor to cohabit with a slave girl, to sleep and wake up with her in the house … Teach us, is it permissible to ignore this, or not? … The answer: It is forbidden to be alone with a slave girl. And if it

45  Brody, Responsa of Rav Natrōnai Gaon, no. 259, vol. 2, pp. 394–395. 46  Margulies, Halachoth Kezuboth, Hilkhōt Mikveh, p. 107. On this composition, see the introduction there, and also Ta-Shma, Studies in Medieval Rabbinic Literature, vol. 3, pp. 238–240. 47  See the analysis and cases in Friedman, Jewish Polygyny, pp. 291–330; see also the thorough discussion by Perry, “The Daily Life of Slaves”, pp. 107–153. 48  “Everyone can do”, Judg. 16:6. “No one considers”, Isa. 57:1.

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turns out that he did it, he is to be excommunicated, until he will get rid of the slave girl and distance her [from himself]. Written by Abraham.49 As noted above, this is only one example of many concerning the sexual exploitation of slave girls.50 Another famous example is of Abraham ben Yijū, a twelfth-century Jewish trader in India, who wrote extensively about the legitimacy of marrying slave girls, apparently based on his personal experience.51 A responsum written in the hand of a scribe in Maimonides’ court deals with a complicated case of a man who married a woman who, it was claimed, was a non-manumitted slave girl.52 A responsum to the Babylonian geonim Rav Sherira and Rav Haya deals with a case in which a man who had sexual intercourse with his slave girl, had a son with her, and tried to conceal the mother’s identity and introduce the boy to the synagogue as his own legitimate Jewish boy.53 Similar cases are documented in other regions and periods – from thirteenth-century Iberia to the sixteenth-century Ottoman Empire.54 The apparent prevalence of such cases in the face of the prohibition of sexual intercourse with non-Jewish women and matrilineal descent makes the anxiety that arose within Jewish communities of the medieval Near East regarding social boundaries, identification, and demarcation quite understandable. With such suspicion on one side and promiscuity on the other, a custom that enabled the community to mark entrance to its gates would have been welcomed. Admittedly, the shaving and paring custom was not a mainstream ritual. It was more of a “worst case scenario” solution for men who should “better eat the gravy than the actual fat”. While missing from most legal codes, the custom is nonetheless mentioned in quite a few, demonstrating that the ritual described in our text was not simply a local tradition or folk custom. The court deposition indicates that the custom was not merely a “dead letter” in law books but was indeed performed in practice. And, while the Geniza deposition is the only evidence we possess for the apparent implementation of the 49   C UL T-S 10K8.13; my translation. Published by Friedman, Jewish Polygyny, pp. 319–322. See more cases there. 50  See Frenkel, “Slavery in Medieval Jewish Society”, especially pp. 255–258. 51  See Goitein and Friedman, India Traders, pp. 55–57, and the references there. 52  See Friedman, Jewish Polygyny, pp. 309–314. 53  This responsum is known from medieval compilations but was also found in a more detailed version in the Genizah, Oxford Bodl. MS Heb. c. 18.38, and published by Ginzberg, Geonica, vol. 2, pp. 83–84. In my dissertation, “Religious Identity”, I describe more cases and analyse their social significance. 54  For Iberia, see Assis, “Sexual Behaviour”. For the Ottoman Empire, see Ben-Naeh, “Blonde, Tall, with Honey-colored Eyes”.

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ritual, we ought to remember that it is also the only first-hand description of conversion to Judaism known to us from the medieval Near East, either from the Genizah or from contemporary written sources.55 As such, the deposition, Maimonides’ ruling, and the quotes from different genres of rabbinic literature may be seen as complementary in nature. Before concluding, I shall briefly introduce a literary narrative from a later period which features the main elements of our discussion: the early sixteenth-century Story of David HaReʾuvenī. I am in no position to weigh in on the authenticity or the provenance of this composition. My only aim is to set forth the ritual by which David converted a Muslim slave girl to Judaism.56 According to the story, during David’s mission in Portugal, he saw a “young, beautiful (yefat tōʾar) and handsome” slave girl (shifḥah). He proposes that he buy her and that she convert to Judaism, and she agrees to the plan. Upon making the purchase, David “called a respectable converso lady (ʾanūsah) who spoke Arabic, and I told the converso that she should cut her [i.e. the slave girl’s] hair and her nails”.57 This part of the ritual is described later in further detail, when David tells the King of Portugal about the conversion: I sent Shelomo Cohen, the elder, and two of my servants, with the slave girl to the river, and the elder Shelomo went with the slave into the water and washed her and immersed her entirely, three times; later they came home and I ordered her to cut her nails, and some of her hair.58 The conversion ritual did not yet set the slave girl free; rather she entered a liminal period (so the ritual might represent her immersion for the purposes of slavery). David told her that she should behave properly, and if she wished to be married to someone, he would manumit her. To his other servants he said:

55  As far as I am aware, the Genizah has preserved two more letters which describe conversion to Judaism. Neither, however, was written by the converters themselves, nor do they attest the act itself; rather, they confirm that it was performed legally at a certain point in the past. These letters do not mention the ritual discussed here, and they discuss the conversion of men. One is the letter of recommendation mentioned above in note 7, and the other is the letter of recommendation of Rabbi Barūkh b. Yiṣḥaq from Aleppo to Ovadiah the Norman convert; Oxford Bodl. MS Heb. a. 3.1, published by Golb, “The Autograph Memoir”. 56  For the history of this debate, see Idel’s introduction to Eshkoli, Sippur David HaReuveni, and see a recent suggestion in Benmelech, “History, Politics and Messianism”. 57  Eshkoli, Sippur David HaReuveni, p. 71; my translation. 58  Eshkoli, Sippur David HaReuveni, p. 73–74; my translation.

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I took this slave girl to take care of all housekeeping matters, and none of you should approach her by way of promiscuity; he of you who shall obey me, I wish to give him this slave girl as a wife after thirty days, for I have converted her, and there shall be no promiscuity in my house.59 However, the sexual “threat” that this slave girl posed, or indeed faced, was realised, and Ṭoviyya, David’s servant, raped her. David’s swift response was aimed at the slave rather than at Ṭoviyya: “I have converted you and made you Jewish, and you did what is bad in the eyes of God and me.” Then, despite her tears and pleas, David returned her to her former master. This short story incorporates the different motifs of our inquiry: the “beauty” of the foreign female, her subjugated status, the potential sexual intercourse which poses a “threat” to Jewish law and identity, the physical ritual of shaving hair and paring nails, and even the thirty-day-long liminal period. It is a telling literary example of the intricate ties between conversion, servitude, and sexual threat and exploitation, and it is narrated against the background of the debated and fluid religious identities in the early sixteenth-century Iberian Peninsula. 7 Conclusion A court deposition from the Genizah describes a ritual in which female converts to Judaism shaved their heads and pared their nails. In this article, I have discussed the social and legal context and rationale of this custom. The ritual, based on the biblical commandment regarding sexual relations and marriage with a foreign captive, was adopted in the geonic period for all potential converts. It included essential elements which were not found in the classical rabbinic procedure of conversion – an egalitarian, physical, and visible act for both men and women and an explicit and ceremonial rejection of the convert’s former religion. This custom was also applied to slaves, since they were perceived as being in a process of conversion. The biblical commandment was only relevant to women and only under special circumstances. Its geonic extensions applied to all converts to Judaism, 59  Eshkoli, Sippur David HaReuveni, p. 71; my translation. Benmelech, “History, Politics and Messianism”, p. 59, refers to this special ritual of conversion, but he attributes it to medieval Ashkenazi sources regarding returning apostates and does not mention the geonic sources for the custom or its implementation in the conversion described in the Genizah court deposition.

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both men and women. Yet beyond the gender-neutral anthropological rationale presented above, there was another layer of justification for this custom, which was specifically relevant to women. This justification concerned the social reality of sexual exploitation of female slaves, which is well attested in the Genizah as well as in other contemporary sources. In this reality, there was much anxiety in the Jewish community regarding illicit sexual intercourse between Jewish men and non-Jewish women. Such illicit relations were within easy reach for owners of female slaves. Thus, the promiscuity of Jewish men and the vulnerability of female slaves posed a challenge to the community. A physical and visible act of demarcation could help the community to clarify social boundaries while at the same time regulate and monitor sexual relations in cases where they could not be prevented. The ritual shaving of the woman’s hair and paring of her nails was ready at hand – it was prescribed, and probably practised, for converts; in a similar way it was mandated for slaves; it answered the need for clear demarcation; and it had the biblical echoes of an ancient practice with the same purpose – regulating sexual contact with foreign women. Bibliography Aharon b. Eliah, Sefer Gan ʿEden, Eupatoria: [no publisher mentioned], 1864. Aharon b. Yoseph, Sefer Hamuvḥar, Eupatoria: [no publisher mentioned], 1835. Albeck, Shalom, Sefer ha-ʾEshkol, Jerusalem: H. Vagshal, 1984. Assis, Yom Tov, “Sexual Behaviour in Medieval Hispano-Jewish Society”, Jewish History: Essays in Honour of Chimen Abramsky, eds. Ada Rapoport-Albert and Steven J. Zipperstein, London: Halban, 1988, pp. 25–59. Bartlett, Robert, “Symbolic Meanings of Hair in the Middle Ages”, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 4 (1994), 43–60. Bell, Catherine, Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions, New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Benmelech, Moti, “History, Politics and Messianism: David Ha-Reuveni’s Origin and Mission”, Association for Jewish Studies 35 (2011), pp. 35–60. Ben-Naeh, Yaron, “Blonde, Tall, with Honey-Colored Eyes: Jewish Ownership of Slaves in the Ottoman Empire”, Jewish History 20 (2006), pp. 315–332. Brody, Robert, Responsa of Rav Natrōnai Gaon, Jerusalem: Ofek Institute, 1994. Buber, Salomon, Midrash Sekhel Tov, Berlin: Ittskovski, 1900. Cohen, Shaye J.D., The Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.

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Danzig, Neil, Introduction to Halakhot Pesuqot, with a Supplement to Halakhot Pesukot, 2nd edn, Jerusalem: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1999. Douglas, Mary, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concept of Pollution and Taboo, London: Routledge, 2002. Emanuel, Simcha, “From First to Third Person: A Study in the Culture of Writing in Medieval Ashkenaz” [Hebrew], Tarbiẓ 81 (2013), pp. 431–457. Eshkoli, A.Z., Sippur David HaReuveni, 2nd edn, Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1993. Finkelstein, Louis, Sifre Deuteronomy, New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1969. Finkelstein, Menachem, Conversion: Halakha and Practice, Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2006. Frank, Daniel, “Ibn Ezra and the Karaite Exegetes Aaron ben Joseph and Aaron ben Elijah”, Abraham Ibn Ezra and his Age, ed. Fernando Díaz Esteban, Madrid: Associación Española de Orientalistas, 1990, pp. 99–106. Frazer, James G., The Golden Bough (vol. 3): Taboo and the Perils of the Soul, London: MacMillan, 1927. Frenkel, Miriam, “Slavery in Medieval Jewish Society under Islam: A Gendered Perspective”, Männlich und Weiblich Schuf Er Sie, eds. Matthias Morgenstern, Christian Boudignon, and Christine Tietz, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011, pp. 249–259. Friedman, Mordechai A., Jewish Polygyny in the Middle Ages, Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1986. Friedman, Mordechai A., Maimonides, the Yemenite Messiah, and Apostasy, Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute, 2002. Friedmann, Yohanan, Tolerance and Coercion in Islam, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. van Gennep, Arnold, The Rites of Passage, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960. Ginsburger, Moses, Pseudo-Jonathan (Thargum Jonathan ben Usiël zum Pentateuch): Nach der Londoner Handschrift (Brit. Mus. add. 27031), Berlin: Calvary, 1903. Ginzberg, Louis, Geonica, New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1909. Glassberg, Jacob, Kelaley ha-Mīlah, Berlin: Ittskoviski, 1892. Goitein, Shlomo D., A Mediterranean Society: the Jewish communities of the Arab world as portrayed in the documents of the Cairo Geniza, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967–1993. Goitein, Shlomo D. and Mordechai A. Friedman, India Traders in the Middle Ages: Documents from the Cairo Geniza, Leiden: Brill, 2008. Golb, Norman, “The Autograph Memoir of Obadiah the Proselyte”, Studies in Geniza and Sephardi Heritage, eds. Shelomo Morag and Issacher Ben-Ami, Jerusalem: Magness, 1981, pp. 77–107.

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Grayzel, Solomon, “The Confession of a Medieval Jewish Convert”, Historia Judaica 17 (1955), pp. 89–120. Hammer, R., Sifre: A Tannaitic Commentary on the Book of Deuteronomy, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986. Herskovitsh, Ephraim F., Sefer Pērūshīm u-Pesakīm al ha-Torah, le-Rabbenū ʾAvīgdōr Ẓarfatī, 2nd edn, Jerusalem: Mechon Hararei Kedem, 2013. Hildesheimer, Azriel, Sefer Halakhot Gedolot, Jerusalem: Mekize Nirdamim, 1971. Kanarfogel, Ephraim, “Approaches to Conversion in Medieval European Rabbinic Literature: From Ashkenaz to Sefarad”, Conversion, Intermarriage, and Jewish Identity, eds. Adam Mints and Marc D. Stern, New York: The Michael Scharf Publication Trust of the Yeshiva University Press, 2015, pp. 217–257. Kanarfogel, Ephraim, “Returning to the Jewish Community in Medieval Ashkenaz: History and Halakhah”, Turim: Studies in Jewish History and Literature Presented to Dr. Bernard Lander, ed. Michael A. Schmidman, New York: Touro College Press, 2007, vol. 1, pp. 69–97. Karo, Yoseph b. Ephraim, Shūlhan Arūkh, Jerusalem: El Ha-Mekorot, 1954–1956. Lange, Isaac Shimshon, Beth ha-Beḥirah on tractate Shabbat, Jerusalem: [no publisher mentioned], 1965. Lasker, Daniel J., “Aaron ben Joseph and the Transformation of Karaite Thought”, Torah and Wisdom: Studies in Jewish Philosophy, Kabbalah, and Halacha, ed. Ruth Link-Salinger, New York: Shengold Publishers, 1992, pp. 121–128. Linant de Bellefond, Yvon, “Istibra”, Encyclopedia of Islam, eds. Peri J. Bearman et al., 2nd edn, consulted online 16.2.2016. Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Yosef Kafih edn, Jerusalem: Mechon Mishnat HaRambam, 1984–1996. Maimoides, Responsa, Joshua Blau 2nd edn, Jerusalem: Mekize Nirdamim, 1986. Margolioth, Mordechai, Halachoth Kezuboth, Jerusalem: Hebrew University Press Association, 1942. Metsger, David, Hiddushei Rabbi Yehonatan mi-Lunel on tractate Shabbat, Jerusalem: Yad Harav Herzog, 2011–2012. Nemoy, Leon, Rabinowits, Louis I., and Philip Grossman (translation), Mishneh Torah, The Book of Holiness, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965. Nirenberg, David, “Love Between Muslim and Jew in Medieval Spain: A Triangular Affair”, Jews, Muslims and Christians in and around the Crown of Aragon: Essays in Honour of Professor Elena Lourie, ed. Harvey J. Hames, Leiden: Brill, 2004, pp. 127–155. Papaconstantinou, Arietta, “Between Umma and Dhimma: The Christians of the Middle East under the Umayyads”, Annales Islamologiques 42 (2008), pp. 127–156. Perry, Craig, “The Daily Life of Slaves and the Global Reach of Slavery in Medieval Egypt, 969–1250 CE”, PhD dissertation, Emory University, 2014.

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Rippin, Andrew, “Mudjāhid b. Djabr al-Makkī”, Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edn, eds. Peri J. Bearman et al., 2nd edn, consulted online 16.2.2016. Sachs, Nisan, Hilkhōt Rav Alfas, Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1969. Sagi, Avi and Zohar, Zvi, Transforming Identity: The Ritual Transition from Gentile to Jew – Structure and Meaning, London & New York: Continuum, 2007. Al-Ṣanʿānī, Abd al-Razāq Ibn Hammām, Al-Muṣannaf, Beirut: al-Maktab al-Islāmī 1970–1972. Scheiber, Alexander, “A Letter of Recommendation on Behalf of the Proselyte Mevorakh from the Geniza”, Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 46–47 (1979–1980), pp. 491–494. Schlossberg, Leon, Sefer Halakhōt Pesukōt, o Hilkhōt Reʾu, Versailles: Cerf et Fils, 1886. Sefer Liqutey ha-Pardes, Bnay Berak: [no publisher mentioned], 1999. Shalmon, D., Sefer ha-Parnas ha-Shalem, Jerusalem: Jerusalem Institute, 2014. Stein, Dina, “A Maidservant and Her Master’s Voice: Discourse, Identity and Eros in Rabbinic Texts”, Journal of the History of Sexuality 10 (2001), pp. 375–397. Stern, David, “The Captive Woman: Hellenization, Greco-Roman Erotic Narrative, and Rabbinic Literature”, Poetics Today 19 (1998), pp. 91–127. Tartakoff, Paola, “Testing Boundaries: Jewish Conversion and Cultural Fluidity in Medieval Europe”, Speculum 90 (2015), pp. 728–762. Ta-Shma, Israel M., Studies in Medieval Rabbinic Literature [Hebrew], vol. 3: Italy & Byzantium, Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 2005. Turner, Victor, “Betwixt and Between: The Liminal Period in Rites de Passage”, The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndembu Ritual, pp. 93–111, Ithaca, N.Y: Cornell University Press, 1967. Turner, Victor, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure, Chicago: Aldine Pub. Co., 1969. Yaacov b. Asher, Arba’ah Turim, Tel-Aviv: Shirat Devorah (Mechon Yerushalayim), 2011. Yagur, Moshe, “Religious Identity and Communal Boundaries in Geniza Society (10th–13th Centuries): Proselytes, Slaves, Apostates”, PhD dissertation, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2017. Yerushalmi, Yosef Hayim, “The Inquisition and the Jews of France in the Time of Bernard Gui”, Harvard Theological Review 63/3 (1970), pp. 317–376.

CHAPTER 5

No (Jewish) Women in Hell Tali Artman-Partock Visions of hell have captured the hearts and minds not only of both ancient and medieval men and women, but also those of modern scholars of all three major monotheistic religions. An interest in studying these traditions by and for themselves and in a comparative manner took the late nineteenth century and then again, the late twentieth century by storm. At the end of the nineteenth century and in the early twentieth century, it was a fashionable field even before the discovery of new fragments of the Akhmim and Ethiopic texts of the Apocalypse of Peter.1 The end of the twentieth century was marked by less philological approaches to hell flourishing alongside philological scholarship. Scholars like Jacques Le Goff rethought the history of hell, as well as the historical contexts in which visions of it were shaped.2 Others, such as Gurevich, offered a more anthropological and anthropocentric view.3 As if to support his thesis that developments in conceiving “the other world” in the Middle Ages were a function of a growing sense of individuality, more and more visions of ordinary people were published and discussed in relation to the more famous accounts.4 The watershed, however, was Martha Himmelfarb’s (philological) discussions of both Jewish and Christian traditions of tours of hell in her book dedicated to this subject.5 The comparative study of hell took centre stage again, the intersections of Judaeo-Christian and Roman traditions were studied,6 and an ever-growing field of examining Muslim influences on Dante and the Christian traditions of hell arose.7 An interest in Muslim hell also became manifest in 1  Bremmer, “Hell”, pp. 299–300 and the literature mentioned there, and also that collected by Krech, “Vom ‘paradiso terrestre”. 2  Le Goff, The Birth of Purgatory. 3  Gurevich, Historical Anthropology. 4  Gardiner, Visions of Hell. 5  Himmelfarb, Tours of Hell. 6  Jan N. Bremmer published much on the topic; see, for example, his “Orphic, Roman, Jewish and Christian Tours of Hell”. The father of the field is, of course, Albrecht Dieterich, with his Nekyia. 7  All follow the pivotal work by Asín Palacios, La Escatologia musulmana, and also his Islam and the Divine Comedy. See also Cerulli, Il “Libro della scala”; Battistoni, ‘Dante and the Three Religions’; the other papers published in Ziolkowski, Dante and Islam; and the discussion

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004422179_006

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research,8 along with Zoroastrian influences on monotheistic traditions of hell.9 Apocalyptic literature as a locus of cross-cultural exchange had been discussed much earlier, of course, and the question of the fate of the dead had troubled religions other than the Abrahamic ones. Hell was still, however, not as popular as heaven as the object of (comparative) study.10 I follow both the philological and the anthropological traditions in the study of hell in trying to solve one of the greatest mysteries in the comparative study of hell which has gone unnoticed: Why, in Jewish visions and tours of hell throughout the ages, is there a lack of, or a near lack of, a female presence? Or, to put it more bluntly, why are there no Jewish women in hell? In the long and polymorphic Jewish tradition, this is a persistent and genre-crossing phenomenon which has not only been left unexplained but has been completely overlooked. The (almost complete) lack of women among the dwellers of hell is especially striking when the Jewish traditions of tours and visions of hell are set next to Christian and Muslim ones.11 In the following pages, I will follow the trail of the few existing traditions of women in hell in Judaism, offer a history of the traditions, and propose an explanation for their presence there as well as a rule to which they are an exception. 1

The Jewish Traditions of Women in Hell: Sources

One of the most complicated aspects of the Jewish tradition of women in hell, if it can be called that, is its continuity and dating.12 offered by Battisoni on Dante and the Hebrew tradition in his Dante, Verona e la cultura ebraica. 8  Smith and Haddad’s book The Islamic Understanding of Death and Resurrection was groundbreaking. Colby, Narrating Muhammad’s Night Journey is more focused on paradise but offers a useful bibliography. 9  Apinis, Zoroastrian Influence; Shaked, “Iranian Influence”; Boyce, History of Zoroastrianism, pp. 191–192; Ara, Eschatology. 10  See, for example, the almost tragic remarks by Thomassen, “Uses of Hell”. 11  Smith and Haddad, Islamic Understanding, pp. 157–168; Smith and Haddad, “Women in the Afterlife”. The Apocalypse of Peter and its dependents almost make a stylistic device out of mentioning sinners of both genders in each category: “men and women who …” is the introductory phrase for fourteen of the twenty-two types of sins and sinners mentioned. See, for example, the Ethiopic version translated by Buchholz, Your Eyes Will Be Opened, pp. 162–227. 12  My own work here follows to the way Micha Perry analyses the medieval versions of the heavenly journeys of Rabbi Joshua Son of Levi; see Perry, Tradition and Transformation.

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While we can easily identify the earliest attested Hebrew/Aramaic source (the Talmud Yerushalmi),13 and there is a solid and already established tradition in the twelfth to thirteenth centuries, what lies before the earliest attested source and between it and the later tradition is still the focus of much scholarly dispute.14 We find traces of the presence of women in Jewish hell in three groups of texts: the Yerushalmi, the different versions of the vision of Isaiah,15 and some versions of the tour of Rabbi Joshua ben Levi. Each group has its own distinguishing features. The medieval legend of Rabbi Joshua ben Levi has its own distinguishing features, and only one woman – the daughter of Pharaoh who gets transferred there from heaven after the first Crusade.16 As she was banished from heaven for not being Jewish, and not on account of any sin, I will leave her case out of my discussion. I shall focus here on the Yerushalmi and the variations of the visions of Isaiah. These fall into three subgroups: those who have Isaiah as a protagonist, those who have Elijah as a protagonist, and one which has Moses as its protagonist. The Yerushalmi presents us with two versions of a vision of a man from Ashkelon, in Hagigah 2:2 (77d) and Sanhedrin 6:6 (23c), with the former in a more “developed” form. The vision includes a story of a male tax collector, who, in hell, stretches his tongue to drink from a spring but cannot reach the water, and a woman – Miriam bat Alei Beẓalim (Miriam the daughter of onion peels) – hanging by her nipples or breasts; or, alternatively, with the pivot of the gate of hell piercing her ear.17 The Hagigah version has, in addition two alternative explanations of her punishment, both given in the names of secondcentury rabbis. The hell described in the Yerushalmi is not eschatological, but immediately follows death.18 The group of texts which include the vision 13  The early Jewish apocalypse literature – 1 Enoch, 2 Enoch, 3 Baruch, 4 Ezra, and the Apocalypse of Zephaniah – offer less and more developed tours of hell and vary in their view of what hell is. However, they show no interest in the female dwellers of hell, if indeed there are such. See Bauckham, “Early Jewish Visions of Hell”; and Stone, “The Metamorphosis of Ezra”. 14  Lieberman, “On Sins”; Himmelfarb, Tours of Hell. 15  Himmelfarb, Tours of Hell, pp. 31–34. 16  Perry, “Jewish Heaven”, pp. 218–219; Kushelevsky, “R. Joshua”, 261–79. 17  The gate pivot will, in the future, be removed and inserted in the ear of Shimon ben Shetach. There is every reason to believe the pivot in the ear is a latter addition here, both because it is presented as an alternative, and also because it helps to connect the fate of the woman and that of Shimon, who cannot be hanged by his breasts. 18  As Milikowsky has argued, in rabbinic thought there are at least two types of hell. One appears immediately after death, and acts as the dwelling place of souls: it mostly has no

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of Isaiah is by far the largest one. It comprises no less than four parallel stories. There are two fragments from the Cairo Genizah published by Ginzberg, T-S Misc. 35.106 and T-S Misc. 36.188.19 Another appears in the Chronicle of Yerhamiel. Yerhamiel lived in Italy in the twelfth century, but the first (and only) surviving version of his work is its mediation by Elazar ben Asher Halevy in the fourteenth century.20 A different version appears in Darchei Teshuva, a text which is printed as an appendix to the Maharam’s Responsa in Prague in 1608. While Maharam of Rotenberg lived in thirteenth-century Germany, and we have the printer’s testimony the two texts travelled ‘as one’, we cannot be sure of its exact dating. Following Simcha Emanuel’s analysis of the manuscripts and prints of Maharam’s Responsa, we might be able to suggest the 12th–14th centuries here as the date of Darchei Teshuva.21 Even if we accept a dating of both Darchei Teshuva and Yerhamiel; between the twelfth and the fourteenth centuries, they may include earlier sources now lost to us. All texts in this group describe Isaiah being shown five courts of law in hell, in which different sinners suffer different punishments. Isaiah is offered an explanation as to the nature of each punishment in four out of the five courts. The fourth court is dedicated to women, who are punished to hang by their breasts, for various reasons. The last group of texts includes some of the texts that represent the (lost) Apocalypse of Elijah. The first text that combines a tour of hell and women, and has a clear Jewish authorship, is the sixteenth-century Reshit Hockma of Rabbi Elijahu de Vidas. In this version of the famous tour of Rabbi Joshua ben Levi, he sees women hanging by the breasts – but specific explanation is given for this punishment. Lieberman and others have argued that the Epistula Titi discipuli Pauli de dispositione sanctimonii should be regarded as the first member of the final group.22 However, the text, dating from the fifth century, is written in Latin,

physical aspects. The other is eschatological and is physical by nature. As this second kind of hell follows the resurrection of the dead, and is conceived within the rabbinic circle, the dead appear embodied and not only as souls. This is the more common use of the term gehenom in tannaitic and amoraic literature, but at times the two types of hell are not completely differentiated. See Milikowsky, “Gehenna”, pp. 313–318. 19  Ginzberg, Ginze Schechter, pp. 191–205. 20  A critical edition and Hebrew translation of the Chronicle of Yerhamiel was published by Eli Yassif in 2011; see Yassif, Sefer Hazikhronot. 21  Emanuel , “The Responsa”, p. 589. 22  See Stone and Strungell, Book of Elijah, pp. 15–16.

114

Artman-Partock

and is clearly embedded in a Christian context. While Lieberman considers that it bears many markers of Jewish origin, because it describes a tour of hell, Elijah, and hanging by the breasts, I believe this is not the case. First, Elijah is mentioned here as a seer, not as the guide of the tour as in the rest of the Jewish tradition about him; second, the women do not really hang by their breasts, but are merely tortured by means of them;23 third, the story includes virgins who are roasted on gridirons, obviously a Christian concern; and finally, it has a very close connections with the Apocalypse of Peter. Ginzberg identified the longer Genizah fragment in which Isaiah has a vision (T-S Misc. 35.106) as a lost part of the Seder Elijah, and based on this, both Himmelfarb and Lieberman create a link between the Elijah tradition and this fragment. However, this identification by Ginzberg has itself been contested, both by Mann and by Marmelstein, who rightly noticed that the words “and the Seder from Elijah rabbah” appear before the sayings of R. Joshua ben Levi, not before the story in question here, which has only “Talmud Gadol” as a reference.24 For this reason, I identify the fragment as belonging to the Isaiah, rather than the Elijah group. To these two groups we must also add the 12th–13th century Gedullat Moshe. It is very similar but has Moses as the man having the vision, and has its origins in the lands of Islam.25 The texts: Before I go on to try and create a history of the traditions of women in hell and their interpretation, I would like to present the texts themselves. As it would be futile to print here all of the texts in each group, as those tend to be repetitive, I will confine myself here to one representative to the texts which I believe offer the keys to my discussion, or which have not been translated: One version of the Yerushalmi, the Genizah fragments (Isaiah group), one version of Gedullat Moshe (Moshe group), and Darchei Teshuva (Elijah group). I shall also confine myself to the visions themselves, without their narrative framework, which will, however be analyzed later.

23  The importance of this detail will become clear later on in the discussion. 24  Mann, “Genizah Studies”, pp. 267–268; Marmelstein, “Review”, p. 324. This identification is also discussed in Kadushin, Theology of Seder Eliyahu, pp. 13–16. 25  Perry, “Jewish Heaven”, p. 219.

‫‪115‬‬

‫‪No ( Jewish ) Women in Hell‬‬

‫‪A. Yerushalmi Hagigah 77d‬‬ ‫… וחמא לבריה דמעין מוכס׳ לשונו שותת על פי הנהר‪ ,‬בעי ממטי מיא ולא מטא‪.‬‬ ‫וחמא למרים ברת עלי בצלים‪ .‬רבי לעזר בר יוסה אמר‪ :‬תלייא בחיטי ביזייא‪ .‬רבי יוסי‬ ‫בן חנינא אמר צירתא דתרעא דגיהנם קביע באודנה‪ .‬אמר לון למה דא כן? א״ל דהוות‬ ‫ציימה ומפרסמה‪ .‬ואית דאמרי דהוות ציימה חד יום ומקזה ליה תריי‪26.‬‬ ‫‪B. Genizah Fragments‬‬ ‫נוסח א׳‬ ‫אחר גיהנם [זה הס]דר מן תלמוד רבא‬ ‫כ[תוב] מלך [יושב] על כסא דין מזרה‬ ‫בעיניו כל רע [אמר רבן יוחנן] בן זכאי‪,‬‬ ‫חמ[שה בתי דינין יש] בג[הינם] וכולן ראה‬ ‫אותן ישעיה בן אמוץ‪.‬‬ ‫[נכנס לבית ראשון] וראה בני אדם שהן‬ ‫אוחזין מים וממלאין ומשליכין לתוך הבאר‬ ‫והבאר אינה נתמלאת ובני אדם אינן עזובין‪.‬‬ ‫אמר לפני מלך מלכי המלכים ברוך הוא גלי‬ ‫רזין פירש ליה את החזיון השיב רוח הקדש‬ ‫ואמר לו אלו בני אדם שהיו באותו העולם‬ ‫אוכלים ושותים ושדות החמודותות וכרמים‬ ‫ונעימות עולם ועוברין על מה שכתוב‬ ‫בתורה שנ׳ לא תחמוד בית רעיך עכשיו הן‬ ‫דנין‪.‬‬ ‫נכנס לבית שני וראה בני אדם שהן תלויין‬ ‫בלשונן אמר לפני ה׳ק׳ב׳ה׳ גלי רזין פירש לי‬ ‫את החזיון הזה השיב לו רוח הקודש ואמר‬ ‫לו אלו בני אדם כשהיו באותו עולם אוכלין‬ ‫קרוצו ברעיהון ועוברין על מה שכתוב‬ ‫בתורה ועכשו דנן אותן שנ׳ לא תלך רכיל‬ ‫בעמך לא תעמוד על דם רעיך אני יי׳י‪.‬‬

‫נוסח ב׳‬ ‫חמשה בתי דינין יש [בגיהנם וכולם] ראה‬ ‫או[תם ישעי]ה בן אמוץ הנביא בר[וח הק׳]‬ ‫נכנס לבית ראשון ומצא שם בני אדם‬ ‫אוח[זים כדי] מים ומ[מלא]ים ומשליכין אל‬ ‫הבור והבור אינינו מלא ובני אדם נעזובין‬ ‫א[מ׳ ל]פניו רבונו של עולם גלה רזייא פרש‬ ‫לי את החזיון הזה אמ׳ לו בן אמוץ אלו בני‬ ‫אדם שחמדו שדות וכרמים של רעיהם‬ ‫ונשיהם של רעיהם ועברו על מה שכתוב‬ ‫בתורה לא תחמוד בית רעיך ועכשיו‬ ‫מביאין אותן לכך ודנין אותן בכך‪.‬‬ ‫נכנס לבית שני ומצא שם בני תלוים‬ ‫בלשוני[הם אמ׳ לפניו רבש״ע גלה רזיי]א‬ ‫פריש לי את החזיון הזה אמ׳ לו בן אמוץ‬ ‫[אי]לו בני אדם ש[היו הולכי רכיל בח�ב‬ ‫ריהם] ועברו על מה שכתוב בתורה לא‬ ‫תלך רכיל בעמך ועכ[שיו מביאין אותן לכך‬ ‫וד]נין אותן בכך‪:‬‬ ‫נכנס לבית שלישי ומצא שם בני אדם‬ ‫[תלוין בערותן אמ׳ ל]פניו גלה רזייא פריש‬ ‫לי את החיזיון הזה אמ׳ לו בן אמוץ [אלו‬ ‫בני אדם שמניחין] בנות ישראל והולכין‬

‫‪26  ‘And he saw the son of Mayan the tax collector stretching forth his tongue to drink, wish‬‬‫‪ing to drink from the water, but he cannot reach it. And he saw Miriam, daughter of Onion‬‬ ‫‪Peels. Rabbi Eleazer son of Rabbi Yose said: hanging by her nipples. Rabbi Yose son of‬‬ ‫?‪Hanina said: the hinge of the gate of hell was set in her ear. They ask him: Why is this‬‬ ‫‪He told them: Because she would fast and publicise her fast. And some say: because she‬‬ ‫‪fasted for one day and claimed to have fasted for two (alternatively: calculated a two‬‬‫‪day fast).’ All translations in this section, unless otherwise noted, are mine, Here I have‬‬ ‫‪adapted Liberman’s translation from his “On Sins”.‬‬

116 ]‫אצל בנות הרשעה מניחין בנותיהן [של‬ ‫ישראל שמשולות לע[גלה מלומד]ה שנ׳‬ ‫אפרים עגלה מלומדה והולכין אצל ב[נות‬ ‫הרש]עה שמשולתן בח[מורים] שנ׳ אשר‬ ‫בשר חמור ב׳ בשרם ועכשיו מביאין אותן‬ ]‫לכך ודנין אותך ב[כך‬ ‫נכנס לבית רביעי מצא שם נשים תלויות‬ ‫בדדיהן אמ׳ לפ׳ גלה רזייא [פר׳] את החזיון‬ ‫הזה אמ׳ לו בן אמוץ אלו נשים שמגלין‬ ‫ראשיהן בשוק ופורעות מעריהן ומניקות‬ ‫בניהם וישבות בשוק להטות בני אדם וע״כ‬ ‫מביאין אותן לכך וד[נין אותן ב]כך‬ ‫נכנס לבית חמישי ומצא שם הפחות‬ ‫והסגנים והגיזברין ופרעה הרשע [והמצריים‬ ‫ונ]שיהם ועדאין פר׳ הרשע יושב ומשמר‬ ]‫פתחה של ג[יהנם וכל מי שמתגאה‬ ‫ומתגדל על חבירו וכל מי שרא[שו] גבוהה‬ ‫על חבי[ריו ו]אומר [אני טוב מכם וכך גזרו‬ 27‫עלי] מן השמים אף על פי שיש בידו תורה‬

Artman-Partock

‫נכנס לבית שלישי והנה בני אדם תלויים‬ ‫ב[ערותן] אמר לפני ה׳ק׳ב׳ה׳ לגלי רזין‬ ‫פריש לי [את החזיון הזה] השיב לו הקדש‬ ‫ואמרה לו אילו בני אדם כשהיו באותו‬ ‫עולם הן מניחין בנות ישראל שהן משלות‬ ‫כבשר עגלה שנ׳ ואפרים עגלה מלומדה‬ ‫ והולכין אחר בנות הרשעה‬,‫אוהבתי לדוש‬ ‫מ שהין משלות בבשר חמורים שנ׳ אשר‬ .‫ עכשו דנין אותן‬,‫בשר חמורים בשרם‬ ‫ניכנס לבית הרביעי ור[אה] והנה בנות‬ ‫ישראל תלוית בחוטין בדדיהן אמר לפני‬ ,‫ה׳ק׳ב׳ה׳ גלי לי זיז פריש לי את החזיון הזה‬ ‫השיבה אותו רוח הקדש ואמרה לו אלו‬ ‫בנות כשהיו באותו עולם היו פורעות את‬ ‫ראשיהן ופורמות סטריהן ויושבות בשוק‬ ‫ובדרכים ומניקות ומחטאות את בני האדם‬ .‫עכשו [דני]ן אותן‬

27  After Gehenom, this is the seder from Talmud Rabbah. It is written: A King that sits on the throne of judgment scatters all evil with his eyes (Prov. 10:8). Rabban Yohanan ben Zakai said,   There are f[ive] courts in hell, and the prophet Isaiah son of Amoẓ saw them all in the holy spirit.   He entered the first house (or torment), and found there people holding (pitchers of) water, which they fill and throw into a pit, but the pit never fills, and the people are not left (alone).   He said before the Holy one, before the sovereign of the universe, revealer of mysteries: explain to me this vision.   He told him: son of Amoẓ, these are the people who coveted fields and vineyards of their fellow men, and coveted their wives, and transgressed that which is said in the Torah ‘Thou shall not covet thy neighbor’s house’ (Ex. 20:13), and now they are brought here to be punished like that.   He entered the second house (of torment), and found there (people) hanging by their tongues.   He said before the sovereign of the universe: revealer of mysteries: explain to me this vision.   He told him: son of Amoẓ, these are the people who slandered their fellows, and transgresses that which is said in the Torah ‘Thou shall not go up and down as a talebearer among thy people (Lev. 19:16) , and now they are brought here to be punished like that.   He entered the third house and found there people are hanging by their [genitals?].   He said before the revealer of mysteries: explain to me this vision.

No ( Jewish ) Women in Hell

117 ‫ני[כנס] לבית החמישי וראה והנה בית מלא‬ ‫עשן והפחות [והסגנים והגז]ברים יושבין‬ ‫ופרעה יושב [ומשמר] פ[תח]הן ואומר להם‬ ‫שוטים לא היה לכם ל[למוד ממ]ני שבהיותי‬ ‫במצרים ואמרתי [יי׳י הצדיק נמנתי] אדון‬ ‫עליהם ועדין פרעה יושב ומשמר על כל‬ ‫פתח ופתח של גיהנם שנ׳ ונהמת באחריתך‬ 28‫בכלות וג׳‬

  He told him: son of Amoẓ these are [the people] who were leaving the daughters of Israel, and walking after the daughters of wickedness. Left the daughters of Israel who are compared to a trained heifer, as it was said ‘Ephraim was a trained heifer’ (Hos. 10:11) and went to the daughters of wickedness, that are compared to asses, as it was said ‘whose flesh is the flesh of asses’ (EZ. 23:10), and now they are brought here to be punished like that.   He entered the fourth house, and found there women hanging by their breasts.   He said before the revealer of mysteries: explain to me this vision.   He told him: son of Amoẓ there are the daughters, who would uncover their heads in the market place and rip their clothes and would nurse their sons and sit in the market to lead men astray and now they are brought here to be punished like that.   He entered the fifth house, and found there the governors, chiefs, and treasurers and the wicked Pharaoh, and the Egyptians and their wives, and still now Pharaoh sits and watches the gate of hell, and whoever takes pride in himself and tries to patronize his friend and everyone who looks down on his friends and Pharaoh says to him ‘I am better than you’, and nevertheless this is what the heavens decreed for me, even if he held some Torah 28  [Said R. Johannan) ben Zakkai: There are f[ive] courts in hell, and Isaiah son of Amoẓ saw them all.   He entered the first house (or torment), and saw people holding (buckets of) water, which they fill and pour into a well, but the well never fills, and the people are not left (alone).   He said before the King of the king of Kings, blesses be He: reveal to me the mystery, explain to me the vision.   And the Holy Spirit answered him and said to him: These are the people who while on that world were eating and drinking, (and had) lovely fields and vineyards and worldly delights, and transgressed that which is said in the Torah ‘Thou shall not covet thy neighbor’s house’ (Ex.20:13), now they are being sentenced.   He entered the second house (of torment), and saw people hanging by their tongues.   He said before the Holy One, blessed be He: reveal to me the mystery, explain to me this vision.   The Holy Spirit answered him and said: these are the people who while on that world slandered their fellows, and transgresses that which is said in the Torah and now they are being sentenced, as it is said ‘Thou shall not go up and down as a talebearer among thy people: neither shall thou stand against the blood of thy neighbor: I am the LORD’ (Lev. 19:16).   He entered the third house and behold, people are hanging by their [genitals?].

118

Artman-Partock

C. Darchei Teshuva ‫ואמרו רבותינו (ירושלמי סנהדרין פ״י ה״א) מי שרובו זכיות ומיעוטו עבירות נפרעין‬ .‫ממנו מעט עברות קלות שיש בידו בעוה״ז כדי לפרוע ממנו משלם לעתיד לבא‬ ‫ הצדיקים שעשו עבירות‬.‫מי שרובו זכיות יורש גן עדן מי שרובו עבירות יורש גיהנם‬ .‫קלות אין נפרעין מהן לעוה״ב אלא בעולם הזה‬ ‫כי הא מעשה שמת בעיר אחת צדיק ורשע ביום אחד ובשעה‬ .‫אחת הלכו כל הקהל לעשות לרשע כל צרכו ולעסוק בקבורתו‬ )‫ היה לו חתנו ובכה בכי גדול על אשר לא בא איש (לקבורת‬.‫ולצדיק לא בא איש‬ .‫חמיו ונפל עליו שינה וישן‬ )‫בא אליהו ז״ל וא״ל למה אתה בוכה א״ל על שבאו כל הקהל על (קבורת‬ ‫אותו רשע וכבדהו ועל חמי שהיה צדיק גמור ועסק בתורה יומם ולילה לא השגיח‬ .‫עליו איש‬ ‫א״ל אליהו לך עמי והלך עמו והביאו לפני גיהנם הראה לו נשמה אחת שצועקת מים‬ .‫מים והמים אצלה ואינה רשאה ליהנות ממנו‬ ‫ והראה‬.‫א״ל אליהו זהו נשמתו של אותו רשע שעושים לו כל הכבוד האלה בעוה״ז‬ ‫לו אשה שציר דלת של גיהנם פתחה וסגרה באזנה והראה לו בני אדם שתלוי׳‬ ‫בעגבותיהן והראה לו נשים שתלוי״ בדדיהן והראה לו נשים שפיהם גחלי רתמים‬ ‫ א״ל הן א״ל שאל ממני ואגידה לך ושאל א״ל אליהו‬.‫א״ל אליהו ראית בטוב כלאלה‬ ‫אותה אשה שציר דלת של גיהנם פתחה וסגרה באזנה ביתה מתענה כל ימיה‬ ‫ואומרת כאב לבי בתענית ובשעה שמספרי לה״ר ואונאת דברי׳ הטה אזנה כדי‬   He said before the Holy One, blessed be He: revealer of mysteries, explain to me this vision.   The Holy One answered him and said: these are the people who while they were on that world were leaving the daughters of Israel, who are compared to the flesh of heifer, as it was said ‘Ephraim was a trained heifer and loves to thread out’, and walking after the daughters of evil (sic), that are compared to the flesh of asses, as it was said ‘whose flesh is the flesh of asses’ (EZ. 23:10), and now they are being sentenced.   He entered the fourth house, and behold, he saw daughters of Israel, hanging by strings from their breasts.   He said before the Holy One, blessed be He: reveal to me the mystery, explain to me this vision.   And the Holy Spirit answered him and said: there are the daughters, who while on that world, would grow their hair wild and tear the sides of their garments, and would sit in the market place and on the (public) roads to nurse, and brought people to sin. Now they are being sentenced.   He entered the fifth house, and behold, he saw a house full of smoke and the chiefs and the treasurers and the governors are sitting (there) and Pharaoh sits [and guards] their gates and, and tells them: you fools, why didn’t you learn from me when I was in Egypt and said ‘the LORD is righteous’ (Ex. 9:27), and was appointed to lord upon them, and still Pharaoh sits and guards each and every gate of hell, as it was said ‘And thou mourn at the last, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed’ (Prov. 5:11).

No ( Jewish ) Women in Hell

119

‫ בני‬.‫לשמוע לומר לבעליה כדי לשנוא הבריות בעיני בעלה אותו אוזן סובל דין גיהנם‬ ‫אדם שתלוים בערוה הם היו מופקרי׳ ובועלי זונות בעוה״ז ובני אדם שתלוי׳ בדדיהן‬ ‫ ובני אדם שפיהם גחלי רתמים הם‬.‫הן היו מניקות בניהן בגלוי וראו האנשים דדיהן‬ ‫בני אדם שמספרי׳ בבית הכנסת בשעת תפלה ופוסקי״מדברי תורה ועוסקי׳ בדברי‬ ‫שיחה להודיע כי הקב״ה שופט צדק האברים שעושי׳ עבירה דנין בגיהנם יותר‬ 29.‫משאר האברים‬

D. Gedullat Moshe ‫ לך הראה את משה הרשעים כיצד הם‬,‫אמר הקדוש ברוך הוא לשר של גהנום‬ ‫ ונכנס משה לגיהנם וראה שם בני אדם‬.‫ מיד הלך עמו כתלמיד לפני רבו‬.‫בגיהנם‬ ‫ יש מרשעים תלוים בעפעפי עיניהם ויש‬.‫ומלאכי חבלה מצערין אותם בגיהנם‬ 29  And Our Rabbis said “Whoever has mostly merits and only a few transgressions is made to pay in this world for the few minor transgressions he has in order to prevent him from paying for them in the world to come. Whoever has mostly merits earns entry to Gan Eden and whoever has mostly transgressions earns entry to Gehenom. The righteous people that commit minor transgressions do not pay for them in the world to come but in this world. And this is the story of one city in which a righteous person and a wicked person died on the same day. In that moment, the entire congregation went to attend to the needs of the wicked person and deal with his burial, but to the righteous person[’s funeral] not one person came. He had a son-in-law who cried many tears because no one came [to bury] his father-in-law. He fell asleep and as he slept. Elijah came to him and said to him `Why are you crying?”. He answered “Over the fact that the entire congregation came [to bury] that wicked person and pay respects to him and to nobody minded my father-in-law, who was an entirely righteous and studied Torah day and night. Elijah told him: “come with me” and he brought him before Gehenom and showed him one soul who was shouting “water, water” and that soul had water but could not enjoy it. Elijag told him: this is the soul of that wicked that they honored so much in this world. And he showed him a woman that the hinge of Gehenom’s door opened and closed on her ear, and showed him people hanging by their genitals and he showed him women hanging by their breasts and he showed him women whose mouths were filled with whitebroom coals. Elijah said “Have you seen the reward of these people?” He said “Yes”. He said `If you ask me [about them] I will tell you’, he asked and Elijah said “That women on whose ear the hinge of door of Gehenom was opening and closing was fasting all her days and saying my heart hurts in self affliction, but at the same time when people were speaking slander and deceitful words she would incline her ear in order to listen and tell her husband so that people will become hateful in his eyes. That very ear is suffering its judgment in Gehenom.” The people that are hanging by their genitals were debauched people, and those who slept with prostitutes in this world. The people who are hanging by their breasts were those who would breastfeed in public and people saw their breasts. The people whose mouths are filled with white-broom coals are those that talk in synagogue at the time of prayer and stop engaging with Torah and occupy themselves with chatter. This is all to inform you that the Holy One judges justly, the limbs that transgress receive their punishment in Gehenom more than the other limbs.

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‫ וראה והנשים תלויות בשעריהן‬.‫באוזניהם ויש בידיהם ויש בלשונם והם צועקים‬ .‫וביש בדדיהן וכיוצא וכולם תלוים בשלשלאות של אש‬ ‫שאל משה לפני שר של גהינם א״ל מפני מה אלו תלוים בעינהם ואלה בלשונם‬ ‫ מפני שמסתכלים בנשים‬,‫ומצערין להם בכל זה הצער והעונש הרעה הזה? אמר לו‬ ‫ וראה‬.‫ ומעידים עדות שקר על חבריהם‬,‫יפות ובאשת איש ובממון חבריהם לרעה‬ ‫ למה אלו תלוים‬,‫ אמר לו משה‬.‫בגהינם בני אדם תליום בעורלותיהם וקשורים ידיהם‬ ‫ וראה בני אדם‬.‫ מפני שהיו נואפים וגונבים ורוצחים והורגים‬,‫בעורלותיהם? אמר לו‬ ‫ מפני‬,‫ למה אלו תלוים באזניהם ובלשונם? אמר לו‬,‫תלוים באזניהם ובלשונם אמר לו‬ ‫ והנשים‬.‫שהיו מבטלים דברי תורה ומספרים לשון הרע ודברים בטלים ודברי הבאי‬ ‫שתליות בדדיהן ושעריהן מפי שהיו מגלין דדיהן ושעריהן לפני הבחורים וחושקין‬ 30.‫ומתאוין להם ובאים לידי עברה‬

A slightly different version appears in ‘Ketapuach B’azi Ya’r’, one of the versions of Gedullat Moshe which was published by Wertheimer: ‫תלוים באזניהם מפני ששומעים דברים בטלים ודברי הבלים ומסיר אזנו משמוע‬.… ‫ ותלוים בלשונם הם המספרים לשון הרע ומרגילים לשונם על דברים‬,‫דברי תורה‬ ‫ ולא הולך לדבר מצוה ולא‬,‫ ותלוים ברגלם מפני שהולכים ברכילות חבירו‬,‫בטלים‬ ‫ ותלוים בידיהם מפני שגוזלים ממון חבריהם בידיהם‬,‫לבית כנסת להתפלל לבוראו‬

30  Sefer Gedullat Moshe, Bezalel Levi Askkenazi: Thessaloniki, 1746/7, p. 4a. In (my) translation: And the Holy one, blessed be He, said to the Lord of Hell, go and show Moses what happens to the wicked in hell. And at once, he followed him like a pupil follows his master. And Moses entered Hell, and saw people and angels of destruction tormenting them. Some of the wicked were hanging by their eyelids, and others by their ears, or by their hands or by their tongues, and they are screaming. And he saw women hanging by their hair and some of them by their breasts etc. And all were hanging by chains of fire. And Moses asked the Lord of Hell, and said to him: Why are these hanged by their eyes? And those by their tongues? And why are they tormented in all theses torments and bad punishments? And he told him: because they looked at beautiful women, and married women, and looked badly at the money of their friends and neighbours, and gave false witness against their neighbours. And he saw in Hell men hanging by their foreskins and with their hands tied. Moses told him: why are they hanging? And he told him: because they were adulterers and thieves and murderers and killers. And he saw people hanging by their ears and tongues. He told him: why are they hanging by their ears and tongues? He told him: because they stopped engaging with Torah and instead were speaking slander, and of trivial matters, and empty words. And the women who are hanging by their breasts and hair are hanged because they would show their breasts and their hair to men, and men would lust and desire after them, and thus come to sin.

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‫ והנשים תלויות בדדיהם מפני שהם מעלים דדיהם ומניקים את‬.‫וההורג את חבירו‬ 31.‫ ויראו הבחורים ויבואו לידי הרהור‬,‫בניהם‬

2

Dating the Jewish Traditions

Two attempts have been made so far to create a chronology for the Jewish tours, one by Lieberman, the other by Himmelfarb. Lieberman saw the Yerushalmi as the earliest account, and the tradition accounted for in it being tannaitic. The next text for him is what he identifies as an ancient midrash that resurfaces as an appendix to the thirteenth-century Darchei Teshuva.32 He identified the sources of the Genizah fragments as being the passage from the Yerushalmi and the midrash quoted in Darchei Teshuva.33 In contrast, Himmelfarb saw the origin of the Genizah fragments as contemporary with, or even earlier than, the Yerushalmi. She believes both the Talmud and the fragments draw on a now lost earlier text, which was also known to the writers of the early Christian Apocalypses of Peter and Paul.34 Both Lieberman and Himmelfarb build much of their argument on the motif of female breasts.35 Lieberman sees the Genizah fragments as dependent on the Yerushalmi on the basis that both involve hanging by the breasts. He argues firstly that hanging by the nipples or breasts is a uniquely Jewish torment in the genre of tours of hell. Then secondly, he argues that the specific wording of the first fragment shows dependency on the Yerushalmi – he explains the difference between 31  Wertheimer, Batei Midrashot, 1, 281–282.  They hang by their ears because they listened to idle talk and empty words, and removed their ears from hearing the words of Torah, and those who hang to their tongues are those who spoke slander and made their tongue used to idle talk. And those who hang by their legs are so because they followed the vile words of their friends, instead of going to fulfil commandments and to the synagogue to pray. And those who hang by their hands, it is because they stole their fellows’ money and they killed their fellows. And the women hang by their breasts because they pulled up their breasts to nurse their sons and the young men saw them and came to contemplate sin. 32  ‬Lieberman, “On Sins”, p. 39. 33  ‬Lieberman, “On Sins”, p. 39. 34  Himmelfarb, Tours of Hell, p. 131. 35  Lately, Emanuel speculated that the one of the fragments was copied in 13th century Spain, and the other may have a 12th century Ashkenazi hand, but unfortunately he did not give any evidence beyond the private advice of Beit Arié on the matter. He is torn between the possibility that all later European versions copied a lost text, and that there existed more than one source on hell that different people incorporated in their versions of the visions. While his claim is intriguing, it offers little help for my investigation here. Emanuel, Hidden, pp. 56–58.

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the Yerushalmi’s hanging by the nipples (‫ )חיטי ביזיא‬and the hanging from the breasts using strings in the first Genizah fragment (‫ )תלויות בחוטין בדדיהן‬as being a misunderstanding by the chronologically later fragment of the rather uncommon expression used to describe nipples found in the Yerushalmi and also in Syriac, ‫חטתא דתדא‬.36 However, even if this is the right conclusion to draw, it is only valid for the first of the two fragments found in the Genizah, as in the second one women hang by their breasts, not by their nipples, and strings are not mentioned at all. In fact the presence of hanging by the breasts might not be as informative as previously argued. Exposure of women’s breasts serves as a punishment in this world in early Jewish literature, specifically in a situation when a woman is suspected of adultery, in the biblical ritual of the Sotah and its rabbinic interpretations. Torments of the breasts in forms other than hanging appear frequently in Christian apocalypses as early as the second century, in the Apocalypse of Peter and in the later Greek Apocalypse of Ezra. There, different beasts suckle the breasts or nipples of women guilty of infanticide.37 Even hanging by the breasts, which clearly marks a tradition as Jewish according to both Himmelfarb and Lieberman, in fact also appears in non-Jewish sources, albeit not ones written in Latin or Greek, but rather in Middle Persian and in Arabic. Hanging by the breasts is mentioned both in a version of the Ascension of Muhamad38 and in the Zoroastrian Arda Viraf.39 In both texts, which are at the height of their glory during the period best represented in the Genizah, hanging by the breasts is the punishment for an adulterous wife. The Arda Viraf offers a combination of both hanging by the breasts and tormenting by demons: I also saw the soul of woman who was suspended by the breasts to hell, and its noxious creatures seized her whole body … [T]his is the soul of that wicked woman who, in the world, left her own husband, and gave herself to other men, and committed adultery.40 In the Zoroastrian text, as opposed to the Muslim text, the punishment of breasts is a popular form of torment for other sins too. Most of those, just like in the Christian texts, have to do with abortion and infanticide.

36  Lieberman, “On Sins”, pp. 38–39. 37  Buchholz, Your Eyes Will Be Opened, p. 207; Himmelfarb, Tours of Hell, p. 86. 38  Translated by Miguel Asín Palacios as version B of Cycle 2 of the Ascension of Muhamad, from a manuscript in Leiden University Library, Or. 786 no. 7 of Khabar Al-Miraj, attributed to Ibn Abbas. See Asín Palacios, La Escatologia, pp. 432–437. 39  Asa, Book of Arda Viraf. 40  Asa, Book of Arda Viraf, 24:1–7.

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Given the time and place of the Muslim and Zoroastrian traditions, we may want to reconsider the interpretation of these Genizah fragments and their relationship with the Yerushalmi. According to Asín Palacios, we can place and date the Islamic tradition to ninth-century Egypt; he proposes as the source the author Ishac Ibn Wahab. According to tradition, the Muslim text was attributed to Ibn Abbas, a kinsman of Muhamad.41 The Zoroastrian text received its popular form in the ninth or tenth centuries. Both tie sins that we know from Christian traditions with a punishment which was thought to be uniquely Jewish. In fact, the question of who influenced who, or who came first is not of central interest to the type of analysis I wish to offer here for the Jewish sources. Following Hasan-Rokem’s method, I see more importance in the existence of a shared discourse of folk beliefs and narratives of the afterlife – stories may go back and forth within that shared discourse, and each tradition within it can form its own unique understanding of particular motifs or themes.42 The earliest evidence of women being tormented through being hanged by their breasts may still be the Yerushalmi, but I argue that the function of this punishment in the Genizah fragments brings it closer to the cross-cultural and religious forms of tours of hell. The author or authors of the fragments may well not have known the Yerushalmi, or have known a version of it that does not include the story of Miriam, like the version which seems to have been known to Rashi. In Rashi’s commentary on BT Sanhedrin 44b, the tax collector who is mentioned with Miriam in the Yerushalmi is the one who is punished with “her” punishment, having the pivot of the gate of hell pierce his ear; Miriam is not mentioned at all in his commentary. More important, however, is the content of the vision in the Genizah. It “forgets”, or rather does not know of, the pivot of the gate of hell. Additionally, the punishment of Miriam daughter of Alei Beẓalim may have not been measurefor-measure punishment; that is, she may not have been judged or condemned to hell over an offence of a sexual nature.43 The Genizah fragments juxtapose the punishment of hanging by the breast, known from the Yerushalmi only as a punishment for hypocrisy or defiance, 41  Asín Palacios, Islam and the Divine Comedy, p. 9. 42   Hasan-Rokem, Web of Life, especially pp. 77–87. 43  Lieberman suggested in an article preceding his “On Sins” that the Yerushalmi considers that a fasting virgin is in the group of those who “wear out the world” because the virgin is no longer a virgin, and claims she has lost her virginity because of frequent fasting. This would turn that sin into a sexual one; see Lieberman, “Emendations”, pp. 100–101. However, Lieberman does not mention this in his later treatment of the passage in the Yerushalmi under discussion here. A different interpretation of the story, based on the identification of Miriam and Mary, may lead to a different result.

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with hanging for sins that have to do with sexual transgressions – known from many sources from the Epistle of Titus to the Acts of Thomas, the Apocalypse of Peter, and the Ascension of Muhammad. The transformation of the sin of the woman hanging by her breasts from hypocrisy to promiscuity is an indicator of the relative lateness of its source compared with the tradition manifested in the Yerushalmi, exactly because of its “shared horizon” with the common topoi of visions of hell. Moreover, the principle of talion, which is not known in the Yerushalmi, is a telling detail. I believe it is the very awareness of and development of the ideology of measure-for-measure punishment – not in this world, but in the world to come – that enables us to date Jewish traditions of tours of hell. In short, when it comes to the dating of the Yerushalmi and the Genizah fragments, I am in agreement with Lieberman, who saw the development of the talion principle as an indication of the relative lateness of the Genizah fragments compared with the Yerushalmi, and who saw the influence of Muslim concepts of hell on the fragments (in that they have five compartments in hell and not seven).44 I do not, however, believe that we must assume a dependence of the fragments on the Yerushalmi. Dating the traditions found in the high medieval texts, however, is where I differ from Lieberman. Lieberman adapts Gaster’s claim that Gedullat Moshe preserved an early work, perhaps even older than the Yerushalmi and one that had spread in the Muslim East, to posit a “proto-Gedullat Moshe” which could have been known to the scribe of the Genizah fragments.45 What I see as clearly marking Gedullat Moshe, even in a much more modest version than the one we have today, as later than the Genizah fragments is the exact description of women in hell. In Gedullat Moshe, we find two types of women in hell: the first hang by their hair for showing their hair to young men; the others hang by their breasts, because they exposed their breasts to young men. Hanging by the hair for immodesty is common in the hell of all Abrahamic religions, so it is not a very informative detail. Rather, what is important is the perfect talion maintained here. This is not the case in either the Yerushalmi or in the Genizah fragments, which bind together all sorts of offences. Unlike the Yerushalmi – which does not tie the crime and punishment of Miriam in a measure-for-measure relationship at all – the fragments do manifest a partial use of this principle in the first three courts, and its fading in the last two, which includes the “women’s court”. In the fragments, breasts are involved in the punishment for three sins: the exposing of the hair, the exposing of the leg, and nursing in public. That is, they are punishments for seduction and, as I will 44  Lieberman, “On Sins”, pp. 36, 30. 45  Lieberman, “On Sins”, pp. 249–250; Gaster, “Hebrew Visions”, p. 571.

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soon argue, for bending gender roles. In Gedullat Moshe, in contrast, sins and punishments correspond perfectly. For showing one’s hair, one is hanged by the hair; and for showing one’s breasts, one is hanged by the breasts. It is difficult to see how a tradition that knows of both hanging by the hair and hanging by the breasts, and which is based on the principle of talion, would not use both these punishments, the way Gedullat Moshe does but the Genizah fragments do not. We must accept, therefore, that Gedullat Moshe is later than the Genizah fragments. The same, in my eyes, holds true for the appendix of Darchei Teshuva. This indeed looks like a reconstruction and weaving together of the accounts given in the Yerushalmi and in the Genizah fragments. The pivot of the gate of hell from the Yerushalmi is here stuck in the ear of a woman who is guilty of deception (hona’at dvarim),46 following and integrating both the explanation given in the Yerushalmi for Miriam’s sins and the talion principle. Hona’at dvarim, deception by words, is a major concern for Darchei Teshuva, and it therefore interprets the sins of Miriam as such. Women who hang by their breasts in Darchei Teshuva are those who nursed their babies in public, drawing clearly on the Isaiah vision and positioning it further from any other religion’s vision of hell. There is no hanging by the hair, however, perhaps because hair is not mentioned in the Yerushalmi, unlike hanging by the breasts. The lack of women hanging by the hair can be explained by the wish of the editor to maintain the talion principle that he himself formulates using the words “The Holy One, Blessed be He, is an honest judge, the limbs that sin are punished in hell more than the others.” This very conceptualisation is in my eyes a testimony to the author’s awareness of the possibility of a different justice system, one that he finds a need to reject, and perhaps explain, and which leads to his reworking of the narratives of both the Yerushalmi and the fragments, in which an incomplete talion system regarding the sins of women occurs. While hanging by the nipples does create a strong link between the tradition of the Yerushalmi and that of the fragments, they belong to very different traditions, and there are important differences between them beyond what has been discussed already. In the Yerushalmi tradition, there is only one man and one woman in hell, while the fragments have five courts filled with sinners. The former presents a hell which comes immediately after death, the latter is an eschatological hell. In conclusion, I find it likely that the versions of the Isaiah vision that appear in texts which are of a later date do in fact represent later layers of 46  The way hona‌ʾat dvarim is interpreted here is interesting, as it is not the Babylonian Talmud’s interpretation of it as presented in Bava Metzia 58b–59b.

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tradition. Unlike the earlier Genizah fragments, the cluster of Isaiah variants from the high Middle Ages are rationalized visions of hell, in which measurefor-measure principles predominate, and “lectio difficilior”, the unusual versions are substituted by more ordinary ones. This process corresponds to that undergone by Christian visions of hell at the same time. As Le Goff argues, the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries see a dissemination through folktales of the vision of hell, and thirteenth-century scholastic culture rationalises and “infernalises” hell.47 Was there ever a vision, now lost, that served as the basis of all these traditions and more, as argued by Himmelfarb? There is nothing to indicate there was not. Its dating, however, will have to be later than that of the vision in the Yerushalmi, and its presumed effects are already with us, regardless of its actual existence: an imagination shared by Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and Zoroastrian traditions. 3

For What Reasons Are (Jewish) Women Punished in Hell?

The story of Miriam daughter of Onion Peels in the Yerushalmi is composed from two alternative traditions about a single mysterious Miriam.48 In one, she is hanging by her nipples, and in the other, the pivot of the gate of hell is piercing her ear. Her sin is also not clear. In the version of the story in the Yerushalmi Sanhedrin her sin is not specified at all, and in Hagigah we have two alternatives. In the first, it is a form of self-indulgence, or, even worse, pretending to act for the glory of God while actually promoting her own glory; and in the second, she is either pretending to do what she has not done, or she is trying 47  Le Goff, “The Learned and the Popular”. 48  Some (such as Gressmann in his Vom Reichen Mann, pp. 17–23) identified her with Mary, mother of Jesus, based on the encounter between one “Mary who groomed women’s hair”, mentioned in BT Hagigah 4b, and BT Sanhedrin 67a, which identifies Mary the groomer with Mary the mother of Jesus. The name Mary, the change of Mary the groomer’s luck for the worse after meeting the angel of death, and the very rare presence of a woman in hell supported this view. Brezis’s suggestion that it is indeed Mary mother of Jesus here stands on three legs. The fist is the idea that pietism and promiscuity is paired once more in the Yeushalmi – pointing to Mary mother of Jesus; the second is Krauss’s assumption that Mary’s father’s name was Eli based on Luke 3:23; and the thirs, an assumption that a woman who grows long hair is promiscuous. I find most of his argument false, first becase in the Gospel of Luke, Eli is mentioned as father of Joseph, not Mary; second because it is exposing one’s hair and not growing it that is a problem, and third, becasue “our” Mary has a different epithet, and Mary was as common a name in late antiquity as it is today. See Brezis, “The Sages”, p. 239.

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to devise her own system of justice – in reducing more sins from her “final bill” than those she had fasted for. Whatever her sin might be, it is also not exactly clear who is asking to know about her sin, or who “they” might be.49 Himmelfarb, following Lieberman, saw the common denominator of both possible sins as being false pretence or hypocrisy. While there is a case for regarding Miriam’s behaviour as disruptive on the sociological plane, this conceals other forms of transgression of which she is guilty – on a theological plane. In Miriam’s search for social recognition as a pious woman, in the first version of her sin, she is truly the woman from hell according to Avot 1:3 in the Mishnah: Antigonus of Socho … would say: Do not be as slaves, who serve their master for the sake of reward. Rather, be as slaves who serve their master not for the sake of reward. And the fear of heaven should be upon you. Miriam serves God not even for reward in the divine realm, but in the human one, and the fear of heaven does not seem to have much hold of her. Alternatively, if we understand the second explanation to be that she deducted the sins equivalent to two days as a reward for fasting for a single day, she is in even more theological trouble, as she has confused her place with that of God, and believes she can trick not only people, but God himself. Avot again comes to mind: “The store is open, the storekeeper extends credit, the account-book lies open, the hand writes, and all who wish to borrow may come and borrow. The collection-officers make their rounds every day …” (Avot 5:3). My point is that Miriam is not only a hypocrite, but far worse – she is a usurper of divine order. Realising the true nature of her sin is important for clarifying its relationship to her punishment. She is not, in any way, punished measure for measure. Lately, David Brezis raised once more the claim that Mary daughter of Onion Peels is one and the same with Mary, mother of Jesus.50 He also made the claim that it is indeed for ‘promiscuousness disguised as pietism’ that she is blamed and punished. The identification of Mary and Miriam does not in any way disrupt my own argument, and is in some aspects tempting, but I am not entirely convinced it is true. The use of the Gospel of Luke 3:23 as proof that Mary is 49  This may indicate the story of Miriam’s punishment in hell is a later, second-century layer built on top of the first-century story of the tax collector. The questioners in this case would be the two second-century rabbis mentioned by name, and the person answering the question would be an “anonymous” voice. 50  While this argument may seem appealing in some ways, the proofs offered by Brezis are not always sound, as I shall now discuss.

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identified as the daughter of Eli (a close homophone with Alei) is problematic, as the verse mentions Eli as the father of Joseph, father of Jesus. The argument about promiscuity and pietism is also problematic, as Mary is never described, even in Jewish polemics, as pretending to be overly-righteous. She is either a fornicating wife or a woman being raped, but never a pious exemplary figure. The sins of the women who hang by their breasts in the Genizah fragments are different from those of Miriam. In the first fragment, the relevant sin is showing or letting down their hair, “tearing the sides (of their garments)” (possibly showing some leg), sitting in the roads and the markets to nurse their babies, and bringing men to sin. In the second fragment, the women are punished for exposing their hair in the marketplace, for a mysterious priʾat meʾarim (possibly growing pubic hair?), for nursing their sons, and for sitting in the market to lead men astray. In neither fragment is it clear if one must commit all the transgressions or just one in order to be punished by hanging from one’s breasts in the world to come. Himmelfarb argued that measure-for-measure punishments in the JudaeoChristian tradition are for sins that are committed in secret: adultery, fornication, and various sins of speech – from blasphemy to gossip. She points out that the Christian tradition holds in this group a class of sins committed by women which are not mentioned in Jewish sources: those of women who had abortions or committed infanticide, a group well attested also in the Arda Viraf. Her explanation ties together sexual sins and the various forms of killing unwanted children. She explains the Christian concern with these sins as alien to Judaism because they relate to a social reality of nuns who became pregnant and tried to dispose of the proof of their loss of virginity. Jewish women who got pregnant outside of marriage, according to Himmelfarb, would quite simply marry the father of the baby and hence would not have to resort to abortion or infanticide. While this may sound compelling, this description suffers from a heavy Christian bias. First of all, the Zoroastrian texts are not mentioned. Second, there is no true measure-for-measure principle in the punishment of women in either the Isaiah texts nor in the Yerushalmi. Third, the crimes under discussion that the “Jewish” women commit are the very opposite of “secret” – in fact, they are specifically linked to the public sphere, or more precisely to transgressing the boundaries of the private and the public, or turning something which should have been private, public. This is the case of Miriam in the Yerushalmi: she who fasts and publicises the fact of her fast, thus turning a private act of piety ‫‘ לשם שמים‬for the sake of heaven’ into a public false display of moral superiority. This is also the case with the women who breastfeed in the market or let their hair down in public in the Genizah fragments. There is nothing wrong with suckling a baby at home or in private, or with exposing

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one’s hair inside one’s house or by unveiling in private. It is by treating the public space as if it were private that the women sin. In Darchei Teshuva, in addition to the women who hang from their breasts for breastfeeding in public, we have women who have fiery coals in their mouths, but by the time we get to the explanation of this punishment their gender is miraculously transformed. In the part where the punishment is explained, the women miraculously become men who are guilty of idle talk in the synagogue in times of prayer – a familiar topos. It is also there that the woman whose ear is pierced by the gate of hell makes her comeback, this time condemned for two separate crimes: one is similar to the Yerushalmi, pretending to fast; and the other, known also in the Apocalypse of the Virgin Mary and the Apocalypse of Ezra, is listening to other people’s conversations, twisting them, and reporting them to her husband so he will hate everyone but her.51 Again, these are two sins of making the private public. I argue that the reason infanticide or abortion are not popular in Jewish visions of hell cannot be explained away only by the Jewish practice of marrying a man to the woman he seduced. While the Christian women found in hell clearly had forbidden sexual intercourse, the Jewish women in the fragments and in the later sources never even get close to one particular man. Only once in rabbinic literature do we find a woman condemned to hell for adultery or fornication – or rather threatened with such damnation – in Tractate Kallah 15–16.52 In fact, and this is where I am getting to my second argument, the almost complete absence of women in hell (and heaven) is a characteristic trait of this literature which has gone unnoticed until now. 4

Where Are the Women?

In early Christian texts such as the Apocalypse of Peter, which shares a rather substantial basis with the earliest Jewish sources, as well as their sometimes incomplete or absent talion system, we see both women and men judged and punished in hell for various sins. Men and women are punished for forsaking God, for taking bribes, for sorcery, as well as for the familiar slander and infanticide. The author makes it almost a stylistic device to mention that both men 51  Lieberman, “On Sins”, p. 41. 52  The only Jewish medieval representation of fornicating women in hell appears in the twenty-eighth notebook of Emmanuel of Rome. There, fornicating women are boiled in a pot; Potiphar’s wife and other evil women are burning in a big pyre. In Dante’s Inferno, canto XXX, Potiphar’s wife suffers never-ending burning heat. It is obvious that the source of these descriptions is Dante, and not some hidden, unknown Jewish tradition.

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and women are judged for the same sins, even when the punishments may differ. This is also the case in the Apocalypse of Paul, and most of its descendants. In the Ascension of Muhammad we find women in hell for being shameless, for unveiling, for prostitution, and for adultery.53 In other Muslim visions of hell there are once again plentiful women.54 In an infamous quotation from the Hadith, we find Muhammad testifying that “I was shown the Hell-fire and that the majority of its dwellers were women who were ungrateful”.55 Women seem to make up the majority of the inhabitants of hell. In fairness, though, there are also many more women in both the Christian and Muslim heavens than in the Jewish paradise of Gan Eden. While Islam opens the gates of heaven to all good wives, and the Christian visions of paradise at the very least cannot ignore Mary, the mother of Jesus, in the Jewish tradition the silence about women is almost complete.56 Some Jewish traditions from Babylon near the end of the Talmudic period or shortly after it, know of two women who entered paradise while they were still alive – Serach, the daughter of Asher, and Bitia, the daughter of the Pharaoh who saved Moses.57 However Jewish tours of heaven know nothing about Serach, and almost nothing about Bitia, who only surfaces in a twelfth-century tour of heaven and hell – and that is in a Christian source reporting on Jewish tales, in Peter Venerabilis’s version of the acts of Rabbi Joshua ben Levi.58 Peter’s version of the story, like other contemporary Ashkenazi tales, “purges” hell of all gentiles, as Kushelevsky and Perry have noticed.59 To this we must add that they also purge women from hell. Only in one late (sixteenth- or seventeenth-century) and highly kabbalistic Seder Gan Eden published by Yelinek are there many women in heaven, mainly as a sort of courtly companion for the biblical mothers and prophets, and as partners in a heavenly copulation that takes place between the men and women of heaven.60 This leads me back to the question I opened with, and to the second part of the paper. Why are there almost no women in hell in Jewish apocalyptic 53  Thomassen, “Islamic Hell”, p. 408. 54  Smith and Haddad, “Women in the Afterlife”. 55  Sahih Bukhari, vol. 1, 2:28. 56  There are close connections between Bitia, Mary, the Toledot Yeshu, and the apocalyptic vision of hell, and the transformation of early narratives in the twelfth century. In the confines of this paper I cannot address these links, and I hope to return to the subject in the future. 57  Serach and Bitia are discussed in Derech Eretz Zuta 1:9 and Kallah Rabbati 3:23; Bitia is additionally mentioned in Bereshit Rabbati Chayei Sarah 23:1 and Midrash Mishlei 34:15, and other places. See Elbaum, “Women”, pp. 129–131. 58  Perry, Tradition and Transformation, pp. 222–224. 59  Kushelevsky, “Rabbi Joshua Ben Levi”. 60  Perry, Tradition and Transformation, p. 249.

No ( Jewish ) Women in Hell

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literature? And why are the women dwelling there still there? The first might be easier to answer than the second. For a woman to be sentenced to hell, she must stand trial. If divine justice mirrors human justice, and the Torah is an earthly manifestation of divine law, in order to bring someone to trial he or she must be regarded as liable, as a full juridical subject, sui juris. I am not sure this is the case for the majority of Jewish women, for a number of reasons. The question of women’s liability is directly connected to two other questions: their status as a legal entity, and the beliefs about their self-command, that is, their mental and psychological ability to control their actions. Feminist scholarship and the scholarship of desire over the past fifty years have given us sufficient grounds to assume that women are not quite as liable for their actions as men. If we follow Ishai Rosen-Zvi’s argument about the inclination for evil – yetzer ha-ra‌ʾ – and women,61 there is almost no path open for them to go to hell. If we assume that desire, any desire, is what brings people to sin, it is the discourse of mastering one’s passions and governing one’s desires that should be employed here. Self-mastery and the taming of desires has been one of the goals of religious men since the Hellenistic period.62 The developing technologies of self and the techniques of spiritual improvement developed in the late Roman Republic and the early Roman Empire led the ancients to believe our souls and passions are objects of manipulation, and as such can be reshaped with proper efforts. Rosen-Zvi argues that while men can fight against their desires, the yetzer, and that doing so is a manly task, women are considered too weak for such a task and are considered as “raped” by the yetzer, by desire of all kinds. Moreover, women may stand on the side of yetzer, as the face of temptation – though yetzer in the early sources (up until the late sixth or seventh century) is not particularly sexual.63 What results from Rosen-Zvi’s argument is that women are almost not liable for at least some of their deeds – those controlled by yetzer – and therefore should not be judged as severely as men for them in this world.64 I suggest we extend this to the world to come and to the “tours” literature. The extent to which women are liable for their actions in rabbinic thought is not clear. On the one hand, we see the famous division between precepts that are time-bound and those that are not time-bound, and 61   Rosen-Zvi, “Do Women Have Yetzer?”. 62  Hadot, Philosophy; Foucault, Fearless Speech, pp. 145–160. 63   Rosen-Zvi, “Do Women Have Yetzer?”, pp. 23–24, 26. On the manly aspects of fighting the yetzer, see also Satlow, “Man and Woman”, p. 500. 64   Rosen-Zvi, “Do Women Have Yetzer?”, p. 30.

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precepts that have do with action or refraining from it, as shaping women as being more loosely bound to the law. On the other hand, sometimes the very same passages insist that men and women are equal for all other matters of the law (e.g. BT Kiddushin 35a). In her groundbreaking book, Judith Romney Wagner has shown that in the Mishnah, a woman is always subject to some man, and is only regarded as an independent legal entity (sui juris), as opposed to a chattel, in the liminal moments in which she is not under her father’s or her husband’s rule. These moments occur in the cases of the emancipated daughter (that is, a girl who had reached puberty but was not married), the divorced woman, and the (nonlevirate) widow.65 These women do not hold equal status to men, but their personhood, their liability, and their accountability for their actions cannot be negated. This taxonomy, offered by Wagner for the Mishnah, may explain the presence of Miriam bat Alei Beẓalim in the hell of the Yerushalmi: as Lieberman noticed, she is described either as ‫בתולה ציימנית‬, ‘a fasting virgin’ or as ‫‘ פרושה קזאית‬a counting Pharisee’. A fasting virgin is likely to be a woman who is not under the legal guardianship of any man, and is probably the emancipated daughter of the Mishnah, the Jewish equivalent of the Christian “pious virgin”. At this point in her life, she belongs, according to Wagner, to the category of person and not chattel, and is therefore accountable for her actions and can be condemned to hell for them. The option of reading Miriam’s sin as her being ‘a counting Pharisee’ may be linked not only to hona’at dvarim, deception with words (in the sense of her having told a lie about the number of days she fasted), but also to an attempt to “play the other”, that is, to act as if she were a man: in control of her own life and learning. The women in the Genizah fragments, however, seem to be married women. According to Rosen-Zvi and Wagner, then, they are not exactly full legal subjects. David Brodsky, in his analysis of Tractate Kallah, repeatedly shows that all sin of a “sexual nature” between a man and his wife are to be blamed on the man and only on the man.66 Apart from the Yerushalmi, the only time in rabbinic literature in which a woman and hell are mentioned together is when Rabbi Akiva threatens a woman that she will be condemned to hell for adultery – but he also promises her that the rabbis can offer her a different fate if she confesses her deeds (and in doing so, asserts his superiority to them). The story reveals that, at least in the amoraic period,67 adultery may have been 65  Wagner, Chattel or Person?, pp. 10–20. 66  Brodsky, “A Bride”, pp. 119–131. 67  This is the dating offered by Brodsky, “A Bride”, pp. 430–431.

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considered to be a justification for sending a woman to hell. Nevertheless, it is not an automatic condemnation, although in this particular case we never learn what happened to the poor woman’s soul. However in texts of the Isaiah group, there is no trace of anything quite as serious as this, and perhaps, much like the Yerushalmi, Kallah is describing the hell that comes after death and not the eschatological hell. As I argued earlier, none of the disturbances to the public order of the women in the Isaiah group are real transgressions against any biblical precepts or codified rabbinic law. In the Genizah fragments, all five courts of hell have proof texts from the Bible to explain why the men are being punished. Only in the fourth house, the women’s house, are there are no such biblical proof texts, or any proof texts at all. The reason is quite clear: there are no verses that forbid women to unveil or to nurse in public. The rabbinic Aggadah shows Sarah nursing dozens of babies in public in Genesis Rabbah 21:7, with the praise and encouragement of Abraham.68 The Babylonian Talmud condemns women who nurse in the market in general, but rejects nursing in the market as a cause for divorce (Gittin 89a). Showing or letting down hair in public is also discussed in the Babylonian Talmud (Ketubbot 72b) as a possible ground for divorce without dowry (ketubbah). Interestingly, it is rejected on the grounds of a very similar argument to that which appears in the context of nursing in public, an argument which is reserved in the Babylonian Talmud only for these two specific cases. The argument is that if these regulations were followed to the letter (prohibiting nursing in public and showing hair in public), there will not remain a single “daughter of Abraham under her husband”, that is, married. So, why are these misdemeanours so important? I argue it is because they take place in the public space, away from the controlling guardianship of men, and because they produce an unwanted type of woman. The two accusations against women other than nursing in public are ‫פורעות‬ ‫את ראשיהן ופורמות את סטריהן‬, showing their hair and revealing their “sides”. These echo the Mishnah, Sotah 3:8, which distinguishes between the legal obligations of men versus women, generally without any biblical proof texts. The first of these is ‫‘ מה בין איש לאשה? איש פורע ופורם ואין האשה פורעת ופורמת‬What’s [the difference] between a man and a woman? A man grows hair and tears his cloths – and a woman does not.’69 The women we meet in hell are not there 68  On this story and its parallels see Raveh, Feminist Rereading, ch. 1. 69  Sotah 3:8 goes on to mention lepers, which is interesting. As Yassif remarked, lepers are considered evil or sinners. See Yassif, Sefer Hazikhronot, p. 465; and also Dols, “The Leper”. Leviticus 13:45 is the first verse to tie together priah ‫ פריעה‬and primah ‫פרימה‬, and relates to a male leper, and only a male leper. The reference to leprosy and to Leviticus is also interesting because of the bald head that is mentioned in Leviticus and the alleged baldness

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for violating the ethics of modesty, but rather, for blurring the boundaries between men and women, for insisting on acting like men. By excluding themselves from the category of “ordinary” women, they defy male rule over them. Our sources seem to enable them to do that, but they must then act “justly” within the system: if a woman wishes to step outside the protective custody of “her” man, and act like a man, she is also held liable for her actions in the same way that a man is. A woman may decide to expose her body like a man can, or dedicate herself to Torah and fasting, to reject the normative social order. But there will be a price to pay in the world to come. The cases of the fasting virgin and the counting Pharisee are of special interest, because they represent the threat of female authority and agency in the clearest way. In Yerushalmi Sotah 83:4 (19a), the fasting virgins are no virgins at all, and they use their “piety” to hide the fact that they are no longer virgins, much like the no-longer-virgins on the gridiron found in the Epistula. But Sotah 22a in the Babylonian Talmud, commenting on the same mishnah, quotes Rabbi Yohannan, who sees virgins as model figures for fearing God. According to him and to a less gynophobic reading of the text, there is not even a hint of sin in the virgin’s behaviour, other than this concept of “playing the other”. If anything, these women are more pious and devoted than the average. This ambivalence towards, or even aversion to, “holy women” is not unique to these narratives. In “Is There a Harlot in This Text?”, Patricia Cox Miller argues that in patristic literature holy women represent a crisis in representation,70 and quotes Judith Herrin who argued that “to the church fathers the very idea of a holy woman was a contradiction in terms, which women could only get round by pretending to be men”71 – a view which is supported by many others.72 Of course, the women in our stories do not pretend to be men, and we must not forget that Jews might have had a special aversion to Jewish women who claim to be virgins but are actually not, like the famous mother of ben Pandera. Nonetheless, all the women in Jewish hell, regardless of their virginity, deviate from the Jewish ideal of womanhood. A woman’s glory is in marriage and childbearing, in the domestic sphere. The Jewish ideal of ‫כל כבודה בת מלך פנימה‬ (Psalms 45:14), “All glorious is the princess within her chamber”, that a woman’s of Mary in various versions of the Toledot Yeshu. The link between leprosy and sexual sin which is made in Sotah lives on. 70  Miller, “Is There a Harlot”, pp. 423–424. 71  Herrin, “In Search of Byzantine Women”, p. 179. 72  See, for example: Clarke, This Female Man of God, pp. 213, 220; Karras, “Holy Harlots”, p. 31; Harvey, “Women in Early Syrian Christianity”, p. 297; Harvey, “Women in Early Byzantine Hagiography”, p. 40; Patlagean, “L’histoire”, pp. 597, 605, 615.

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glory is in the confinement of her house, kept its power through the spaces and ages of the Jewish world.73 The women who show more of themselves than the men who wrote the visions see fit – Miriam the daughter of Alei Beẓalim (Onion Peels) and the women in the Chronicle of Yerhamiel and Darchei Teshuva – to live on the edge, not beyond it, yet they are still punished as if they had fallen. The reason for this may not be theological but social and political. As Perry insisted in the case of the letter of Rabbi Joshua ben Levi, and as Latteri has done more recently,74 we must also always ask about the function that stories of “problematic women” fill in the society that tells them. Stories of hell serve the function of “cautionary tales” that go beyond the obvious. Fasting virgins disappear from Jewish medieval visions because they are no longer as important as they were in the landscape of late antiquity with the rise of the Christian discourse of virgins and virginity as an ideal. Other problems persist through the ages, like those posed by women who remind men that they may have been acquired in marriage but cannot be owned. The dangerous supplement to women’s existence as chattel is always there: their personhood, their bodies, nursing, walking, trading, all may pose a threat. Even as wives and mothers their sexuality, and with it their humanity, cannot be completely owned. While all those risks are valid also in the world of Muslim, Christian, or Zoroastrian women, the specific status of Jewish women creates the specific picture of women in hell in Judaism. To sum up and conclude, we have seen that indeed the Genizah fragments and the Isaiah group of texts are so far from the Talmud Yerushalmi that they cannot be considered to be a retelling of it, but also that they show a closer proximity to the Yerushalmi than to the “lost Urtext” which Himmelfarb speculates stood behind both our fragment and the early Christian apocalypses. This brings us closer to Lieberman’s view – the fragments are later than the Yerushalmi. But the grounds I propose for this are different: what seem to Himmelfarb to be similar sexual sins bearing similar punishments (hanging by the hair for adultery, fornication, and so on) are in fact not so similar – for they are not sins whose significance is on the sexual plane. The Talmud Yerushalmi gives us the key to the mystery, as it focuses our attention on the blending of 73  The biblical verse here is given in the translation of the New International Version; other, more accurate translations notice that the verse does not in fact refer to kavod ‘honour, glory’, but to kvudah ‘belongings, possessions’. The misreading of this verse goes back to at least to early amoraic literature: see their praise of Kimhit’s modesty using this verse in the Yerushalmi (Horiaot 47d, Yoma 38d, Megillah 72a); Lamentations Rabbah 20:19; and in many other texts. 74  Latteri, “Playing the Whore”, pp. 92–96.

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private and public, person and chattel, in creating the woman as a juristic subject. Women are punished so little in hell and rewarded so little in heaven not because they are better or worse than men, but because of their reduced liability. This Jewish tradition, even if built from building blocks found all over the ancient world, is not shared by its counterparts. Bibliography Apinis, Valts, “Zoroastrian Influence upon Jewish Afterlife: Hell Punishments in Arda Wiraz and Medieval Visionary Midrashim”, PhD dissertation, University of Latvia, Riga, 2010. Ara, Mitra, Eschatology in the Indo-Iranian Traditions: The Genesis and Transformation of a Doctrine, New York: Peter Lang, 2009. Asa, Destur H.J., The Book of Arda Viraf: The Pahlavi Text, Bombay: Government Central Book Depot, 1872. Asín Palacios, Miguel, Islam and the Divine Comedy, translated and abridged by Harold Sunderland, Lahore: Quasain, 1977. Asín Palacios, Miguel, La escatología musulmana en la Divina Comedia, Madrid: Hiperion, 1984. Battistoni, Giorgio, “Dante and the Three Religions”, Dante and Islam, ed. Jan M. Ziolkowski, Bronx: Fordham University Press, 2014, pp. 214–234. Battistoni, Giorgio, Dante, Verona e la cultura ebraica, Firenze: Giuntina, 2004. Bauckham, Richard, “Early Jewish Visions of Hell”, Journal of Theological Studies 41/2 (1990), pp. 355–385. Boyce, Mary, A History of Zoroastrianism, vol. 2, Leiden: Brill, 1992. Bremmer, Jan N., “Hell: From the Apocalypse of Peter to the Apocalypse of Paul”, Numen 56/2 (2009), pp. 298–325. Bremmer, Jan N., “Orphic, Roman, Jewish and Christian Tours of Hell: Observations on the Apocalypse of Peter”, Other Worlds and their Relation to this World, eds. E. Eynikel, F. García Martínez, T. Nicklas, and J. Verheyden, Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff/Brill, 2010, pp. 305–321. Brezis, David, The Sages and their Hidden Debate with Christianity. Jerusalem: Carmel, 2018. Brodsky, David, A Bride without a Blessing: A Study in the Redaction and Content of Massekhet Kallah and Its Gemara, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006. Buchholz, Dennis, Your Eyes Will Be Opened, Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998. Cerulli, Enrico, Il “Libro della scala” e la questione delle fonti arabo-spagnole della Divina Commedia, Vatican: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1949.

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Clarke, Gillian, ‘This Female Man of God’: Women and Spiritual Power in the Patristic Age, 350–450. London: Routledge, 1995. Colby, Frederick, Narrating Muhammad’s Night Journey, Albany: State University of New York Press, 2008. Dieterich, Albrecht, Nekyia, 2nd edn, Leipzig: Teubner, 1913. Dols, Michael W., “The Leper in Medieval Islamic Society”, Speculum 58/4 (1983), pp. 891–926. Elbaum, Jacob, “Women who Entered Heaven Alive” [Hebrew], Machanaim 98 (1965), pp. 124–131. Emanuel, Simcha, Hidden Treasures from Europe, Vol. 2, Jerusalem: Mekize Nirdamim, 2019. Emanuel, Simcha, “The Responsa of R. Meir of Rothenburg – Prague edition”, Tarbiz 57/4 (1988), pp. 559–597. Foucault, Michel, Fearless Speech, Los Angeles: Semiotex(e), 2001. Gardiner, Eileen, Visions of Hell before Dante, New York: Italica, 1989. Gaster, Moses, “Hebrew Visions of Hell and Paradise”, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 25/3 (1893), pp. 571–611. Ginzberg, Louis, Ginze Schechter, New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1928. Gressmann, Hugo, Vom Reichen Mann und Armen Lazarus, Berlin: Verlag der Königlich Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1918. Gurevich, Aaron, Historical Anthropology of the Middle Ages, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992. Hadot, Pierre, Philosophy as a Way of Life, Oxford: Blackwell, 1995. Harvey, Susan, “Women in Early Byzantine Hagiography”, That Gentle Strength: Historical Perspectives on Women in Christianity, eds. Lynda L. Coon, Katherine J. Haldane and Elisabeth W. Somme, Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1990, pp. 36–57. Harvey, Susan, “Women in Early Syrian Christianity”, Images of Women in Antiquity, eds Averil Cameron and Amelie Kuhrt, London: Croom Helm, 1983, pp. 288–298. Hasan-Rokem, Galit, Web of Life: Folklore and Midrash in Rabbinic Literature, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004. Herrin, Judith, “In Search of Byzantine Women: Three Avenues of Approach”, Images of Women in Antiquity, eds Averil Cameron and Amelie Kuhrt, London: Croom Helm, 1983, pp. 167–190. Himmelfarb, Martha, Tours of Hell: An Apocalyptic Form in Jewish and Christian Literature, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983. Kadushin, Max, The Theology of Seder Eliyahu, New York: Bloch, 1932. Karras, Ruth Mazo, “Holy Harlots: Prostitute Saints in Medieval Legend”, Journal of the History of Sexuality 1 (1990), pp. 3–32.

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Krech, Volkhard, “Vom ‘paradiso terrestre’ über die ‘Himmelsreise der Seele’ zum ‘fundus animae’: Jenseitsvorstellungen als Thema der Religionswissenschaft im späten 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhundert”, Das Jenseits, ed. L. Hölscher, Göttingen: Wallstein, 2007, pp. 152–177. Kushelevsky, Rella, “Rabbi Joshua Ben Levi and the Angel of Death”, Encyclopedia of Jewish Tales, vol. 1: Sipur Okev Sipur, eds. A. Lipsker, Y. Elstein, R. Kushelevsky, Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 2004, pp. 179–261. Latteri, Natalie E., “Playing the Whore: Illicit Union and the Biblical Typology of Promiscuity in the Toledot Yeshu Tradition”, Shofar 33/2 (2015), pp. 87–102. Le Goff, Jacques, The Birth of Purgatory, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984. Le Goff, Jacques, “The Learned and the Popular Dimensions of the Journeys in the Otherworld in the Middle Ages”, Understanding Popular Culture, ed. S.L. Kaplan, Berlin: Mouton, 1984, pp. 19–37. Lieberman, Saul, “Emendations on the Jerusalemi” [Hebrew], Tarbiz 5 (1934/5), pp. 97–100. Lieberman, Saul, “On Sins and Their Punishment”, Texts and Studies, ed. Saul Lieberman, New York: Ktav, 1976, pp. 29–51. Mann, Jacob, “Genizah Studies”, American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literature 46,4 (1930), pp. 263–283. Marmelstein, Benjamin, “Review of Louis Ginzberg, Genizei Schechters”, Kiryat Sefer 6 (1929–1930), pp. 318–328. Milikowsky, Chaim, “Gehenna and ‘Sinners of Israel’ in light of ‘Seder Olam’ ” [Hebrew], Tarbiz 55/3 (1986), pp. 311–343. Miller, Patricia Cox, “Is There a Harlot in this Text? Hagiography and the Grotesque”, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 33/3 (2003), pp. 419–435. Muhammed Ibn Ismaiel, Al-Bukhari (Sahih Bukhari), The Translation of the Meanings of Sahih Al-Bukhari – Arabic-English, Vol. 1, Trans. Muhammad Muhsin Khan, eds. Taqi-ud-Din Al-Hilali, Nasif Al-Ubaydi, Mahmud Hamad Nasr, and Muhammad Amin Al-Misri. Riyadh: Darussalam, 1997, p. 69. Patlagean, Evelyne, ““L’histoire de La Femme Déguisée En Moine et L’évolution de La Sainteté Féminine à Byzance,” Studi Medievali 17 (1976), pp. 598–623. Perry, Micha J., “Jewish Heaven, Christian Hell, Rabbi Joshua ben Levi’s Vision of the Afterlife”, Journal of Medieval History 43/2 (2017), pp. 212–227. Perry, Micha J., Tradition and Transformation: Knowledge Transmission among European Jews in the Middle Ages [Hebrew], Tel Aviv: Hakibutz Hameuhad, 2010. Raveh, Inbar, Feminist Rereading of Rabbinic Literature, Boston: Brandeis University Press, 2014. Rosen-Zvi, Ishai, “Do Women Have Yetzer?” [Hebrew], Spiritual Authority: Struggles over Cultural Power in Jewish Thought, eds. Howard Kriesel, Boaz Huss, and Uri Ehrlich, Beer-Sheva: Ben-Gurion University Press, 2010. pp. 21–34.

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Satlow, Michal, “Man and Woman He Created Them” [Hebrew], Continuity and Change: Jews and Judaism in Byzantine Christian Palestine, ed. Israel Lee Levine, Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi, 2004, pp. 486–504. Shaked, Shaul, “Iranian Influence on Judaism: First Century B.C.E. to Second Century C.E.”, The Cambridge History of Judaism, vol. 1: Introduction – The Persian Period, eds William D. Davies and Louis Finkelstein, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984, pp. 308–325. Smith, Jane Idelman and Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad, The Islamic Understanding of Death and Resurrection, Albany: State University of New York Press, 1981. Smith, Jane Idelman and Yvonne Yazbeck Haddad, “Women in the Afterlife: The Islamic View as Seen from the Qurʾan and Tradition”, Journal of the American Academy of Religion 43 (1975), pp. 39–50. Stone, Michael, “The Metamorphosis of Ezra: Jewish Apocalypse and Medieval Vision”, Journal of Theological Studies 33/1 (1982), pp. 1–18. Stone, Michael and John Strungell, The Book of Elijah, Parts 1–2: Texts and Translations, Missoula: Scholars Press, 1979. Thomassen, Einar, “Islamic Hell”, Nomen 56/2 (2009), pp. 401–416. Thomassen, Einar, “Uses of Hell”, Nomen 56/2 (2009), pp. 139–140. Wagner, Judith Romney, Chattel or Person? The Status of Women in the Mishnah, New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. Yassif, Eli, Sefer Hazikhronot or the Chronicle of Yerhamiel, Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 2011. Ziolkowski, Jan M., Dante and Islam, Bronx: Fordham University Press, 2014.

CHAPTER 6

Portrayals of Biblical Figures in Lost Aggadic Traditions from the Cairo Genizah: Feminist Considerations Moshe Lavee The Cairo Genizah has taught us that aggadic compilations were subject to a long and vital protocanonical stage of evolution and transmission. Even before the discovery of the Genizah, scholars were aware of lost and neglected midrashic works and traditions, represented in medieval anthologies or preserved in European manuscripts. However, it was the Genizah that revealed the immense variety of midrashic texts, the richness of literary forms, and their evolution into later genres of Jewish thought and hermeneutical activity. This variety of texts represents a long period of creative transmission, in which traditions were reworked, reshaped, and rearranged. Such activities took place from the middle of the first millennium CE and continued well into the second millennium. The reproduction of aggadic materials can also be traced to a wide variety of geo-cultural milieus, with representatives in both Eastern and European communities. For various reasons, by the beginning of the print era some midrashic works were more popular and more widely circulated, and following their publication in print editions, they constitute the “canon” of midrashic literature.1 Wertheimer was probably the first to publish lost aggadic texts from the Cairo Genizah, even before the majority of the Genizah was brought to Cambridge and constituted a new era of study.2 Later on, Schechter himself contributed to the task of publishing such materials, followed mainly by Ginzberg and Mann.3 However, after an enthusiastic half century of publications, scholarly attention to these texts began to fade, and the interest in Genizah fragments

1  Bregman, “Midrash Rabbah”; Williams, “The Ingathering of Midrash Rabbah”. I am grateful to Hillel Newman who offered the term “protocanonical”. 2  Wertheimer, Batei Midrashot. 3  Schechter, “Midrash Fragment”; Ginzberg, Ginze Schechter, vol. 1; Mann and Sonne, The Bible as Read, vol. 2.

© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004422179_007

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of classical midrashim became dominant.4 With the exception of Lerner and Bregman, and recently the descriptions and transcriptions of additional materials by Milikowsky and his team, scholars ceased to occupy themselves with these materials.5 Furthermore, it seems that even where lost and rediscovered aggadic Genizah texts have now been published and are available in print anthologies and digital resources,6 this body of knowledge has not made it into the “circulatory system” of scholarly discussion. Thus, some of the texts now lie in a kind of virtual second Genizah in the volumes in which they were first published,7 without ever being discussed or even mentioned, reminding us of S.Y. Agnon’s witty saying that “Festschrift volumes are nothing but graveyards for articles”. The Aggadic Midrash in the Communities of the Genizah Project at the University of Haifa aims at turning scholarly attention back towards such fragments, and making this valuable corpus available for whoever wishes to study or use them. Working on these fragments brings some moments of frustration. Lost aggadic texts found in the Genizah clearly contribute to the study of literary forms, suggesting a better delineation of the form history of homiletic midrashim. They signal the rise and fall of subgenres, and the delicate process by which the aggadic midrash continued to play a vital role in Jewish learning and preaching in the shadow of the prevailing halakhic activity and the threat of the development of rational thinking from the geonic era on. However, when it comes to content a certain question arises. Do they teach us something new? That is, is there anything in them that is essentially different from a recycling 4  Of special value are the extensive mapping of fragments of Genesis Rabbah by Sokolow, The Geniza Fragments; of Leviticus Rabbah by Schlüter and Milikowsky, “Synoptic Edition of Vayyiqra Rabba”; and of Lamentation Rabbah by Mandel, “Midrash Lamentations Rabbati”. 5  Lerner’s contribution to the field is scattered in a variety of articles. A summary focused on Esther midrashim, but also taking into account the contribution of other Genizah midrashic fragments, is found in Lerner, “The Works of Aggadic Midrash”; Bregman, Sifrut Tanḥuma-Yelamdenu. See also Rabinowitz, Ginzei Midrash, a work that brings together fragments of lost and known works, and thus represents the turn to which I am referring. For the contribution of Milikowsky’s team (which also covers hand lists and unpublished cataloguing data provided by Lerner and Bregman), see the Cairo Genizah section in The Friedberg Jewish Manuscript Society (FJMS) website (https://fjms.genizah.org/). 6  Such as the inclusion of midrashic Genizah materials in Kasher, Torah Shlema, and in Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews. Fragments published by Mann are available on the website of the Responsa Project (http://www.responsa.co.il/home.he.aspx), and many others are available, transcribed and linguistically analysed, on the Ma’agarim website (http://maagarim .hebrew-academy.org.il/Pages/PMain.aspx). 7  An interesting exception is Midrash Chadash, which was recently published in a new edition. See Vachman, Midrash Hadash.

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of common classical rabbinic themes and motifs? This sense that the material is recycled might also help to explain why these texts have been neglected once again. In this paper I would like to point out some texts that represent a different perspective from the one that we assume prevails in common midrashim. These traditions seem to present a slightly less patriarchal perspective than those known to us in, or thought to be typical of, the classical rabbinic corpus. They offer positive representations of female figures or critical views concerning men’s conduct towards women. These traditions praise female biblical characters, portray them in a positive manner, and grant them a higher degree of agency, fostering mutual – though not equal – relations between husbands and wives. In a complementary manner, related traditions also criticise male biblical heroes for their maltreatment of women.8 For various reasons, these traditions did not make it into the later canonised corpus of rabbinic midrashim, nor did they gain a central place in the “Jewish collective memory” as shaped by the most popular agents of rabbinic aggadic activity, the Babylonian Talmud and Rashi’s biblical commentary. As we shall see in detail, in some cases lost midrashic materials were also preserved in medieval anthologies. There are many cases in which published anthologies such as Yalkut Shimoni, Midrash Hagadol, and Pitron Torah preserved traditions which are otherwise only known to us from the Genizah. In such cases, even if we do not know the origin of the midrash, at least it is available in print editions of these anthologies. In other cases, such traditions are hidden in midrashic anthologies that are still in manuscripts, and the task of digging them out is complementary to that of finding lost midrashic fragments from the Genizah. In most cases, the disappearance of the “lost traditions” might be accidental. However, as we shall later see, in one case at least we can trace a hint of intentional censorship. Prior to the presentation of the traditions, a few methodological remarks are necessary. In order to argue for the presence of a different perspective in a lost tradition retrieved from the Cairo Genizah, one must apply an intensive comparative study. Many aspects and elements in the tradition presented here may be traced to other traditions, known to us from classical rabbinic literature. Nevertheless, the unique traditions preserved in the Genizah demonstrate a certain composition and specific literary settings which constituted a different point of view. They either blur, intensify, confront, or respond to the tradition with which we are familiar. As a result, in this article I am not only 8  One may also consider the many variations of Midrash Eshet Chayil in the Genizah; see Levine-Katz, “Midreshei Eshet Hayil”; and Lerner, “A New Fragment”. Another related fragment is Manchester Rylands A 125.

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interested in pointing out the existence of this rare tradition, but also in carrying out the compositional and literary analysis that enables me to delineate its distinctiveness. The second methodological issue relates to the question of the historical significance of findings such as rare aggadic representations of women. Are they representative of any actual social trend? What, if they had any effect at all, was their role in shaping men’s and women’s self-conception in medieval societies? Can we trace the delicate lines of influence by which the art of narration participated in shaping daily practices or legal norms? Furthermore, can we fix these traditions to specific contexts within the wide geocultural and chronological prisms recorded in the Genizah? Since we are occupied with a vast array of the creative transmission of ancient traditions, it is very difficult to locate these traditions and their reception. Are they typical of a certain period or certain communities? Are they the coincidental preservation of ancient trends that no longer had actual cultural or social implications? How can we locate a midrashic tradition found in the Genizah in a certain time and place? Where did it come from? Does it reflect the social values of the time of the original work from which it is drawn or that of the later anthology in which it is now placed? Here we face many challenges. First, we have no definite means of correlating the traditions with specific times and places. Even if we had clear information allowing us to date the fragments (and we do not), it would not necessarily indicate when these midrashic materials were redacted. Furthermore, when it comes to aggadic traditions, there is always the possibility that any particular text simply reproduces an earlier tradition, preserving tendencies which might represent its time of origin, and not the time of its redaction.9 The problem is even more complex when one takes into account that we are dealing with re-narrations of biblical accounts, which may simply amplify voices already present in the Bible. One can argue, for example, that aggadic portrayals of Tamar as challenging the patriarchal power structure are nothing but the cloning of a biblical perspective.10 The traditions in themselves are insufficient for making the leap from the imagined biblical account

9  In an example I discuss elsewhere, we were able to trace the origins of a “less patriarchal” midrashic tradition in a non-Masoretic vocalisation known to Josephus, the Qumran writers, and early Christian writers, which concerns the Egyptian midwives; See Lavee and Strauch Schick, “The Egyptian Midwives”. 10  The comparative method referred to in the former paragraph is also relevant. By examining the tradition discussed here with former rabbinic portrayals, we note a tendency to silence such aspects in the biblical account, while these are being reintroduced in the later, less patriarchal Genizah account.

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to actual social institutions and norms practised in the societies of Genizah communities. Nonetheless, one should not neglect the effort to present them, and to make them subject to further enquiry. In particular, it is possible to envision a future synthesis with other findings, whether the synthesis involves a comparison with other literary fields (in a similar manner to what I do here with some examples of piyyutim) or involves considering the literary presentation in the light of any documentary evidence. Let me exemplify this claim by looking at the possible historical contexts of one late midrashic tradition, though this particular tradition comes from Seder Eliyahu, and not from the Genizah. In a recent presentation,11 Adiel Kadari showed that Seder Eliyahu tends to interpret biblical uses of the verb “to seat” as referring to the context of Torah study and institutional aspects of the yeshiva. Among these interpretations is the reading of Judges 4:5 – “And she sat under the palm-tree” (JPS Tanakh 1917) – as a portrayal of Deborah as teaching the Torah to the public.12 One could easily argue that such an exposition lacks any historical significance. It is simply an application, maybe even a mechanical reproduction, of an exegetical convention widely used in this compilation. Furthermore, the midrash could simply be treated as a re-enactment of the biblical rarity of Deborah as a woman in a leadership role by transferring the image from biblical aspects of leadership to those typical of the context of Seder Eliyahu, portraying her as a Torah scholar. Nevertheless, I would like to argue that such a portrayal can be produced only if the social model implied is possible, either in the actual cultural surroundings or as a validly imagined possibility. The consideration of other literary evidence, such as the eulogies for learned daughters published by Be’eri and the portrayal by Petachiah of Regensburg of the daughter of Shmu’el b. Eli in Baghdad as teaching the Torah, might suggest a possible context for the image of Deborah which is found in Seder Eliyahu.13 That evidence implies that at a certain time and in a certain geo-cultural context, some women were knowledgeable and even taught the Torah, in the Judaeo-Arabic milieu and specifically in Baghdad. Examining late midrashic traditions and comparing them

11  At the 2016 Annual Meeting of the European Association of Biblical Studies (EABS) in Leuven. 12  Friedmann, Seder Eliyahu 10, p. 50. 13  Greenhut, Sibbuv R. Petahiah, pp. 9–10; Be’eri, “Dirges”; and the bibliography listed in notes 5, 6, and 9. One may also consider cases of women as teachers described in Maimonides’ responsa. See Levine Mellamed, “A Woman Teacher”. However, in this cases women are teaching toddlers, and are far from any prestigious status as Torah scholars.

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with other sources might correlate them with actual historical practice.14 The depiction of Deborah in Seder Eliyahu can thus be reconsidered, and seen either as reflecting this rare context or as providing us with a text that helped to create the cultural horizon which enabled the appearance of women who taught the Torah.15 While I do not turn to similar efforts in discussing the tradition presented here, I hope that paying attention to these traditions will enable the scholarly community to consider them as part of a wider synthesis of the social and gender studies of Genizah communities. In any case, it is important to clarify that the method applied here only aspires to examine marginal views, and that I do not intent to argue that the traditions discussed here are representative of later periods in contrast to the tendencies that prevailed in earlier periods. Similar tendencies may also be found in canonical rabbinic texts, and a balanced presentation should recall the presence of opposite cases in which the Genizah preserves traditions that tend to be more patriarchal than those known in the canonical midrashim.16 My third methodological comment concerns the feminist evaluation of such traditions. Fonrobert presented some important considerations, when discussing similar traditions.17 She pointed out the tendency of early feminist readings to celebrate the rare appearances of subversive midrashic traditions, whether they present positive images of women or promote rebellious reactions to patriarchal hegemony.18 Fonrobert also challenged perceptions of the midrashic genre as an effective tool in raising counter-hegemonic voices,19 arguing for “the conservative function of aggadic midrash as a hermeneutic tool, 14  For a nice example of the use of a lost aggadic midrash (T-S Misc. 36.122) as one of a variety of different sources, see the discussion of veils for women in Friedman, “Halakha as Evidence”, p. 91. 15  As such, the minor detail discussed here may be added to those which support a late dating of Seder Eliyahu, correlating it with the geonic era; see the survey concerning its dating in Kadari, ‘“Talmud Torah”, n. 2. 16  One may point to traditions that foster women staying at home and imply there are strict dress codes. Such traditions align with the patriarchal tendencies noticed by Hillel Newman in his study of ma‌ʾasim literature, mainly based on Genizah fragments; Newman, Ma‌ʾasim, pp. 95–104. 17  Fonrobert, “The Handmaid”. 18  See, for example, the treatment of Tamar in Bronner, “Aggadic Attitudes”. Bronner emphasises positive elements in the portrayal of Tamar, though she does remark that “[t]he perspective is always male, however. These stories never enter the head or heart of the woman involved. Nevertheless, the image is variegated” (p. 40). 19  Such a reading assumes that, since rabbinic literature was transmitted and redacted by men, it represents their own perspectives and agendas; see also Weisberg, “Men Imagining Women”. However, it is also important to recall the ethnographic model for the reading of rabbinic literature suggested by Hasan-Rokem, Tales of the Neighborhood, pp. 3–27. This

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to maintain the basic androcentric structures of the biblical world” (p. 247).20 Of special importance to this paper is Fonrobert’s discussion of biblical accounts and related traditions that grant women the power to challenge patriarchal authority through trickster behaviour. She notes that the overall function of such a tradition is that rebellious acts are subjugated to supporting and promoting men’s authority. This model of reading is clearly applicable to the traditions discussed here. The positive portrayals of women, and especially those elements which grant them a higher degree of agency, appear in contexts which relate to their ability to give birth and thus continue the genealogies of dominant men.21 1

Example 1: Rebecca and Isaac: the Mutuality of Marriage22

The first example is taken from a homiletic midrash for the Babylonian annual cycle of Torah lections, a midrashic genre only known thanks to the Genizah.23 The compilation is an astonishing example showing the neglect of lost and re-found aggadic midrashim. The Genizah provides us with large chunks of the text, covering from the middle of Genesis deep into Leviticus, as well as some portions from Deuteronomy (from the same work or from a work in the same genre). Palaeographic features of the Genizah fragments, including the Babylonian vocalization,24 and the explicit writing of the Tetragrammaton, imply that the text was copied around the 10th or 11th century.25 It seems that this work – or another lost midrash represented in it in a secondary use – was well known for a period of time in the East, and a further reconstruction of it model may justify claims about the capacity of rabbinic literature to preserve the voices of non-hegemonic segments of society. 20  For similar observations concerning the relations of aggadah and halakha and the supporting function of allegedly subversive midrashim, see Lavee, “The ‘Other’ Bursts from Within”. 21  This dynamic also works in portrayals of the wives and daughters of rabbinic figures; see the discussion in Lavee, “Like Mother Like Daughter”. 22  This first example is based on a study done with Shana Strauch Schick, Yachin Epstein, and Tova Sacher. Strauch Schick and I are preparing a detailed study devoted to this tradition. 23  A large part of the text was reconstructed from fragments: T-S C1.45, T-S C2.42, T-S AS 62.61, T-S C2.178, BL Or. 10587.23, and Manchester Rylands A 1084 and A 1807 (some catalogues mistakenly refer to A 1087). 24  The hand has a certain resemblance to 9th–10th century Sifra, MS Vatican 66. 25  Bregman, “Early Fragment,” pp. 205–6; Ezra Fleischer, “The ‘Tetragrammaton Siddur’”, p. 304, n. 1, notes the rarity of the written Tetragrammaton in Genizah documents.

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may be possible by extracting quotations from anthologies such as Midrash Hagadol and Pitron Torah, and more.26 Portions of the text were published by Ginzberg and Mann, and a facsimile edition was published by Yeivin due to the importance of its Babylonian vocalisation; the Ma’agarim and Cairo Genizah section in The Friedberg Jewish Manuscript Society (FJMS) websites include helpful transcriptions, though they are yet to be emended in places.27 Nonetheless, the text has largely escaped scholarly awareness, and many are not familiar with it.28 The homily for Toldot provides a unique depiction of Isaac and Rebecca as they cope with their barrenness. In the commentary to Genesis 25:21 (from T-S C1.45), the midrash portrays their mutual effort, contrasting it with the misconduct of Abraham: “Isaac entreated the Lord on behalf of [his wife]” (Gen. 25:21). Come and see: the conduct [of] Isa[ac] is not like the conduct of Abraham. Abraham’s wife was barren for many years and he did not ple[ad for mer] cy on her behalf. But when our forefather Isaac saw the matter, [ ] he began to plead for mercy on her behalf.29

‫ויעתר יצחק ה׳ לנכח [ ] בוא וראה‬ ‫דרכו [ש]לי[צחק] ?לא? כדרכו של‬ ‫אברהם אברהם נעקרה אש׳ כמה‬ ‫שנים ו?ל?א ב[קש] [רח]מים עליה‬ ‫אבל אבינו יצחק כיון שראה את‬ ‫הדדבר [  ]התחיל ובקש רחמים‬ .‫עליה‬

26  Urbach, Sefer Pitron Torah, p. 402, identified fourteen references to the text in Pitron Torah, and noted the possible use of a common Tanhuma-Yelamdenu source (p. 24). The affinity of our text to Pitron Torah is an as yet unsolved riddle. Yoel Raziel-Kretchmer is currently examining a few sections which imply that our text represents a secondary use of Pitron Torah, and we hope to discuss the question in a forthcoming publication. The affinity to Midrash Hagadol is clearly seen from the homily discussed below. 27   T-S C1.45, T-S C2.42, and T-S C2.178 were first published by Mann and Sonne, The Bible, vol. 2, pp. 167–203; and Yeivin, Mishnaic Genizah Fragments, pp. 199–200. The Ma’agarim online edition includes T-S C1.45, T-S C2.42, T-S C2.178, and T-S AS 62.61. 28  See, however, Bregman, Sifrut Tanḥuma-Yelamdenu, pp. 96, 187; Bregman, “An Early Fragment”, p. 206 n. 25; Havazelet, “Nature and Purpose”; Kasher, Torah Shelemah, vol. 26, p. 130 n. 25*; Rabinowitz, Ginzei Midrash, pp. 53–54; Urbach, Sefer Pitron Torah. 29  The translation was done by Shana Shick Strauch. Biblical quotes are translated according to JPS with minor amendments according to the context of the Midrash. Although we have found no parallels to this section, Buber, Tanhuma, Vayetze 19, p. 156 has a similar text, in which Rachel faces Jacob with the same criticism raised here against Abraham. (See its abbreviated parallel in Buber, Midrash Lekach Tov, Gen. 30:1, (Buber, Leckach Tov, p. 150): ‫)בקש עלי רחמים כשם שבקש אביך בעד רבקה‬.

148 “On behalf of (lit. across from) his wife.” It should have written “[Isaac entreated] for his wife”? This teaches that the two of them prayed opposite one [another. She] said, “Master of the universe, if it be Your will to grant him [a child, give me only from] this righteous man.”30 H[e] said, “Master of the uni[verse, if it be Your will to grant] me a child, gi[ve me] only from [this] righteous woman.”

Lavee

‫לנו?כ?ח אש?תו? ראוי לומר [ויעתר‬ ‫יצחק] בעד אשתו ?מ?ל?מ?ד‬ .‫ששבהן(!) היו מתפללין זה כנ?ג?[ד זו‬ ‫היא]אמרת רבינו של עול׳ אם רצונך‬ ‫לתת לו [ ] הצדיק ?כז?ה תו(!) ה[וא‬ .‫ רבינו של ע?ו?[ ] לי ולד‬.‫היה] אומר‬ ‫אל ?ת?[תן לי ולד] אילא מן הצדקת‬ ]‫ה[זו‬

The text continues, describing Rebecca’s prayer and its role, and concludes by presenting the prayers of both Isaac and Rebecca as beneficial:31

30  The fragment is torn, and it is difficult to firmly reconstruct the text. The reading ‫תו‬ seems quite sure, yet the contexts implies that the original text, even if copied wrongly by the scribe read ‫הצדיק הזה תן‬. Parallels: Gen. Rabbah 63:5 (Albeck and Theodor, Bereshit Rabba, p. 681); Midrash Aggadah Gen. 25:21 (Buber, Midrash Aggadah p. 62); Lekach Tov, Gen. 25:21 (Buber, Lekach Tov , p. 119); Midrash Hagadol Gen. 25:21, (Margulies, Midrash Hagadol, vol. 1 p. 432); Midrash Shmuel 6:3 (Lifshitz, Midrash Shmuel , p. 26; Ruth Rabbah 7:14. In Midrash Shmuel and Ruth Rabbah the prayer is also attributed to Ruth and Hannah. 31  Parallels: Midrash Hagadol Gen. 25:22 (Margulies, Midrash Hagadol, vol. 1, p. 435), which also contains a similar tradition concerning Hannah. The Hannah tradition is found in BT Ber. 31b, Yalkut Shimoni, Shm.I 78 (Hyman, Yalkut Shimoni on Former Prophets, vol. 1, p. 177) and MS Parma 563 of Midrash Shmuel 2:10. (Lifshitz omits this tradition from his critical edition, since it is absent from Midrash Shmuel, ed. Constantinople 1516). He surmises that the text in MS Parma is a late addition based on BT Ber., since the Bavli seems to have been unknown to the editor of Midrash Shmuel(See Lifshitz, Midrash Shmuel, p. 10 note to line 9, and p. 149.) Mann, probably unaware of the parallel to the Genizah midrash in Midrash Hagadol, inferred that the redactors recast this prayer in the name of Rebecca (Mann and Sonne, The Bible, vol. 2, p. 170 n. 7). Similarly, Margulies, in his edition of Midrash Hagadol, concedes to being unaware of the Genizah midrash, speculating that the tradition about Rebecca was grafted from Hannah’s prayer reported in BT Ber. (Margulies, Midrash Hagadol, vol. 1, p. 435 note to line 3). It seems that both traditions stem from a lost Tanhuma recension, which typically lists multiple biblical examples together.

Portrayals of Biblical Figures in Lost Aggadic Traditions

Rebecca [said] before the Holy One, blessed be He: “Did You create anything in a person [for naught]?: Y[ou created] eyes to see; ears to hear; a mouth to speak; a heart to understand; hands to feel; legs to walk. What is the purpose of these breasts? To suckle!” This teaches that both32 ascended before God, and He granted her pregnancy.

149

‫[ אמרה ר]?ב?קה לפני ה׳ק׳ב׳ה׳ו׳‬ ]‫כלום בראת באדם דבר [ ] ב[ראת‬ ‫עינים לראות אזנים לשמוע פה לדבר‬ ‫לב להבין ידים למשש רגלים להלך‬ ‫דדים הללו למה הל!ו! להניק מלמד‬ ‫שעלת?ה? שנים לפני מקום ונתן לה‬ ‫היריון‬

The text also praises Rebecca, as seen in its commentary to Genesis 25:20:33 “Isaac was 40 years old [when he took to wife Rebecca the daughter of Bethuel]” (Gen. 25:20). [Why does] scripture mention “Rebecca the daughter of Bethuel”? The righteous woman is pedigreed through her father and brother, to teach you [that even though] they were deceivers and Rebecca was raised among them, she did not learn from their wicked de[eds].

] …[ .?‫וי?ה?י יצחק בן ?מ?[…] ש?נ‬ ‫הכתוב את רבקה בת בתואל הצדקת‬ ‫מיחסה באב ובאח ללמדך […]הם‬ ‫רמאיין היו ונתגדלה רבקה בינותם‬ ‫ולא למדה ממע[שיהם] ?ה?רעים‬

These texts are taken from the exegesis (the body or gufa) of a developed homily, demonstrating a strong literary cohesion. As such, this late midrash is an important example for the continuous development of compositional features. Like other lost homiletic texts retrieved from the Genizah, it implies that the “art of composition”, first suggested by Heinemann for the study of classical amoraic midrashim, continued to flourish.34 Indeed, in this case, form and content came together to express the value of mutual relations. Rebecca and Isaac epitomise that ideal married couple 32  It is possible that the scribe omitted the word “‫”תפלת‬, namely that the original text read “the prayer of both ascended before God” 33  See Genesis Rabbah 63:5 (Albeck and Theodor, Bereshit Rabba, pp. 680–681), with parallels in Lev. Rabbah 23 (Margulies, Midrash Vayyikra Rabbah, pp. 526–527); and also the later text witnesses in Midrash Hagadol Gen. 25:20 (Margulies, Midrash Hagadol, vol. 1, p. 432) and Midrash Aggadah Gen. 25:20 (Buber, Midrash Aggadah, p. 62). The latter strongly resembles the Genizah midrash; unlike all extant parallel versions of this tradition, which attribute it to Rabbi Isaac, Midrash Aggadah and our text contain no attributions on Toldot. 34  Heinemann, “Profile of a Midrash”, pp. 142–145; see also Cohen, “Leviticus Rabbah”. Recent critiques of Heinemann include Stern, “Vayikra Rabbah”; and Visotzky, Golden Bells and Pomegranates, pp. 16–22.

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who serve as helpmates and support for one another; they pray together, on behalf of the other, and regard each other as righteous. The text presents them in this manner following portrayals of opposing familial situations, and thus highlights their mutual relationship, and places their successful marriage as a climactic point in the section. In addition to an explicit portrayal of the cooperation of Isaac and Rebecca in coping with their barrenness, the homily also emphasises the number two,35 and contains many sentences with internal dual parallelism.36 This reinforces the implied parallelism between Rebecca and Isaac. Rebecca pursued her own conduct, different and better than the conduct of her family, and Isaac similarly did not follow his father’s bad model in the treatment of his barren wife. This is a crucial element in constructing the homily as a coherent text, since it may be read as a response to the petichta that served as the first part of the homily. That petichta presents Abraham’s marriage to Keturah as the fulfilment of the demand to marry and procreate even in old age. It emphasises the halakhic obligation of men, and reflects a practical and patriarchal understanding of marriage. Isaac departed from the wrong practices of his father, just as Rebecca departed from her own family’s practices. The exegetical presentation seems to offer an alternative model, morally preferable, of prayers and mutual relations between a couple, as demonstrated by Rebecca and Isaac. A thorough survey of the many parallels to this text in known midrashim clearly reveals that none introduce such a strong emphasis on the mutuality of Isaac and Rebecca, nor criticise Abraham in such a manner.37 Another relevant 35  The petichta verse, Eccles. 11:6, concludes “whether both (‫ )שניהם‬of them will be equally good”, and the interpretive section records “the two of them prayed” and “both (‫)שנים‬ ascended before God”, affirming that it was the merit of both Isaac’s and Rebecca’s prayers performed simultaneously that led to God granting them children. “Both of them will be equally good” may allude to the power of Isaac and Rebecca’s combined prayers and marriage. 36  Two symmetrical prayers by Rebecca and Isaac are cited, along with two prayers of Rebecca, the second of which lists a series of doubled body parts: eyes, ears, hands, legs, and breasts (the Hebrew dual form of the body parts likewise evokes the “two” motif). God’s response to their prayers is presented twice, the second time employing a symmetrical presentation (his prayer … her prayer); and the first three expositions present opposing pairs and are seemingly contrasted with the well-suited pair of Rebecca and Isaac. 37  For example, the text contrasts Abraham’s multiple marriages and a man’s duty to procreate, in the petichta, with Isaac and Rebecca’s monogamous marriage of mutual concern. They are both righteous, caring for one another, and offer parallel, concurrent prayers that are equally effective in petitioning for a child. The emphasis on mutuality becomes evident in comparing it to parallels that refer only to Isaac’s prayer: for example, Lekach Tov has … ‫ וכן היא אמרה … מלמד שהיה מתפלל‬while the Genizah midrash has

Portrayals of Biblical Figures in Lost Aggadic Traditions

151

element is a description of Rebecca’s inner feelings about the battle between Esau and Jacob, which seem to echo the physical experiences of childbirth, and may suggest a certain ability to express women’s inner feelings.38 However, some of the distinctive elements in the Genizah midrash are also clearly found in Midrash Hagadol; both texts made use of the same lost Tanhuma recension. As we shall also see in the following examples, the “less patriarchal traditions” are preserved not only in the Genizah but also in medieval anthologies. The next example shares some essential affinities to the one found here. The positive portrayal of Rebecca here comes together with praising her ability to rebel against her father’s ways, and with explicit criticism directed towards Abraham. These are the elements that constitute a greater agency for her, and might even seem to be celebrating a woman’s rebellious stance against patriarchal hegemony. However, one should remember that these elements are recruited here to create a scene in which Rebecca can fulfil her female role, that of giving birth and enabling the continuity of the ancestry of Israel. Rebecca is given a voice, she utters a prayer, yet the content of the prayer put in her mouth states that her body is useless if it does not fulfil the function of procreation. As such, this example clearly fits the methodological model offered by Fonrobert. 2

Example 2: In Praise of Tamar and the Question of Agency

The second example is taken from a fragment of a lost midrashic anthology on Genesis in EVR II A455/6 in the Firkovitch collection.39 The manuscript is relatively late, probably postdating the classical Genizah period, and shows possible Spanish influence in its script which might be dated to the mid second millennium. Nevertheless, as already mentioned above, anthologies are important sources for lost midrashic traditions, which might have originated in a much earlier source used by the compiler of the anthology. The anthology includes known Tanhuma materials together with lost materials, some of … ‫מלמד ששניהן היו מתפללין … ]היא[ אמרת … ]והוא היה[ אומר‬. The text twice affirms that God accepted both of their prayers, an idea which appears nowhere else in extant sources. In parallel texts, only Isaac’s prayer was accepted; notably, BT Yebam. 64a explains this as stemming from Rebecca’s flawed pedigree. Midrash Aggadah Gen. 25:21, (Buber, Midrash Aggadah, p. 62) explicitly argues that God only accepted Isaac’s prayer, and not Rebecca’s, and Midrash Tehilim 59:1 (Buber, Midrash Tehilim, p. 151) contains a similar tradition, though it does not mention Rebecca. 38  See Strauch Schick, “Depictions of Childbirth”. 39  This tradition was noted by Gila Vachman during our survey, and was presented at a conference in Haifa. The discussion here is based on her observations and adds to them.

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Tanhuma style. It is possible that some of the lost materials in this anthology belong to the genre of annual cycle midrashim, a point I shall return to in the conclusion.40 Two pages were preserved, including materials for Vayeshev and Miketz. Among the lost midrashic materials we find a special praise of Tamar, comparing her to Ruth:41 Rabbi Meir said: Two women were joined to the holy people, and became widows. They [= the people of Israel] wish to send them [= the women] back to their gods and to the house of their gods, but they [= the two women] did not want to depart from the Shekhinah [= the divine presence], and thus they had the merit and both priesthood and kinship came from them [= their offspring were kings and priests]. And who are they? Tamar and Ruth.

‫א״ר מאיר שתים נשים זווגו‬ ‫בעם הקדש ונתארמלו ורצו‬ ‫להחזירן לאלהיהן ולבית‬ ‫אלהיהן ולא רצו להיפרד מן‬ ‫השכינה לפיכך זכו ויצאו מהן‬ ‫מלכות וכהונה ומאן נינהו‬ .‫תמר ורות‬

40  The first page includes the end of a petichta. It was probably a circular petichta on Hosea 14:1 accompanying the sidra of Gen. 39:1 (according to the triannual cycle reading of the Torah). A petichta with the same remote verse is found in Genesis Rabbah 86:1 and parallel materials are found in Tanhuma Vayeshev 4. The following section is a petichta to Genesis 37:1 with the remote verse Isaiah 32:18. This petichta is presented with the term ‫כתיב‬, functioning in the same role as ‫ זש״ה‬in Tanhuma. This term is also found in the previous example discussed in this paper, and it is typical also in other fragments of annual cycle midrashim (e.g. T-S C2.77; ENA 2597.3–6), as well as in the genre of Lekach Tov, and in a Judaeo-Arabic genre of sermons such as those found in Kitab Al-Tufaha (MS Oxford Huntington 115). It is at the end of this petichta that the text discussed in this example is found. The strange structure of the text, in which a petichta to Genesis 39:1 appears before a petichta to Genesis 37:1, may be explained in the following way. The anthologist collected materials from various texts that were already organised according to the Babylonian annual cycle. He thus first included all materials for Vayeshev from one midrash, including also texts for the second Palestinian sidra in Genesis 39:1, and then moved on to materials from another midrash to Vayeshev, and in doing this returned to Genesis 37:1. The second page of this fragment, which I do not discuss here, includes texts for Miketz, usually similar to Tanhuma Miketz 1–4 with significant variants. The last pages present Yerushalmi-style legal material on mourning related to Moed Qatan 3:5. This might be an interesting key to analysis, as the legal material is related to a halakhic proem found in the parallel text in Tanhuma. I hope to return to this case again, in a discussion of the development of the “legal Sugiah proem” which became popular in some Tanhuma works, such as the print edition of Deuteronomy Rabbah. 41  Biblical translations are based on NIV with minor amendments when needed to suit the midrashic context.

Portrayals of Biblical Figures in Lost Aggadic Traditions

Naomi said to him [should be: her]: “Look, your sister-in-law is going back etc.” (Ruth 1:15), and she responded: “Don’t urge me to [leave]” (Ruth 1:16), “Your people are my people” (Ruth 1:16) – He [= God] put me amongst my people and you remove me from under the wings of the Shekhinah?! [Naomi said to her:] I shall bring you someone who will spread his wings upon you, as it is written “Spread the wing of your [cloth] on your mother [should be: maiden slave[etc.” (Ruth 3:9). Even more so, I shall perfect your wings, as it is written “The wings of the ostrich flap joyfully” (Job 39:13), and from you kingship will come, as it is written “Oved the father of Yishay, the father of David”. And why are all these? Since she did not want to separate herself from the Shekhinah.42 And she was crying day and night since Shella grew up and she was not given to him as a wife. She said: How can I depart from the house of this righteous man [= Judah]? The Holy, blessed be He, heard her [inner] thought and gave her a purpose, as it is written “great are your purposes and mighty are your deeds” (Jer. 32:19).43 When Tamar turned to search for her witnesses, Satan hid them, and they brought her to Judah, who intended to burn her. At that moment she prayed to the Holy, blessed be He, and [s]he said: remember that I unified your name in the house of my father [= that is, she had accepted the belief in monotheism before being married to Shella] and save me from this death, and the Holy, blessed be He, heard her prayer, and sent Michael, and he took the signs from Satan and brought them to her in the place in which she was taken [to be burned].

153

‫אמרה לו נעמי הנה שבה גו׳‬ ‫והשיבה אל תחטאי עלי עמך‬ ‫עמי הוא שמני בתוך עמי‬ ‫ואתה מרחקת אותי מתחת‬ ‫כנפיה השכינה אני מביאה לך‬ ‫מי שיפרוש עליך כנפיו שנא׳‬ ‫ופרשת כנפיך על אמך(!) וגו׳‬ ‫ולא עוד אלא שאני עושה‬ ‫כנפיך מעולות על כל כנף‬ ‫שנא׳ כנף רננים נעלסה וממך‬ ‫תצא המלכות שנא׳ הוא עובד‬ ‫אבי ישי אבי דוד וכ״כ למה‬ ‫בשביל שלא רצתה להתפרד‬ .‫מן השכינה‬

‫והיתה בוכה יומם ולילה מפני‬ ‫שגדל שלה והיא לא נתנה‬ ‫ אמרה היאך אני‬.‫לו לאשה‬ ‫פורשת מביתו של צדיק זה‬ ‫שמע הב״ה מחשבתה ונתן‬ ‫לה עצה שנא׳ גדול העצה‬ ‫ כשהלכה תמר‬.‫ורב העליליה‬ ‫לבקש עדיה הטמ׳ הטמינם‬ ‫השטן והביאוה לפני יהודה‬ ‫ באותה שעה‬.‫ורצה לשורפה‬ ‫נתפללה לפני הב״ה ואמר‬ ‫רבש״ע זכור לי יחוד שמך‬ ‫שיחדתי שמך בבית אבי והציב‬ ‫לה ממיתה זו ושמע הב״ה‬ ‫תפלתה ושלח מיכאל ולקח‬ )‫הסימנים מיד השטן והביא(ם‬ .‫לה במקום שהיא מוצאת‬

42  The text jumps from Ruth to Tamar. It seems that a section on Ruth is missing. 43  Implied here is the tradition interpreting this verse as evidence that God supports the realisation of good intentions into actual deeds.

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The text presents Ruth and Tamar as two related exemplars. Both were merged into the people of Israel, became widows, and refused to return to their former attachment, choosing the Shekhinah. Tamar expressed her will to stay related to the Shekhinah and to the house of Judah, and God heard her and advised her how to cope with the situation. However, later on, when she was taken to her death, Satan tried to prevent the divine plan and hid her signs. Tamar turned to God in prayer, and he sent the angel Michael to restore the signs and to enable her salvation. The biblical story of Tamar and Judah has been identified as one that has anti-patriarchal elements.44 Thus, in order to establish that the text we are reading is not merely a reproduction of a biblical tendency, and to assess its cultural value within later contexts, one has to compare it with other rabbinic renderings of the events in Genesis 38. Such a comparison reveals a tension between two contradictory trends. The dominant trend tends to emphasise the positive role of Judah in this story, and accordingly undermines Tamar’s virtues.45 This line of rabbinic tradition shifts the focus from Tamar’s ingenuity and initiative to Judah’s achievements, praising him for admitting his mistake, and hence as the saviour of Tamar and her twin babies.46 Other traditions similarly minimise praise of Tamar by providing a balanced and equal presentation of Judah and Tamar, claiming, for example, that both were adulterous, yet both did it for good reasons. Another element in such traditions is an emphasis on the active role of God, thus minimising the intentions of both Tamar and Judah: Judah did not intend to sin, but God led him towards the act, promising the future birth of David, and the same is true for Tamar.47 As we shall see later, the exegetical narrative found in the Genizah seems to correspond to such traditions. 44  Bal, Lethal Love; van Dijk-Hemmes, “Tamar”. On the reading of the story as a polemic against the “killer wife” myth, see Friedman, “Tamar”. 45  As noted in regard to Judah by Shinan and Zakovitch, Story of Judah and Tamar, pp. 240– 241. Note especially BT Sotah 10a, according to which Judah asked Tamar whether she is a gentile or a married woman. According to JT Sotah 1:4, 16d, Tamar had lied to Judah, saying that she was not married and was pure (that is, not in menstruation), but he is not presented as asking her about those issues. 46  See Mekhilta de-Rabbi Yishmael, Beshalah 5 (Horowitz-Rabin, Mekhilta de-Rabbi Yishmael, p. 106); Mekhilta de-Rashbi 14:22, (Epstein-Mellamed, Mekhilta de-Rashbi, p. 64); Tosefta Ber. 4:17; BT Sotah 7b; BT Sotah 10b; Exodus Rabbah 16:4; and midrashic exposition concerning Jacob’s blessing to Judah such as Genesis Rabbah 98:7 (Albeck and Theodor, Bereshit Rabba, p. 1258); Aggadat Bereshit 83 (Buber, Aggadat Bereshit, p. 160); Midrash Shmuel 9:6 (Lifshitz, Midrash Shmuel, p.37); and parallels. 47  See Deuteronomy Rabbah, Ekev (Lieberman, Deuteronomy, p. 72); Aggadat Bereshit 64:3 (Buber, Aggadat Bereshit, p. 129).

Portrayals of Biblical Figures in Lost Aggadic Traditions

155

The other trend in rabbinic literature praises Tamar and maintains a positive depiction of her.48 The exegetical narrative documented in the Firkovitch fragment is made of building blocks that can be traced to such earlier positive representations of Tamar. This includes the pairing of Tamar and Ruth as two figures sharing similar positive characteristics,49 the presentation of Tamar’s prayers,50 and the aid she received from the angels.51 Of special importance is the use of the expression ‫‘( דורש לשבח‬expound this in praise of x’) found in the Yerushalmi and in Genesis Rabbah in the context of Tamar’s prayer.52 As we shall see in the discussion of the third example, later uses of this expression and its contrasting form ‫‘( דורש לגנאי‬expound this in criticism of x’) are helpful in identifying awareness of the implications of such exegesis and maybe even intentional censorship. Against this background one can identify elements that make the Firkovitch tradition exceptional and argue that it preserved a lost representation of Tamar. It seems that the positive portrayal of Tamar in the Genizah midrash exceeds these other scattered traditions in using various literary devices. First, the fragment presents a number of positive and empowering elements together,53 woven into a coherent and full exegetical narrative. In this new exegetical narrative, praise of Tamar is at the centre.54 Not only does it provides 48  See Broner, “Aggadic Attitudes”. 49  As in Avot de-Rabbi Nathan, version B 45, (Schechter, Avot de-Rabbi Nathan, p. 125), where they are claimed to have good intentions. The text in the Genizah midrash clearly echoes Avot de-Rabbi Nathan: ‫אמרה היאך אני פורשת מביתו של צדיק זה שמע הב״ה מחשבתה‬ in the Genizah text; ‫חשבה בלבה אמרה אפשר לצאת וחטאה מביתו של צדיקה הזה ומנין‬ ‫ שגלה המקום מחשבתה‬in the Avot de-Rabbi Nathan text; Ruth Zuta 1:13. See also Midrash Psalm 116:9 (Buber, Midrash Tehilim, p. 478). 50   Genesis Rabbah 85:7, (Albeck and Theodor, Bereshit Rabba, p. 1041); Tanhuma Vayeshev 17 (Buber, Tanhuma, pp. 186–188, discussed in detail below); see also Targum Jonathan Gen. 38:25 and the related tradition preserved only in a manuscript of the Tanhuma, MS Oxford Bodl. Opp. 187, and cited by Buber in his introduction, p. 129. 51  Tanhuma Vayeshev 17 (Buber, Tanhuma, pp. 186–188). 52  Genesis Rabbah 85:7, (Albeck and Theodor, Bereshit Rabba, p. 1041. JT Ket. 13:1, 35c ~ Sotah 1:4, 16d. 53  For a similar poetics of collecting various traditions in a manner that intensifies an idea, see also Lavee, “Converting the Missionary Image of Abraham”, p. 210. 54  In that sense, the literary form of the exegetical narrative is in itself an agent of a specific perspective. We may consider the many common motifs that our text shares with BT Sotah 10a–b. The Bavli demonstrates an exegetical concern focusing on verses and their interpretation. The arrangement of various elements into the exegetical narrative enables the promotion of a specific agenda, and the emphasis of the positive portrayal of Tamar through the choice and sequencing of materials. However, it is important to distinguish between the literary developments and the conceptual shift. The literary development is the move from one mode of presentation to another, which seems to serve a conceptual

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a rich, coherent, and consistent presentation in praise of Tamar, but it also intensifies praise of her through the suggestion of a parallelism with Ruth. In so doing, it brings the positive trend in rabbinic portrayals of Tamar to its most developed form. A comparison to the seemingly closest parallel in Tanhuma Vayeshev provides a good illustration for the role of the full narrative framework in constituting the unique representation of Tamar in the fragment. In Tanhuma Vayeshev one can also find the presentation of Tamar praying and her angelic saviour, and this pattern is repeated twice. First, Tamar prays and Michael appears when Tamar was seated in Petach Einaim: Judah saw Tamar and avoided her, saying he does not care about prostitutes; Tamar prayed, so the angel Michael appeared, and brought Judah back to her. Later, this pattern is repeated when Tamar is sent to her death, as it is in our text. However, in contrast to the coherent and consecutive exegetical narrative in the fragment, Tanhuma Vayeshev provides a multivalent text, in which different perspectives are also presented. It includes apologetic representations of Judah – such as the claim he did not intend to go to a prostitute. The first time Tamar prays, located in that point in the story, is used to present an apologetic portrayal of Judah, showing he did not intend to sin. Equally, there is an additional narration of the events at the end of the story, which undermines the positive portrayal of Tamar. This alternative narration does not include Tamar praying a second time, but rather a divine intervention initiated by God. It was not Satan who hid the signs, but Tamar who lost them; it was not her prayer which restored them, but rather God’s self-initiated intervention.55 shift. The Genizah text uses the new literary framework of long exegetical re-narration of the biblical story, particularly designed around praise of Tamar. It could also use the same literary form to express a different emphasis. For the literary move from exegetical setting to a narrative arrangement, see Shinan, “Aggadic Motifs”; Rubenstein, “From Mythic Motifs”. 55  Here the subgenre of the midrashic unit in the Genizah also contributes to the creation of the new setting. Tanhuma Vayeshev treats the story in the ‫‘( מה כתיב למעלה‬What is written above?’) section for the sidra to Genesis 39. Within this literary framework it provides a sequential midrash on the events of Genesis 38 as leading to Genesis 39, which seem to be a Tanhuma-style revision and enrichment of the relevant sections in Genesis Rabbah 85. Such a literary framework enables the homiletic midrash to provide an exegetical unit, allowing for a variety of interpretations. In contrast, in the Genizah the texts are reworked into an exegetical narrative framework, which befits the tendency of later midrashim towards a unified narration, reflecting particular values and tendencies. Targumic expansions of the biblical story also utilize a similar manner, as seen in Targum Neofiti and discussed by Shinan and Zakovitch, Story of Judah and Tamar, p. 160. They comment on a variant that refers to Samael in the way that our text refers to Satan. This Targum also puts in the mouth of Tamar a long and powerful oration addressed to

Portrayals of Biblical Figures in Lost Aggadic Traditions

157

This last element enables us to shift the discourse from oversimplified categories of “positive” and “negative” portrayals of Tamar to the question of agency, the extent to which a female figure is portrayed as having the ability to cope with a situation, to face a patriarchal male figure, to take control of her fate, and to deliver personal and even social change. A feminist or anti-patriarchal representation may be examined through the lens of the active agency ascribed to women. Indeed, in most cases, the degree to which the portrayal of Tamar is positive corresponds to the degree to which she is considered an active agent in the story. That the question of women’s agency arises here is not a surprise. The biblical account clearly portrays Tamar as a woman who proactively engages with the unjust situation into which she was thrust. In contrast, most rabbinic traditions seem to portray her as a passive figure in comparison to the biblical depiction. The depiction of the disappearing signs (or witnesses) and their rediscovery is a good example – Tamar cannot cope alone, she lost the signs and she needs divine or angelic support. I would like to suggest that the unique narration and sequencing of events in the Genizah midrash offers a process by which Tamar moves from a lower state of agency to a higher one. Considering the Genizah tradition through the category of agency sheds light on the empowering of Tamar. At the start, we find that there is a tendency to present Tamar as passive and dependant. “She said: How can I depart from the house of this righteous man [= Judah]?”; God hears her inner thought and supports her. Our text seems to contradict itself here, since it refers to Tamar’s statement as her inner voice, and indeed parallel texts are explicit about this. Tamar’s proactive initiative in the biblical passage is replaced here with a call of despair, or, in some rabbinic parallels, a voiceless thought. Tamar has no voice, and the initiative is not in her hands. In contrast to that, by the end of the story, the Genizah text grants Tamar with higher agency. Facing the loss of her signs, she turns to God in prayer. It is at this moment that Tamar retrieves her agency. Our narrative portrays a process, in which Tamar is a developing figure. She moves from passive inner thoughts to turning directly to God in prayer. Such an understanding of the exegetical narrative from the Genizah becomes apparent when considering the evidence of parallel sources. First let us return to Tanhuma Vayeshev. The move from inner thoughts to prayer is the judges. To a certain extent, this text grants her even higher agency than the midrashic fragment. Turning to the judges in a statement that can change her situation clearly reflects a stronger stand than that of prayer, which implies dependency. However, the content of this address includes the refusal to mention Judah, and thus leaves the power in his hands. If he chooses to react, she will be saved.

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not found there, since in that account Tamar prays in the first scene as well. However, as noted above, in this version Tamar loses the signs, in what seems to be a failure to realise her initial plan. Note how symbolic this motif is. The signs are her source of power; they enable her to trick Judah. To lose them means she is unable to keep hold of what would give her power vis-à-vis the patriarchal figure. In the Genizah story, Satan intervenes and steals them from her, and she reacts with prayer. This prayer should not be seen as the last cry of a helpless woman. Through this prayer, the Genizah narrative creates an alliance between Tamar and God on one hand, and Judah and Satan on the other. The narrator and the reader (or the audience, if the midrash represents an oral performance of a homily) are also part of this game. They belong to the alliance of God and Tamar. Like in the biblical story, the dramatic tension is focused on their common success in preventing her death, at which both Judah and Satan are conspiring. Another element where Tanhuma Vayeshev amplifies the weakness of Tamar is in emphasising her passivity when being sent to her death: “they were dragging her and bringing her forth against her will, as it is said ‘brought forth’ (‫”)מוצאת‬. A similar midrash in the Bavli further demonstrates how central the question of Tamar’s agency is in the rabbinic treatment of the story: “When she was brought forth” (Genesis 38:25). Instead of “brought forth”, the text should have been “being brought forth”. R. Eleazar said: After her signs were found, Samael came and removed them, and Gabriel came and restored them. That is what is written: “For the Chief Musician, the silent dove of them that are afar off” (Psalms 56:1). R. Johanan said: At the time when her proofs were removed, she became like a silent dove. (BT Sotah 10b)

‫היא מוצאת – היא מיתוצאת‬ ‫ לאחר‬:‫מיבעי ליה! א״ר אלעזר‬ ‫שנמצאו סימניה בא סמאל‬ .‫ בא גבריאל וקירבן‬,‫וריחקן‬ ‫ למנצח על יונת‬:‫היינו דכתיב‬ ‫ א״ר‬,‫אלם רחוקים לדוד מכתם‬ ‫ משעה שנתרחקו סימניה‬:‫יוחנן‬ .‫נעשית כיונה אילמת‬

In this Talmudic exegesis, Tamar is passive. She is taken to be burned. The Bavli invents an artificial verb form, ‫מיתוצאת‬, which is emblematic of the Talmudic concern around the degree of her passivity in the story. After her signs were found, Samael hid them, and Gabriel brought them back – there was no praying by Tamar, and no following divine intervention; instead, she is almost like a puppet in a fight between angels. In contrast to the activeness of Tamar praying in the Genizah fragment, here the Bavli emphasises how she became silent and paralysed.

Portrayals of Biblical Figures in Lost Aggadic Traditions

159

The statement attributed to Rabbi Johanan, “she became like a silent dove”, has poetic qualities. It is a metonym for the entire midrashic process of undressing Tamar of the agency she has in the biblical story. The common rabbinic traditions take her signs, make her mute; at this precise moment in the text, the lost midrash found in the Genizah gives her back her voice through her praying, retrieving at least some of the proactive characteristics she has in the biblical account. The content of the prayer in the Genizah fragment is also very important in constituting Tamar’s agency. Her prayer refers to the earliest stages of the story, as she asks God to remember that she had already turned to monotheism while she was in her father’s home. This motif, which is only implicitly echoed in other midrashic texts, is highly important. It implies that her marriage into Judah’s house actually began with her own conversion back in the house of her father.56 It recalls her inner thoughts that were heard by God, in which she expressed her desire to remain in the house of Judah, that is, to keep her attachment to her “Jewishness”. This aspect is central to the wider framework of the Genizah text, and it coheres with the opening statement that connects Tamar and Ruth together as archetypal converts.57 The midrashic tradition about Tamar’s conversion may be rooted in concerns around Tamar’s ethnicity, which were already raised in Second Temple literature, maybe even in the late prophetic books.58 It is another element in the apologetic rehabilitation of the figure of Judah, explaining why he took foreign women for himself and for his sons.59 However, within the scope of our Genizah narrative, the portrayal of Tamar as a convert 56  It may also be interpreted as referring to cleaving to monotheism after being sent back to her father’s home. In that case, it portrays her as one who was taken into Judah’s family through marriage, and then also embraced Jewish belief. 57  A surprising parallel is found in Thomas Mann’s book, Joseph and his Brothers, as discussed by Levenson, “Christian Author, Jewish Book?”. Levenson notes that Mann puts Ruth’s declaration “Thy people are my people” in Tamar’s mouth, and clearly portrays her as a convert: “But as I now am, new-born and thine image, cannot be bride to an uninstructed one and who prays to images of wood and stone”. Levenson notes that some aspects of Mann’s portrayal were anticipated in the midrash, and it is amusing to find a Genizah fragment which adds to them. Tracing the genealogy of Mann’s portrayal through Christian depictions of Tamar is well beyond what is possible here, but one may surmise that such an exercise might shed surprising light on our Genizah text. 58  See Friedman, “Tamar”, p. 32, where he discusses Mal. 2:12. 59  For the notion of “biographic rehabilitation” in the midrash, see Rotenberg, “The ‘Midrash’ and Biographic Rehabilitation”; and my recent application of it in relation to Jeremiah, Lavee, “Biographic Rehabilitation”.

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acquires new meaning and functions as another important element in retrieving her agency; it is a part of the coherent construction of her figure. Tamar had already turned to God while she was in the house of her father. That is, she challenged her father’s authority. It was a subversive, anti-patriarchal act. The same agency she had in making an active choice of God over the beliefs of her father’s house is later revealed when she deals with Judah (and Satan!). A similar characteristic – that of turning against her father’s house – was also emphasised in the portrayal of Rebecca in the first example, taking us back to the image of rebellious women, whose rebellion is needed to secure the continuity of the line. When placed within a framework of praise, the emphasis on conversion is part of a nexus in which anti-patriarchal sentiment is raised, but at the same time is also subordinated to the hegemonic power structure. The act of conversion is a rebellious act. It is an act in which the convert rebels against her former affiliation, against the hegemony, against her father. The same rebellious spirit is thus later used when Tamar dares to take her fate into her own hands. Conversion is thus an act of recruiting rebellious qualities for the sake of a good cause. In this regard we may also turn to the Bavli and its focus on Judah as the hero of the story. At the same point that the Genizah text has Tamar turning to God and reminding him that she had already accepted God when she was in her father’s house, the Bavli suggests that Tamar turned to Judah and said to him: “Recognise your creator.”60 Tamar’s religion is not of interest here – it is Judah who should go through a process of recognising God at this moment. Tamar, who is the “other,” both as a woman and as a foreigner, is only a means to bring about the religious process of repentance that Judah must undergo; her religious development is not the issue here.61 The Bavli’s version takes us back to Fonrobert’s observation about the role of the rebellious woman as one that ends up serving patriarchal authority. Is 60   B T Sotah 10b. Tanhuma Vayeshev 17 (Buber, Tanhuma, pp. 186–188) resembles the Bavli in this regard, differing, once again, from our Genizah text. Genesis Rabbah 85:11 (Albeck and Theodor, Bereshit Rabba, p. 1045) has a slightly different setting, in which Tamar challenges Judah to admit before his Creator that the signs are his. In this context, one cannot consider the text as shifting the focus to a religious process that Judah should go through. 61  There is a similarity in the narration of the story about Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah in the furnace. While the Palestinian midrash depicts the event as one that led to conversion and made Nebuchadnezzar recognise God, the Bavli presents him as turning back to Israel and wondering why they are not faithful to God. The conversion of gentiles is not of interest, as the focus of the Bavli is on its imagined “us” – the Israelites. Judah represents this imagined “us”, and Tamar is equivalent to Nebuchadnezzar, the gentile who is aware of God only as a means to reflect this awareness back to Israel. See Lavee, “Converting the Missionary Image of Abraham”.

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it possible to also read the Genizah narration through the lens of such suspicious hermeneutics? Indeed, when considered from the perspective of a society that accepts converts, this rebellious act is one that serves the agenda of the hegemony. The portrayal of Tamar in the Genizah midrash can be read in line with many rabbinic narratives and exegetical narratives about figures who rebel against their father, but do so to secure Jewish or rabbinic values, such as Rebecca as portrayed in the former example,62 the daughter of Pharaoh and also Miriam who rebels against her father’s despair,63 the wife of Rabbi Akivah and Rabbi Eliezer (whose stories are conversion narratives concerning the formation of key rabbinic figures, including the motif of rebel against a father).64 In all these cases, we find rabbinic sources celebrating a subversion of the patriarchal power structure; but this only happens when the rebel is in the service of the rabbinic hegemony.65 After noticing how a literary motif plays an important role in constructing Tamar’s agency in the Genizah fragment, we may turn once again to parallel sources, and see how unique it is to our text. Other sources do not present Tamar as a convert. In Tanhuma Vayeshev, we actually find a tradition that

62  In this regard there is something intriguing about our tradition. The earliest presentation of Tamar as one of two women refers to her and Rebecca (Genesis Rabbah 85:7 (Albeck and Theodor, Bereshit Rabba, p. 1040) and not to her and Ruth. That text only refers to the common motif of veiling, but when considered together with the texts discussed here, we see the following picture: Genesis Rabbah Firkovitch EVR II A455/6 (our example 2) Annual cycle midrash (our example 1)

Two women are similar Two women are similar

Rebecca

and

Tamar

Ruth

and

Tamar

Rebecca

Both rejected the idolatry of their family (mother and father) Rejected the improper ways of her family (father and brother)

Is it possible that we are missing a link, another lost midrash, that explicitly made the correlation between Tamar and Rebecca as two women who turned against their fathers? 63   B T Sotah 12a–12b, both in the same aggadic section as the one including Tamar. See also Exodus Rabbah 1:13. 64  The wife of Rabbi Akivah; BT Ketubbot 62b–63a; Rabbi Eliezer: Genesis Rabbah 42:1 (Albeck and Theodor, Bereshit Rabbah, pp. 397–399) and parallels. 65  See also Fonrobert, “The Handmaid”.

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claims for her an origin from Shem.66 This affiliation is designed to solve the same concern as the conversion motif: defending Judah for taking a foreign woman. Yet, as argued above, the conversion motif serves to empower the figure of Tamar. In contrast, the Shem motif in Tanhuma Vayeshev is fused into an apologetic argument defending Judah for sentencing Tamar to fire, since Shem was considered to be a priest and adulterous daughters of priests are executed by fire. Even when the conversion motif does appear, in Bavli Sotah 10a, it seems to serve as an apologetic portrayal of Judah. Judah righteously makes sure that he is not about to sin with a gentile woman or with a married woman, and Tamar leads him into the inappropriate act by saying that she is a convert and not married. The Genizah narrative has reformulated the conversion motif within a positive construction of Tamar’s agency. The pairing of Tamar and Ruth is another means for the construction of the conversion motif in the Genizah, and as such it also contributes to the positive portrayal of Tamar in comparison to parallel texts. In the Genizah text, the common core of the positive portrayal of Ruth and Tamar is their daring to go against their ancestors by turning towards God, signalling that conversion is the main issue. This parallelism originates in the intratextual relations between the two figures in biblical narratives, which have been noted by biblical scholars;67 other rabbinic sources have also identified the affinity between the two.68 However, in some rabbinic sources, the connection between Ruth and Tamar has different connotations. In Ruth Rabbah, Ruth and Tamar are presented together as part of King David’s response to claims concerning their genealogy, and does not refer to their own good characters.69 A much closer 66   Genesis Rabbah 85:10 (Albeck and Theodor, Bereshit Rabbah, p. 1044); Tanhuma Vayeshev 17 (Buber, Tanhuma, pp. 186–188). See also Aggadat Bereshit 64 (Buber, Aggadat Bereshit, p. 129); Lekach Tov Gen. 38:24 (Buber, Lekach Tov, p. 195). See also Amit, “Hidden Polemics”, p. 15 n. 19. 67  Van Wolde, Texts in Dialogue; Menn, Judah and Tamar, pp. 97–101, and the helpful survey of rabbinic sources in n. 201. See also Shinan and Zakovitch, Story of Judah and Tamar, pp. 224–226 and the rabbinic “deciphering” of these inner-biblical connections on p. 239. 68   Kara-Ivanov Kaniel, “Gedola Aveira Lishma”, points to the discussion of Ruth and Tamar in BT Nazir 23a–b. However, in this case the focus is on the image of Tamar as a heroine performing a sin for a good cause, and there is no explicit parallelism between the two. It is possible that such representations in the Bavli are part of a wider ambiguity in that text, in which positive portrayals of the “other” are always given in a negative context. See, with regard to converts, Lavee, “Proselytes”, pp. 43–44. See also Fonrobert, “The Handmaid”. 69  “David said […] how long can they criticise me and claim: ‘Isn’t he from a disqualified family? Did he not come from Ruth the Moabite?’ […] and Tamar, whom my old father had taken, she is not from a disqualified family, she is from Shem the son of Noah” (Ruth Rabbah 8:1). See also Midrash Tehillim 116:16.

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tradition to that of the Genizah text is found in Ruth Zuta 1:12 (Buber, Midrash Zuta, pp. 42–43): Two women were willing to die for the tribe of Judah: Tamar and Ruth. Tamar was yelling: “I should not leave this house empty”; Ruth, every time her mother-in-law said to her “Go, my daughter”, began to cry […] This text is clearly parallel to the text we have in the Genizah fragment. It begins with the same words, “two women”. However, the text lacks the full parallel exegetical narratives concerning the two women, and only presents Ruth as the protagonist of a conversion narrative.70 The strong connection with the Genizah text can also be seen in the motif of crying, which is typical of conversion narratives in late midrashic literature.71 However, in Ruth Zuta this motif appears only in regard to Ruth, whereas in the case of Tamar we have a very short description of her intent to not leave the house of Judah empty. It is her wish to become pregnant which is implied here, not any religious motivation. Furthermore, it is important to remember that Ruth Zuta is also a lost midrash, published in print only in the nineteenth century from a single Ashkenazi manuscript. The parallel paragraph from Ruth Zuta is also documented in a Genizah fragment of the work, which demonstrates early linguistic and palaeographic traits.72 I shall return to this point in the discussion below. We have found two different version of the dual presentation of Ruth and Tamar as positive women: a short early remark in Ruth Zuta, and a much longer and developed unit in the Firkovitch fragment. It is only in the latter that conversion motifs are attached to the figure of Tamar. A hint of a religious motivation is found in Avot de-Rabbi Nathan.73 Tamar and Ruth are listed there alongside Reuben as biblical figures who had inner good intentions and whose intentions were revealed publicly. Tamar’s thought was: “Is it possible that I will depart from the house of Judah as a sinner?” When it comes to Ruth, the text refers to her explicit statement, “Your people are my people and your God 70  Another echo of this midrash is found in Zohar Vayeshev, 168b; see Kara-Ivanov Kaniel, “She Uncovered his Feet”. 71  Such as the conversion of Rabbi Eliezer to Talmud Torah, as it appears in later versions, but not in the classical amoraic version. See Gen. Rab. 42:1 (Albeck and Theodor, Bereshit Rabba, p. 397), Avot de Rabbi Nathan version A ch. 6 (Schechter, Avot de-Rabbi Nathan, pp. 30–31) and version B ch. 13 (pp. 30–32); Tanhuma, Lech Lecha 10 (Buber, Tanhuma, pp. 34a–35a) and parallels. 72   M S Oxford Bodl. Heb. e. 47.44, an early recension of Ruth Zuta. The style and language of the Buber edition are clearly later. 73  Avot de-Rabbi Nathan, version B 45, (Schechter, Avot de-Rabbi Nathan, p. 125).

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is my God” (Ruth 1:16), though this was said only in the presence of Naomi, and revealed to all later on. This tradition clearly served as a building block in the construction of the exegetical narrative found in the Genizah text. However, it is much more partial, and instead of functioning as part of the empowerment of Tamar, it only recalls the motif of inner thoughts, known only to God. This motif here is clearly one of praise, but one that remains faithful to the “silent dove” imagery I identified in the Bavli.74 This second example provides us with an unknown midrash about Ruth and Tamar, presenting them both as women who made a choice to be included in the people of Israel. The portrayal of Tamar is made of bits and pieces which may be traced to other midrashim, but it creates a new whole, in which there is an emphasis on positive representations. The sequencing of the events and the emphasis on Tamar’s virtues as a convert present a figure who has a higher degree of agency than is seen in other rabbinic sources. At the same time, her empowerment cannot escape the wider context, and so a heroine reveals and retrieves her strength as part of a process that maintains the overall patriarchal social structure. 3

Example 3: Tracing Intentional Censorship? Criticisms of Judah

The first two examples demonstrate a sort of inverse correlation between the shaping of male and female biblical figures. Praise for a mutual relationship between Rebecca and Isaac and her empowerment through her role in coping with barrenness came together with a criticism of Abraham. Similarly, the intensification of the active and positive characteristics of Tamar in the Genizah narrative sheds light on other sources, where an emphasis was given to apologetic representations of Judah. Criticism of men, who represent the patriarchal hegemony, may function as a complementary element to positive representations of women. The ability of a patriarchal culture to criticise a biblical hero for his conduct with women comes hand in hand with the capacity to praise heroines. Thus, the third example discussed here is one which involves blunt criticism of Judah, intricately related to a positive portrayal of Tamar.

74  One may consider in this regard the role of Abraham, who ordered Sarah to breastfeed Isaac in public. In both cases we find the need to show something to all the people of the world, and the inner feminine acts or thoughts are being taken by men or God. For a survey of these traditions, see Lavee, “Sarah”, and Lavee, “Converting the Missionary Image of Abraham”.

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The lost aggadic materials found in the Genizah, which are paralleled in a lost midrash retrieved from a European manuscript of an unknown anthology of aggadah, intensified a critical view of Judah which had already appeared in earlier midrashim. This example will add a new aspect to my discussion, since we may trace a hint of an intentional effort to silence the criticism of Judah. As such, it might suggest that the loss of such traditions was not entirely coincidental, that it was the result of the enforcement of the male-dominant power structures in society. The Genizah text of this example is taken from a midrash published by Ginzberg, T-S Misc. 36.194 (a relatively early fragment, 11th if not 10th century).75 Like the other examples, this one also belongs to the genre of annual cycle homiletic midrashim. These types of homiletic texts tend to provide a distinct narrator’s voice, one that weaves together various traditions, correlating them with each other and creating his own new homily. These compositional features, which Ginzberg remarked on, come at the expense of the literary features typical to classical homiletic structure. The controlling narrator of the text “melts down” the distinct building blocks of the classical homily – proems, body, and peroration – to create a sequence governed by his distinct voice. Our tradition is part of a homily for Ekev, which develops the concept of measure for measure. After describing the sins and punishment of the generations of the Flood and the Tower of Babel, it reads as follows: And even to the righteous of the world he repays measure for measure. Jacob our father cheated his father with the skins of the kid of a goat, and his sons cheated him with the kid of a goat. Judah cheated his father with the kid of a goat, “and they slaughtered a kid of a goat” (Gen. 37:31), and Tamar cheated him with the kid of a goat. Judah says to his father, “Recognise, please, whether this is your son’s robe or not” (Gen. 37:32), and Tamar tells him to “Recognise, please, whose seal and cord and staff these are” (Gen. 38:25).

‫ואפילו לצדיקי עולם משלם מידה‬ ‫ יעקב אבינו רימה‬.‫כנגד מידה‬ ‫באביו בעורות גדיי העזים ובניו‬ ‫ ״וישחטו‬.‫רימו בו בגדי [ה]עזים‬ ‫שעיר עזים ויטבלו את הכתנת‬ ‫ יהו⟨דה⟩ רימה באביו בגדי‬.‫בדם״‬ ‫ ותמר‬.‫העזים ״וישחטו שעיר עזים״‬ ‫ יהודה בשר‬.‫רימת בו בגדי העזים‬ ‫את אביו ״הכר נא הכתנת בנך‬ ‫ ות?מ?⟨ר⟩ שלחה‬.‫היא (ל)אם לא״‬ ‫לו ״הכר נא למי החתמת והפתלים‬ .‫והמטה האלה״‬

The text argues that the righteous are also punished according to the rule of “measure for measure”, and demonstrates the claim by presenting a continuous cycle of punishment and reward. The cycle begins with Jacob cheating 75  Ginzberg, Ginze Schechter, p. 136.

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Laban, and continues with Jacob’s punishment through Judah’s testimony on the death of Joseph. Judah in return is punished for his part in the selling of Joseph by the events in Genesis 38. This is supported by two biblical analogies pointing out the reappearance of the phrase ‫‘( הכר נא‬recognise!’) and the motif ‫‘( גדי העיזים‬the kid of a goat’). The novelty of this tradition is seen when it is compared to parallel sources. Such a comparison shows, as with the former example, that the tradition found in the Genizah text amplifies or at least preserves the anti-patriarchal protest implied in the biblical account, whereas many other rabbinic sources tend to suppress this element. Once again in this case it is crucial to consider Tamar’s agency, as some parallels are very critical of Judah, but when compared to our text, they seem to undermine Tamar’s role. It is also important to note that the literary devices used to strengthen the narrator’s voice in this late midrash are similar to those found in the previous example. Many midrashic traditions note the delicate intratextual relations between the story of the selling of Joseph and the story of Tamar and Judah,76 and hence they interpret the selling of Joseph in Genesis 37 as the cause of the events portrayed in Genesis 38,77 with some of them explicitly suggesting there is a correlation of Judah’s punishment and reward.78 Of special importance are two midrashic units in Genesis Rabbah, which present the same content as the Genizah midrash:79

76  As do modern biblical commentators; see Shinan and Zakovitch, Story of Judah and Tamar, pp. 220–222. 77  Genesis Rabbah 85:2, (Albeck and Theodor, Bereshit Rabba, p. 1031), refers to the similarity of the openings to chapters 38 and 39 (“And Judah went down”; “And Joseph was brought down to Egypt”). Some traditions present a causal relation between Genesis 37 and 38 which is, however, not one of punishment and reward, such as explaining that since Jacob was deeply in mourning, Judah had to arrange his marriage by himself (Genesis Rabbah 85:1, p. 1030 and parallels), or that Judah was ostracised by his brothers as a response to Jacob’s mourning (Tanhumah Vayeshev 12; Buber, Tanhuma, p. 183). See also Tanhuma Vayeshev 17 (Buber, Tanhuma, pp. 186–188). 78  Genesis Rabbah 85:3, p. 1034, and parallel texts, argue that Judah was punished for not completing the commandment he began to fulfil in standing against his brothers: “He should carry him on his shoulders to his father”. As a punishment for the pain he caused Jacob, he lost his sons and wife. Tanhuma Vayeshev 13 (Buber, Tanhuma, p. 184) makes this more explicit, by adding the rhetorical question: “For what sin was Judah punished?” While the midrashim do not say so explicitly, it is possible that this argument should also be applied to his wrong-doing in the case of Tamar, where he did not complete the process of levirate marriage. 79  Genesis Rabbah 85:9 and 85:11 (Albeck and Theodor, Bereshit Rabba, pp. 1043 and 1045).

Portrayals of Biblical Figures in Lost Aggadic Traditions

The Holy One, blessed be He, said to Judah: You cheated your father with the kid of a goat, behold, Tamar will cheat you with the kid of a goat. “Recognise, please, whose etc.” Rabbi Yohanan said: The Holy One, blessed be He, said to Judah: You said to your father, “Recognise, please” (Gen. 37:32), behold, Tamar will say to you: “Recognise, please” (Gen. 38:25).

167

‫אמר הקדוש ברוך הוא ליהודה‬ ‫אתה רימיתה באביך בגדי עזים‬ .‫חייך שתמר מרמה בך בגדי עזים‬ ‫הכר נא למי וגו׳ אמר ר׳ יוחנן אמר‬ ‫הקדוש ברוך הוא ליהודה אתה‬ ‫אמרת לאביך הכר נא חייך שתמר‬ .‫אומרת לך הכר נא‬

Thus, it is not the content, but rather the literary setting, that constitutes the novelty of the Genizah midrash. The text uses two literary devices that emphasise the criticism of Judah. First, the criticism is presented as an example of a general rule that makes explicit that the scene should be understood as a punishment: ‫‘( ואף לצדיקי העולם משלם מידה כנגד מידה‬And even to the righteous of the world he repays measure for measure’). Second, it weaves together a few biblical examples that appeared as separate comments in the earlier midrash. Note the same literary devices, namely adding explicit generalization and weaving together biblical examples that were previously scattered, were also used in the first Genizah text discussed above. The text emphasises the sins of the ancestors, and admits that even the righteous can fail and sin. The text segment cited above appears after a list of wicked people who were punished in the same manner: the generations of the Flood and the Tower of Babel. The Mishnah refers to the sins of Samson and Absalom and their punishment on one hand, and to the merits of Miriam, Joseph, and Moses and their rewards (BT Sotah 1:8–9). The Tosefta enriches the list of sinners, adding the generation of the Flood and the Tower of Babel, the Sodomites, the Egyptians, and Sisrah (Tosefta Sotah 3:5–15). This Genizah midrash adds a list of righteous who failed to the lists of archetypal sinners who suffer measure for measure punishments in classical rabbinic literature. Thus, the classical sources seem to focus on the sins of the “other”, whereas the Genizah midrash deviates from this pattern by criticising the ancestors.80

80  It is of special interest that the Bavli’s treatment of Judah and Tamar is brought in as an associative derivation in the equivalent aggadic unit in BT Sotah 9a–14a. This unit includes the Babylonian parallel of our midrash, as I shall show below. The Bavli and the Genizah midrash share a similar sequencing of traditions, with a significant change to the context in which they are brought forward, as shown in the following table:

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Another typical literary move from classical to later midrash contributes here. Since the Genizah text offers the unified voice of the homilist, it presents Tamar as an active agent in the biblical account. It claims for an analogy between her and Judah. In Genesis Rabbah, the same content is ascribed to God, whom, according to the midrashic imagination, pointed out the biblical analogy when turning to Judah. There are other examples of ascribing to God (or to other authoritative biblical figures) rhetorical statements which could have been said to the audience by the homilist.81 By putting the midrashic reading in the mouth of God, Genesis Rabbah gives high importance to Tamar’s act. However, returning to the criteria of Tamar’s agency, we can note that the setting in Genesis Rabbah makes Judah the main subject of the story: God is speaking to him, and Tamar’s actions are reduced to an element within the relation between God and Judah. This becomes more apparent, when we turn to many other parallel texts. In Genesis Rabbah we already have a quotation of this midrash, phrased slightly differently: “God said to Judah: ‘Recognise, please’, behold, you will hear ‘Recognise, please’.”82 That Tamar is the speaker is not mentioned here, since Judah, and what he is expected to hear, is in focus. In discussing the previous example, we noted a similar tendency in the Bavli. Indeed, in this case as well it seems that the Bavli intensifies the marginalisation of Tamar’s agency:

Measure for measure – sinners Additional unit, containing a midrash on “recognise”

Genizah midrash

Bavli

The generations of the Flood and the Tower of Babel (as in Tosefta Sotah) A unit on measure for measure in cases of righteous people who sinned, including Judah

Samson (as in Mishnah and Toseftah Sotah) A unit about Judah and Tamar, connected associatively following the place name Timna, also mentioned in Samson’s story; the general design of the unit is in praise of Judah

A close literary reading of the Bavli might point out the tension created between the overall design of the text in a positive manner, and the implied affinity with Samson which is created by referring to Judah’s sin as measure for measure. To a certain extent, we can read the Genizah midrash as a “take” on this tension, and assess that the similar sequencing shown in a chart implies a certain literary dependency or correspondence between the two. 81  See for example Pesikta de-Rav Kahana, Zachor 1 (Mandelbaum, Pesikta, vol. 1, p. 41). 82  Genesis Rabbah 84:19, (Albeck and Theodor, Bereshit Rabba, p. 1029). Assuming that this is a secondary use of the midrash in 85:11, p. 1045, we may consider it as the first stage of degrading Tamar’s agency.

Portrayals of Biblical Figures in Lost Aggadic Traditions

“Recognise, please” (Gen. 38:25). Rabbi Hama b. Haninah said: He spoke to his father, using the word “recognise”; he was spoken to, using the word “recognise”. He spoke to his father using the word “recognise”: “Recognise, please, whether this is your son’s coat” (Gen. 37:32); he was spoken to using the word “recognise”: “Recognise, please, to whom” (Gen. 38:25).

169

‫ אמר רבי חמא‬.‫״הכר נא״‬ ‫ בהכר בישר‬:‫ברבי חנינא‬ .‫ ב״הכר״ בישרוהו‬,‫לאביו‬ ‫ב״הכר״ בישר – ״הכר נא‬ ‫ ב״הכר״‬,‫הכתנת בנך היא״‬ .‫בישרוהו – ״הכר נא למי״‬

This text in the Bavli coheres with other elements that place the emphasis on Judah.83 Judah is in the centre, and Tamar’s agency has disappeared. Everyone knows that Tamar is the one who said “recognise” to Judah, but she is not mentioned. The subject of the sentence is Judah who “was spoken to”. The use of the plural form ‫ בישרוהו‬enables not only the avoidance of Tamar’s name, but also to avoid hinting at her by using the feminine singular form.84 One should also note that since the Bavli only refers to the exegesis of the word “recognise” and does not include the one referring to the “goat”, it also avoid the sharper language found in Genesis Rabbah and preserved in our midrash, in which 83  The unit begins and ends by praising Judah (‫יהודה שנתעלה זה ונקרא כולו על שמו של‬ ‫)הקדוש ברוך הוא‬. It argues that it is thanks to his merit that he had Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah as his offspring, whereas in Targum Jonathan Gen. 38:25 we find this motif in Tamar’s prayer, as her reward! 84  There is another important example of the same tendency, found in a shiv’ata piyyut for Genesis 38:1, ‫וירד יהודה‬, published by Shulamit Elizur, Shiv’atot, p. 139. Judah is the subject of the entire poem, which begins with criticism of him, but only in order to present him as a developing figure that was able to depart from his sinful ways. Our scene seems to be the centre of this shift: And he who said “recognise, please” went down, ‫ו⟨ירד⟩ האומר הכר נא‬ So that he will be measured in a full measure [by the ‫להימדד לו בססאה הכר נא‬ words] “recognise, please” ‫בדין לא היכיר לאלמנה‬ Sitting in Judgment he did not recognise the widow, ‫יהודה כשמו הודה לאמנה‬ Judah, as his name is, admitted the truth ‫ונרצה […]עידות נאמנה‬ And he was atoned [thanks to the] faithful witness. As in the Bavli, Judah is in the centre, and the topic is his achievement in admitting the truth at the right moment. Tamar is not a significant player in this game. It is quite intriguing that the poem shares the same tendency as the Bavli. Note also the word ‫נתעלה‬, which is found in the title of the Babylonian unit in Sotah. See also Genesis Rabbah 98:7 (Albeck and Theodor, Bereshit Rabbah, p. 1258), and parallels. The last chapters are part of a later midrash added to Genesis Rabbah, and might also be influenced by the Bavli. Another interesting parallelism is the reference to Isaiah 27:8 as a marker of measure for measure, which is also found in BT Sotah 9a.

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Judah is said to cheat his father. This might represent a correlation between the scrutinising of Tamar’s figure and the tendency to praise Judah. The shaping of this scene in a manner that puts Judah in the centre and marginalises Tamar is also seen in two other late midrashic developments. The parallel to our midrash in Bereshit Rabbati is placed in a unit which expands the statement “She is more righteous than I” (Genesis 38:26) into a long confessional oration by Judah. Judah explicitly refers to this as measure for measure, as in our Genizah midrash.85 However, it is Judah who presents the relation between the two biblical “recognise” statements, not the narrator of the midrash as in the Genizah fragment, nor God as in the earlier sources. In putting these words in the mouth of Judah, the tradition in Bereshit Rabbati marks him as the hero of the story. As in the Babylonian account, his achievements are emphasised.86 Another example is Aggadat Bereshit 61,87 where the exegesis about “recognise, please” is strongly developed. Judah is blamed for being unaware of the sorrow of losing sons, he “cuts the bowls of his father”, and is identified with the “evil beast” who ate Joseph. This seems to be the most strident criticism of Judah. Like our Genizah midrash, Aggadat Bereshit also melds together different traditions found in earlier midrashim. It combines the midrash on “recognise” with a tradition known also in Genesis Rabbah, blaming Judah for bringing the pain of bereavement upon Jacob.88 In doing so, it places the theme of sorrow over sons at the centre. God is not only pointing out the measure for measure implied in the words “recognise, please”, but also explaining that the sin of Judah was that of harming his father. Tamar is marginalised here within a male drama. The text refers to the verse in which she speaks, but as in Genesis Rabbah 84:19, it is God’s words that are addressed to Judah, and the woman that utters them is not important. Tamar is not a key player; she is just a tool in the drama which reflects the perspectives of men. This tradition brings to its peak the marginalisation of Tamar. We may now summarize our finding concerning the Midrash preserved in T-S Misc. 36.194. The traditions found in it may clearly be traced to many other sources. However, the unique blend offered in the Genizah fragment combines 85  Albeck, Bereshit Rabbati 38:26, pp. 187–188. 86  Albeck points to the targumic origin of this oration. This might be another hint for the relevance for this study of the interchange between early midrashim, targumic expansions, and then their reintroduction into midrashic forms in late midrashic compilations. I find such investigation promising, and hope to address it in another context. 87  Buber, Aggadat Bereshit, p. 124. 88  Genesis Rabbah 85:3, (Albeck and Theodor, Bereshit Rabba, p. 1034) and parallels.

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171

two correlated trends: giving a voice to Tamar and criticising Judah. This is in contrast to the other texts, in which the criticism of Judah came hand-in-hand with the marginalisation of Tamar. Among the unique elements in our Midrash is the inclusion of Judah in a list of failing righteous people. This tradition is also documented in another lost midrash, preserved in the manuscript of an unpublished anthology of midrashim.89 The text reads as follows:90 Jacob cheated his father with the skin of goats and with his voice, and with “recognise” he cheated Laban, as it is written “In the presence of our brothers, recognise” (Gen. 31:32), and he was punished through three means. He was punished through goats: “and they slaughtered a goat” (Gen. 37:31); [he was punished through] voice in the case of Leah, as it is written “when morning comes, there was Leah” (Gen. 29:25); [he was punished] through “recognise”, as it is written “Recognise, please” (Gen. 37:32). And Judah was also punished through goats, as it is written “I shall send the kid of a goat” (Gen. 38:17), and through “recognise”, as it is written “Recognise, please” (Gen. 38:25). And Isaac was also punished through the same means by which he had sinned […] and also Abraham said “let Yishmael live before you” (Gen. 18:18), [an expression of] four words and he was punished through four words “whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?” (Gen. 15:8) […].91

‫יעק׳ רימה לאביו בעורו׳ עזים‬ ‫ובקול עשו ובהכר ללבן דכתי׳‬ ‫נגד אחינו הכר לך וב׳ ג [=ו�ב‬ ‫שלשה] לקה בעזי׳ וישחטו‬ ‫שעיר עזי׳ בקול במעש׳ לאה‬ ⟩‫דכתי׳ ויהי בבקר והנה ה⟨יא‬ ‫ל⟨אה⟩ ובהכר דכתי׳ הכר נא‬ ‫וגם יהוד׳ לקה בעזי׳ דכתי׳‬ ‫ ובהכר‬.‫אנכי אשלח גדי עזים‬ ‫ וגם יצח׳ לקה‬.‫דכתי׳ הכר נא‬ ‫במה שחטא דכתי׳ ויאהב יצח׳‬ ‫א⟨ת⟩ ע⟨שו⟩ […] וכן אברה׳‬ ‫אמ׳ לו ישמעאל יחיה לפניך‬ .‫ד׳ תיבות ונענש גם בד׳ תיבות‬ ]…[ ⟩‫במה אדע כ⟨י⟩ א⟨ירשנה‬

89   M S Oxford Bodl. Mich. 140, Neubauer Catalogue no. 937. The manuscript contains a vast aggadic anthology, probably prepared for the private use of a preacher. Among the texts cited from the Tanhuma there are a few paragraphs that are not found in the print edition. The parallel to our text is on p. 148a in the manuscript. Oded Roseblum and I are preparing a survey of unknown aggadic traditions in this anthology. 90   M S Oxford Mich. 140, p. 148a. 91  The last example concerning Abraham is a bit obscure; it does not follow the pattern of sin and punishment. Both verses quoted in regard to Abraham may be seen as examples of the same sin (expression of doubt), rather than of a sin and punishment, as in all previous elements in this text.

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The anthology and the Genizah midrash share a few characteristics that are not found in other parallel texts. These include the grouping together of Jacob and Judah in a list of biblical examples critical of the ancestors; and the explicit use of the concept of measure for measure, though using a slightly different phrasing, “he was punished through the same means by which he sinned”. In terms of style, it also presents the list in the authorial voice of the midrash, and does not ascribe it to a biblical figure. As well as the parallel of Jacob and Judah in using the word “recognise” in a context of cheating, it adds the stealing of the blessing as well as sins ascribed to Abraham and Isaac. It clearly shares a willingness to criticise the patriarchs. Like the Genizah midrash, it provides criticisms of the patriarchs which may be traced to other midrashim, but delivers them in a unique sequence. Collating the various accusations together has a strong effect, which is not commonly found in other midrashim. However, it is interesting to note its affinity to the convention typical in qedushta’ot for Shavuot, discussed by Shulamit Elizur.92 A section in these liturgical poems is devoted to a portrayal of history from the creation of the Torah (prior to the creation of the world) to Sinai. In order to explain why the Torah was not given earlier, the poets recount in this section the sins of the ancestors. The relevance of this paytanic convention is first in terms of content. Elizur noted that, in most cases, Abraham is blamed for saying “Whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?”, as he is in our text; a unique case in which Abraham is blamed for the Akeda. He should have protested when God ordered him to slaughter his son. Note the slight affinity to the second accusation of Abraham in our text, when he says “let Yishmael live before you”. In both cases Abraham’s sin is related to his willingness to give up Isaac, either before his birth or after it. The issue of making the wrong choice also appears in the case of Isaac, who is always blamed in these piyyutim for preferring Esau. When it comes to Jacob, some of these piyyutim blame him for cheating Laban, as in our midrash. The texts surveyed by Elizur are poetic parallels to a literary phenomenon seen in the midrash in the Oxford anthology and the Genizah midrash, namely listing the sins of the ancestors. However, they have nothing parallel to the accusations of Judah in the Midrash, though some do accuse him and his brothers for selling Joseph. Their importance in this study lies elsewhere. Elizur noted that the theme of these piyyutim is not documented in known midrashim, yet some texts include elements which Eleazar Qalir and his followers used. This is exactly the same dynamic I argue for here when analysing these lost midrashim. It is in the overall composition that we find their novelties. 92  Elizur, Rabbi Elazar Birabbi Kiliri, pp. 67–73. I am grateful to Hillel Newman, who referred me to these texts.

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More significant for our study is Elizur’s observation that there was a tendency to censor these piyyutim, which she finds especially in printed Mahzorim, but also in manuscripts. Some only comment that the sections criticising the ancestors should not be recited in public. Many other omit them entirely.93 In what follows I would like to suggest that the Genizah midrash may also have been subject to censorship. A hint for that is found in the liminal genre that stands between midrashic anthologies and biblical commentary in southern Europe, represented in works such as Lekach Tov, attributed to Rabbi Tuviah ben Eliezer in the eleventh century, and Sekhel Tov, attributed to Menahem ben Shlomo in twelfth-century Italy. In a similar manner to that found in Genesis Rabbah, Lekach Tov gives the two traditions about Judah in two different sections:94 Judah saddened his father through a goat, and Tamar saddened Judah through a goat. “Recognise, please, whose etc.” The Holy One, blessed be He, said to Judah: You said to your father “Recognise, please, whether this is your son’s robe” (Gen. 37:32), behold, “Recognise, please” (Gen. 38:25) you, too.

‫ את אביו בשעיר‬95‫יהודה ציער‬ ‫ ותמר ציערה את יהודה‬,‫עזים‬ :‫בגדי עזים‬ ‫ אמר הקדוש ברוך הוא‬.‫הכר נא‬ ‫יהודה אתה אמרת לאביך הכר‬ ‫ הכר נא גם‬,‫נא הכתונת בנך‬ :‫אתה‬

This tradition, in itself, may be seen as a reproduction of the critical tradition in Genesis Rabbah. We do not see here the grouping of Judah and Jacob in a critical context which is unique to the midrashic units preserved in the Genizah and the Oxford anthology. Surprisingly, Lekach Tov is familiar with another tradition that uses the same biblical analogy to praise both Judah and Jacob, the opposite of its critical use discussed here:96

93  Elizur, Rabbi Elazar Birabbi Kiliri, p. 73. 94  Lekach Tov, Gen. 38:23 and 38:25 (Buber, Midrash Lekach Tov, pp. 194, 195). 95   Mordechai A. Friedman suggested in a comment during the workshop that ‫ ציער‬here is the product of scribal error in copying ‫ בישר‬in the parallel in Genesis Rabbah. It is worth noting that the word ‫ בישר‬appears in the Bavli where only the tradition about “recognise” is included. What is important for the sake of our study is the use of a word that carries slightly more critical weight when describing his behaviour. Note that this word may be an echo for traditions such as the one found in Aggadat Bereshit 61 (Buber, Aggadat Bereshit, p. 124), discussed above. In any case, even if it is scribal error, it is clearly an error that carries new and relevant meanings. 96  Lekach Tov, Gen. 38:17 (Buber, Midrash Lekach Tov, p. 194).

174 “He said: I will send you the kid of a goat.” Jacob was blessed thanks to skins, and Judah was father to kings thanks to the kid of a goat.

Lavee

‫ יעקב‬.‫ויאמר אנכי אשלח גדי עזים‬ ‫ ויהודה הוציא‬,‫נתברך בעורות‬ :‫מלכים בעורות גדי העזים‬

When we continue to trace this tradition, we learn that Sekhel Tov, which is well known to be primarily based on Lekach Tov, adds a short comment about another tradition, which the author chooses not to quote:97 “He said: I will send you the kid of a goat.” Why was it the kid of a goat that came to his mind and not something else? Some expound this in praise: Jacob was blessed thanks to skins, and Judah was father to kings and saviours thanks to the kid of a goat he made a vow [to send her]. And some expound this as a case of measure for measure.

‫ויאמר אנכי אשלח (לך) גדי עזים‬ ‫ למה נזדמן בפיו גדי‬.‫מן הצאן‬ ‫עזים ולא דבר אחר? יש דורשין‬ ,‫ יעקב נתברך בגדי עזים‬,‫לשבח‬ ‫ויהודה העמיד מלכים וגואלים‬ ‫ ויש דורשין מדה‬,‫בגדי עזים שנדר‬ :‫כנגד מדה‬

The tradition referred to, though not quoted here, is well known to us. It presents the argument that Judah had sinned by showing the goat skin to his father and so was punished by the goat motif in the story of Tamar. Rabbi Menachem ben Shlomo portrays a contrast between expounding the goat analogy for praise, and expounding it as an example of measure for measure. It seems quite clear that he prefers not to present the critical tradition with which he is familiar.98 Though it is possible that he refers to the tradition that appears in Genesis Rabbah and other later sources, the use of the explicit phrase “measure for measure”, which is found in the Genizah text, implies a familiarity with this specific rendition of the tradition, and hence its censorship.99 Note I do not intend to argue that his act of censorship is responsible for the fact that the tradition was lost – we saw that a similar tradition was also preserved in the midrashic anthology, which is probably later by two centuries or more. I cannot firmly state that the specific text which the author of Sekhel Tov avoids mentioning is the one found in our Genizah tradition. However, the intentional silencing of a similar tradition concerning Judah is very important. Such a silencing may be seen as a re-enactment of an old reservation from the 97  Sekhel Tov, Gen. 38:17 (Buber, Midrash Sekhel Tov, pp. 228–229). For the relationship between Lekach Tov and Sekhel Tov, see Ta-Shma, Keneset meḥkarim, pp. 293–294. 98  However, the critical tradition on ‫ הכר נא‬is cited in his work; see Buber, Midrash Sekhel Tov 37:33, pp. 221–222. 99  A similar style of referring to the critical midrashim without quoting is also found in a work that belongs to the genre of Lekach Tov and Sekhel Tov in the Genizah; see T-S C1.49.

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study of the biblical unit implied in the mishnaic ruling that it may be read and translated (into Aramaic) (Mishnah Megillah 4:10). It is worth noting that Tanhuma (print edition) skips the reading lection of Genesis 38. Another piece of evidence for the silencing of critical traditions may be seen in the selection of midrashim in Midrash Hagadol, which seems to promote a very critical portrayal of Judah. Here we find more materials which are otherwise unknown, as well as critical revisions of known traditions. Both might originate in other lost sources, and this suggests that there may be other cases in which critical traditions were lost.100 The silencing of the biblical text seems to be motivated by concerns over the criticism of Judah as well as the intimate content of the story. Such a motivation is clearly seen in the explanation given in the Bavli for the permission to read and translate the story. The Bavli explains that the text may be read as praising Judah for admitting his mistake, while one might have thought that the biblical text should not be read at all because it disgraces Judah. This Babylonian explanation is in agreement with the prevailing tendency of the Bavli aggadic unit in Sotah identified throughout this paper. The urge to defend the male protagonist became a key motivation, at the expense of revealing or developing positive characteristics of the biblical heroines. In that sense, the traditions that I surveyed in the second and the third examples may tell a story of midrashic activity as a means of silencing through speech. The silencing of Tamar can occur even without avoiding the biblical text; it can be realised through praising Judah and the explicit use of the image of Tamar as a silent figure in the Bavli. The midrashic units presented here are rare examples that go against this trend. 4 Conclusion As I explained in the methodological remarks, we are very far from tracing the historical context of the traditions surveyed in this article. At this stage I can only offer some general considerations concerning the search for the historical context of the traditions. 4.1 The Spread of Traditions Our first channel for contextualising such traditions is through a presentation of their spread. At the very least, we know that the traditions were preserved 100  See Midrash Hagadol, Genesis 38:1–13 (Margulies, Midrash Hagadol, pp. 640–646), and especially the tradition of unknown origin which compares Judah to Esau (pp. 643–644).

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in the Cairo Genizah, and as such they were held by and known to communities in Cairo or by those who were in cultural contact with the Jews of Cairo. Palaeographic analysis can further support us, suggesting a chronological and geocultural framework for the production of the manuscripts. The evidence of other sources, namely the fact that in some cases the traditions are also documented, or at least implied, in anthologies and manuscripts of non-canonical midrashim can help us in broadening our knowledge of their spread. At this stage, the work on lost aggadic traditions in the Genizah as a whole, as well as those presented here, is far from being mature in this regard and can only be suggestive. It seems that there is a frequent coincidence between the lost aggadic traditions in the Genizah and those that were preserved in the Byzantine, Italian, and Ashkenazi spheres. Hints in this direction are seen in anthologies, in lost Ashkenazi midrashim (whenever they can be retrieved through rare manuscripts or secondary sources), and in compilations from the liminal genre that stands between biblical commentaries and aggadic anthologies, represented by Lekach Tov and Sekhel Tov. Such a correlation may be found in regard to some of the traditions discussed here, as well as in other cases. However, there are doubts about the historical implications of this congruity. It might represent lines of continuity drawn from early Palestinian culture at the end of the classical rabbinic period, through communities which continued to follow Palestinian customs in the eastern parts of the Mediterranean basin towards the end of the first millennium, to later communities in Byzantium, Italy, and Ashkenaz. One should also note that the first example was preserved in a manuscript with Babylonian punctuation, and it seems to be known, or to share original material, with other midrashim known in Eastern and Yemenite anthologies (Pitron Torah and Midrash Hagadol). 4.2 Sociological Typology as a Historical Tool The analysis of the traditions about Rebecca and Isaac discussed in the first example yields a suggestion of an alternative channel for historical contextualisation. A full analysis of the homily from which these traditions are drawn pointed to a tension between utilitarian perceptions of marriage focusing on the benefits, needs, obligations, or status of the male, on one hand, and a mutual perspective of marriage, emphasising the emotional relations between the couple, their cooperation, and a slight tendency towards the equality of women, and the perception of both men and women as independent selves. This tension is also identified in other rabbinic sources concerning procreation and barrenness, at times presented as a tension between legal demands that follow the first model, and aggadic values that seem to tend towards the second model. The first provides a patriarchal perspective and a passive model

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of women, and the second emphasises mutuality and empowers women’s initiative. The sources seem to point also at a geocultural schism, in which Babylonian traditions tend towards the first, and Palestinian traditions towards the second.101 When considering these sources, I find the typology presented by Jack Goody in his discussion of the medieval European family helpful. Goody identifies two “bundles” of social practices of values which are typical of the social structures of north-west Europe versus those of south-east Europe. The first, a bi-linear model, tends to favour the nuclear family, a strong relationship between husband and wife, monogamy, a looser separation between genders, and a higher status for women. The second, a patriarchal model, tends to favour a wider family structure, a weak relationship between husband and wife, a tribal importance of genealogy, codes of honour, polygamy, a rigid separation of genders, a low status for women, active men, and passive women.102 Goody’s typology is not free of shortcomings, and like any other typology it offers wide generalisations that do not account for the delicate differences of specific cases. However, when it comes to the rabbinic sources, it seems that the line Goody has drawn between north-west and south-east Europe can be slightly shifted to divide Palestinian from Babylonian sources and their trajectories in medieval communities. The former seems to tend more to the bi-lineal model, and the latter to the patriarchal one. We may thus suggest that the tendency towards the values of the second model in the first example discussed here, and maybe in other similar traditions also, reflects the preservation of such tendencies in communities that continued Palestinian traditions versus those that were utterly subject to the dominant Babylonian Jewish culture. If so, the sociological considerations seem to point in the same direction as is suggested by the spread of traditions. 4.3 Style, Terminology, and Form History The guideline for choosing the traditions presented in this paper was their content. However, an interesting possibility emerges that might connect all three traditions to one lost aggadic genre, the annual cycle midrashim. The first and third traditions clearly belong to this genre, though the third case is a relatively distinct annual cycle midrash. The second example is taken from an anthology, but its characteristic use of terminology implies that the anthologist made use

101  See Lavee and Strauch Schick, “The Egyptian Midwives”. 102  Goody, Development of the Family.

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of an annual cycle midrash.103 Not only is it beyond the scope of this paper to further examine this question, but we also lack, at the current stage, a helpful form history of late midrashic activity. We are facing the complex and exciting challenge of using the fragmentary evidence of the Genizah to present the history of form, style, and terminology of this neglected literature as an aid for dating these traditions. At this point, I can only mention the following observation. The annual cycle midrashim belong to a geocultural and chronological framework in which the previously separated Babylonian and Palestinian subcultures have met. They demonstrate the pouring of traditions and content of Palestinian origin into the liturgical cycle typical of the Babylonian milieu, at a time when the latter is gradually gaining dominance – this is probably the situation in Palestinian communities in the Levant and Byzantium during the ninth and tenth centuries. In any case, this is a very initial suggestion that demands further scrutiny and examination. 4.4 Crossing the Boundaries of Literary Genres My work is focused on midrashic traditions. However, Targum and piyyutim can provide significant contributions, as seen in the few occasions where I turned my gaze to these literary corpora.104 Though I did not develop this path in this article, it seems that such an exercise will be very helpful. First, by expanding the reservoir of traditions and variations we may find some surprising sources (or secondary uses) for the rare traditions in the Genizah. More important is the promise in such a process for historical contextualisation, since the origin, spread, use, and geocultural context of piyyutim is more detailed than that of midrash. 4.5 Towards a Merger of “Literary” and “Documentary” Genizah How can we proceed from this point on? The model to which we should aspire is that of synthesis, in which lost aggadic traditions motivate a search for historical evidence for their social and historical realisation in the cultural horizons of the society that holds them. The success of such an exercise would end with an ability to identify which traditions were in practical use in a 103  In particular, the use of ‫ כתיב‬/ ‫ כתוב‬/ ‫ כת׳‬for introducing petichta verses. The midrash discussed in the first example demonstrates this where the beginning of the parasha is preserved (Zav, and a different recension in ENA 2597.3–6). This terminology is also found in the second example discussed here, signalling a secondary use of the genre. Other Genizah fragments belonging to the genre also employ this terminology (T-S C2.202, a parallel of this midrash on Beshalach; T-S C2.77 Ekev; ENA 2597.3–6, a parallel or different recension to Shemini). Lekach Tov uses the same terminology also. 104  For piyyutim, see especially the third example.

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society, and which were only documented in manuscripts, transmitted from one generation to another, but not necessarily taking part in the “collective knowledge” of the society. To a certain extent, we should ask about the agency of the traditions. In a former study, I presented a Genizah fragment relating to events provoked by a European piyyut that migrated to Egypt and was performed in the Babylonian community in Cairo – it provoked a debate since it contradicted common aggadic perceptions of Elijah. Apparently, the piyyut was based on a tradition known to us in Genesis Rabbah, a work which was known and popular in the communities of the Genizah.105 What we learn from this incident is that the preservation of traditions in books is not necessarily sufficient to cause them to be active agents in shaping the perceptions – and the social reality – of communities. In another study, more related to the topic under discussion here, we examined various versions of a lost midrash enumeration, which lists twelve benefits of marriage. This midrash is documented in many Genizah fragments, testifying to a variety of secondary uses of the text, including a Judaeo-Arabic adaptation.106 Here we find a tradition that was well known and commonly used. It is worth noting that this tradition, though endorsing the benefits of marriage, is presented from the perspective of men, considering what one misses if one has no woman. As such it may relate to the utilitarian model of marriage mentioned above, and imply that this model was dominant and that aggadic materials supporting it functioned as active social agents in the communities represented in the Genizah. We may think of the corpus of traditions available in a certain community at a certain time as cultural DNA. Like DNA, it is a long text preserved from one generation to another, and it may contain segments which are not activated. Specific genes are activated through a serious of chain reactions, leading to their actual expression, which biologists call the phenotype, the phenomena activated by the genotype. This paper was focused on identifying aggadic traditions that were part of the cultural reservoir, and one may turn towards a second task, seeking evidence for their activation in the communities of the Genizah. If such a historical pursuit fails, and no evidence for cultural “activation” is found, the sources presented here might be an inspiration for their re-activation in contemporary societies, may this be my reward. In any case, feminist considerations of such texts should not only celebrate the presence of “less patriarchal” perspectives, but also look critically at the dynamics involved, recognising the formative power of sacred texts and their representations, and developing 105  Lavee, “Literary Canonization”. 106  Epstein and Lavee, “The Benefits of Marriage”.

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sensitivities as to the means by which social mechanisms are enforced and confronted through narratives. Such awareness may prevent the potential harm of an unbalanced emphasis on the “positive”. I would like to explain the problem of such emphasis not from the perspective of historians who might fear the distortion of a historical perspective, but rather from that of feminists who aspire to promote equality and prevent injustice in contemporary societies. First, the surfacing of “positive” traditions may serve apologetic denials of non-egalitarian elements in the canonical heritage. Such a denial of non-equal power structures in ancient texts might be utilised to justify and enable the continuation of patriarchal social models in our times. Furthermore, identifying “positive” traditions results from a naïve feminist perspective based on an over-simplified reading of texts. It ignores the question of the actual social and historical functions of such traditions. Throughout this article I have made an effort to show that positive representations appear in contexts of procreation and devotion to the stability of society. They grant women power within a very distinctive realm, and as such may function to preserve and strengthen patriarchal power structures. Bibliography Albeck, Chanoch, Bereshit Rabbati, Jerusalem: Mekize Nirdamim, 1940. Albeck, Chanoch and Yehuda Theodor, Bereshit Rabba: Critical Edition with Notes and Commentary, 3 vols, Jerusalem: Wahrmann Books, 1965. Amit, Yaira, “Hidden Polemics in the Story of Judah and Tamar (Genesis 38:1–30)” [Hebrew], Shnaton: An Annual for Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies 20 (2010), pp. 9–24. Bal, Mieke, Lethal Love: Feminist Literary Readings of Biblical Love Stories, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987. Beʾeri, Tova, “Dirges for Unusual Female Figures” [Hebrew], Mikan 11 (2012), pp. 98–114. Bregman, Tanhuma Yelammedenu Literature: The Studies In The Evolution Of The Versions [Hebrew], Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2003. Bregman, Marc, “An Early Fragment of ‘Avot de Rabbi Natan’ from a Scroll” [Hebrew], Tarbiz 52/2 (1983), pp. 201–222. Bregman, Marc, “Midrash Rabbah and the Medieval Collector Mentality”, Prooftexts 17 (1997), pp. 63–76. Bregman, Marc, “The Triennial Haftarot and the Perorations of the Midrashic Homilies”, Journal of Jewish Studies 32 (1981), pp. 74–84. Bronner, Leila Leah, “Aggadic Attitudes towards Prostitution: Rabbinic Rehabilitation of the Marginalized Woman”, Proceedings of the World Congress of Jewish Studies

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1993, Division C: Thought and Literature, vol. 1: Rabbinic and Talmudic Literature, pp. 33–40. Buber, Salomon, Aggadat Bereshit, Crarow: Josef Fischer, 1902. Buber, Salomon, Midrash Aggadah, Wien: A. Fantos, 1894. Buber, Salomon, Midrash Lekach Tov, Vilnius: Romm, 1884. Buber, Salomon, Midrash Sekhel Tov, Berlin: Itzkowski, 1890. Buber, Salomon, Midrash Tehilim, Vilnius: Romm, 1891. Buber, Salomon, Midrash Zuta on Shir Hashirim, Ruth, Eichah and Qohelet, Vilnius: Romm, 1925. Buber, Salomon, Tanhuma on the Five Books of Torah, Vilnius: Romm, 1894. Cohen, Norman J., “Leviticus Rabbah, Parashah 3: An Example of a Classic Rabbinic Homily”, The Jewish Quarterly Review (ns) 72/1 (1981), pp. 18–31. van Dijk-Hemmes, F., “Tamar and the Limits of Patriarchy: Between Rape and Seduction”, Anti-Covenant: Counter-Reading Women’s Lives in the Hebrew Bible, ed. M. Bal, Sheffield: Almond Press, 1989, pp. 135–156. Elizur, Shulamit, Rabbi Elazar Birabbi Kiliri, Hymni Pentecostales (Qedushta’oth leYom Mattan Torah) [Hebrew], Jerusalem: Meqitze Nirdamim, 2000. Elizur, Shulamit, Shivʿatot for the Weekly Tora Readings [Hebrew], Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 1993. Epstein Yaakov N. and Mellamed, Ezra Z., Mekhilta de-Rashbi, Jerusalem: Mekize Nirdamim, 1995. Epstein, Yachin and Moshe Lavee, “The Benefits of Marriage: A Case Study of the Reception of Late Midrash in the Genizah” [Hebrew], Ginze-Qedem 9 (2013), pp. 13–50. Fonrobert, Charlotte Elisheva, “The Handmaid, The Trickster and the Birth of the Messiah: A Critical Appraisal of the Feminist Valorization of Midrash Aggada”, Current Trends in the Study of Midrash, ed. Carol Bakhos, Leiden: Brill, 2006, pp. 244–271. Fleischer, Ezra, “The ‘Tetragrammaton Siddur’: a Contribution to the Study of the Shabbat and the Shabbat Rosh Hodesh Liturgy of Erez Israel” [Hebrew], Tarbiz 69 (2000), pp. 303–340. Friedman, M.A., “Halakha as Evidence of Sexual Life among Jews in Muslim Countries in the Middle Ages” [Hebrew], Pe’amin 45 (1991), pp. 89–107. Friedman, M.A., “Tamar, a Symbol of Life: The ‘Killer Wife’ Superstition in the Bible and Jewish Tradition”, AJS Review 15 (1990), pp. 23–61. Friedmann, Meir, Seder Eliyahu Rabah ve-Seder Eliyahu Zuta, Vienna: Hevrat Ahi-asaf, 1902. Ginzberg, Louis, Ginze Schechter, New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1928.

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Ginzberg, Louis, The Legends of the Jews, 6 vols, Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1909–1928. Goody, Jack, The Development of the Family and Marriage in Europe, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983. Greenhut, A., Sibbuv R. Petahiah mi-Regensburg, Jerusalem: J. Kauffmann, 1905. Hasan-Rokem, Galit, Tales of the Neighborhood, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003. Havazelet, Meir, “The Nature and Purpose of the Sources of the Complete ‘Midrash Ha-Hefez’ of Zakharyah ben Shelomo Ha-Rofe” [Hebrew], World Congress of Jewish Studies 3/1 (1989), pp. 195–200. Heinemann, Joseph, “Profile of a Midrash: The Art of Composition in Leviticus Rabba”, Journal of the American Academy of Religion 39/2 (1971), pp. 141–150. Horowitz, Hayim S. and Rabin, Israel A., Mekhilta de-Rabbi Yishmael, Jerusalem: Shalem Books, 1997. Hyman, Aaron, Yalkut Shimoni by R. Shimon Hadarshan, Former Prophets, vol. 1–2, Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1999. Kadari, Adiel, “Talmud Torah in Seder Eliyahu: The Ideological Doctrine in its Socio-Historical Context” [Hebrew], Da’at, 50–52 (2003), pp. 35–60. Kara-Ivanov Kaniel, Ruth, “ ‘Gedola Aveira Lishma’: Mothers of the Davidic Dynasty, Feminine Seduction and the Development of Messianic Thought, from Rabbinic Literature to R. Moshe Haim Luzzato”, Nashim: A Journal of Jewish Women’s Studies & Gender Issues, 24 (2013), pp. 27–52. Kara-Ivanov Kaniel, Ruth, “ ‘She Uncovered his Feet’ [Va’tegal margelotav]: Redemption Journey of the Shekhinah – Ruth the Moabite as a Messianic Mother in Zoharic Literature” [Hebrew], Daat 72 (2012), pp. 99–141. Kasher, Menachem, Torah Shelemah, reprint, Jerusalem: Torah Shelemah Institute, 1992–1996. Lavee, Moshe, “Biographic Rehabilitation: Late Rabbinic Readings of Jer 10:1–16 and Their Christian Context”, Texts and Contexts of Jeremiah: The Exegesis of Jeremiah 1 and 10 in Light of Text and Reception History, eds. K. Finsterbusch and A. Lange, Leuven: Peeters, 2016, pp. 67–88. Lavee, Moshe, “Converting the Missionary Image of Abraham: Rabbinic Traditions Migrating from the Land of Israel to Babylon”, Abraham, the Nations, and the Hagarites: Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Perspectives on Kinship with Abraham, eds. George H. Kooten, Martin Goodman, and J.T.A.G.M. Ruiten, Leiden: Brill, 2010, pp. 203–222. Lavee, Moshe, “Like Mother Like Daughter: Mother–Daughter Relations in Babylonian Talmudic Stories”, Mothers in the Jewish Cultural Imagination, eds. Marjorie Lehman, Jane L. Kanarek, and Simon J. Bronner, Liverpool: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization and Liverpool University Press, 2017, pp. 105–128.

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Lavee, Moshe, “Literary Canonization at Work: The Authority of Aggadic Midrash and the Evolution of Havdalah Poetry in the Genizah”, AJS Review 37 (2013), pp. 285–313. Lavee, Moshe, “The ‘Other’ Bursts from Within: Gender, Identity and Power Structures in Halakhic and Aggadic Texts” [Hebrew], Mikan 15 (2016), pp. 181–208. Lavee, Moshe, “ ‘Proselytes are as Hard to Israel as a Scab is to the Skin’: A Babylonian Talmudic Concept”, Journal of Jewish Studies 63 (2012), pp. 22–48. Lavee, Moshe: “‘Sarah would have suckled sons’ – Diverting Tendencies Toward nonJews in the development of one Midrashic Narrative”. Al Pi Ha-Be’er: Jubilee Volume for Prof. G.J. Blidstein, ed. Uri Ehrlich, Beer-Sheva: Ben Gurion University Press, 2008, pp. 269–291 [Hebrew]. Lavee, Moshe and Shana Strauch Schick, “The Egyptian Midwives: Recovering a Lost Midrashic Text and Exploring Why It May Have Been Forgotten”, The Torah.com, 2015, http://thetorah.com/the-egyptian-midwives/. Lerner, Meron Bialick, “A New Fragment of Midrash Eshet Hayil and the Beginning of the ‘Ten Women’ Statement”, Studies in Talmudic and Midrashic Literature in Memory of Tirzah Lifshitz, eds. M. Bar Asher et al., Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 2005, pp. 265–292. Lerner, Myron Bialik, “The Works of Aggadic Midrash and the Esther Midrashim”, The Literature of the Sages, Second Part, eds. S. Safrai et al., Assen: Van Gorcum and Fortress, 2006, pp. 176–229. Levenson, Alan T., “Christian Author, Jewish Book? Methods and Sources in Thomas Mann’s Joseph”, Agendas for the Study of Midrash in the Twenty-First Century, ed. Marc Lee Raphael, Virginia: College of William and Mary, 1999, pp. 123–136. Levine-Katz, Yael, “Midreshei Eshet Hayil” [Hebrew], PhD dissertation, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, 1992. Levine Melammed, R., “He Said, She Said: A Woman Teacher in Twelfth-Century Cairo”: AJS Review 22 (1997), pp. 19–35. Lieberman, Saul, Deuteronomy Rabbah: Midrash Devarim Rabbah, 2nd ed. Jerusalem: Vahrman, 1965. Lifshitz, Berachyahu, Midrash Shmuel, Jerusalem: Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies, 2009. Mandel, Paul, “Midrash Lamentations Rabbati: Prolegomenon and a Critical Edition to the Third Parasha” [Hebrew], vol. 2, PhD dissertation, Hebrew University, 1997. Mandelbaum, Bernard, Pesikta de Rav Kahana: According to an Oxford Manuscript with variants from all known manuscripts and genizoth fragments and parallel passages with commentary and introduction, 2nd ed., 2 vols. New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1987. Mann, Jacob and I. Sonne, The Bible as Read and Preached in the Old Synagogue: A Study in the Cycles of the Readings from Torah and Prophets, as well as from Psalms, and in the Structure of the Midrashic Homilies, Cincinnati: Ktav, 1940.

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Margulies, Mordecai, Midrash Hagadol on the Pentateuch Genesis, Jerusalem: Mosad Harav Cook, 1947. Margulies, Mordecai, Midrash Vayyikra Rabbah: A Critical Edition Based on Manuscripts and Genizah Fragments with Variants and Notes, New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1993. Menn, Esther Marie, Judah and Tamar (Genesis 38) in Ancient Jewish Exegesis, Leiden: Brill, 1997. Newman, Hillel I., The Ma‌ʾasim of the People of the Land of Israel: Halakhah and History in Byzantine Palestine [Hebrew], Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi, 2011. Rabinowitz, Zvi Meir, Ginzei Midrash [Hebrew], Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 1976. Rotenberg, M., “The ‘Midrash’ and Biographic Rehabilitation”, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 25 (1986), pp. 41–55. Rubenstein, Jeffrey L., “From Mythic Motifs to Sustained Myth: The Revision of Rabbinic Traditions in Medieval Midrashim”, Harvard Theological Review 89 (1996), pp. 131–159. Schechter, Solomon, Avot de-Rabbi Natan, Jerusalem and New-York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1997. Schechter, Solomon, “Midrash Fragment”, Studies in Jewish Literature, Issued in Honor of Professor Kaufmann Kohler, eds. David Philipson, David Neumark, and Julian Morgenstern, Berlin: Georg Reimer, 1913, pp. 260–265. Schlüter, Margarete and Chaim Milikowsky, “Synoptic Edition of Vayyiqra Rabba”, 2005, http://www.biu.ac.il/JS/midrash/VR/editionData.htm. Shinan, Avigdor, “Aggadic Motifs between Midrash and Story” [Hebrew], Jerusalem Studies in Hebrew Literature 5 (1984), pp. 203–220. Shinan, Avigdor and Yair Zakovitch, The Story of Judah and Tamar: Genesis 38 in the Bible, the Old Versions and the Ancient Jewish Literature [Hebrew], Jerusalem: Magnes, 1992. Sokolow, Michael, The Geniza Fragments of Bereshit Rabba, Jerusalem: Publications of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1982. Stern, David, “Vayikra Rabbah and My Life in Midrash”, Prooftexts 21/1 (2001), pp. 23–38. Strauch Schick, Shana, “Depictions of Childbirth in Rabbinic Literature: The Innovation of a Genizah Midrashic Text”, Mothers in the Jewish Cultural Imagination, eds. Marjorie Lehman, Jane L. Kanarek, and Simon J. Bronner, Liverpool: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization and Liverpool University Press, 2017, pp. 285–306. Ta-Shma, Israel M., Keneset Meḥkarim, vol. 3: Italy and Byzantium [Hebrew], Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 2005. Urbach, Ephraim, Sefer Pitron Torah, Jerusalem: Magnes, 1978. Vachman, Gila, Midrash Hadash al Hatorah, Jerusalem: Schechter, 2013. Visotzky, Burton L., Golden Bells and Pomegranates: Studies in Midrash Leviticus Rabbah, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003.

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Weisberg, Dvora, “Men Imagining Women Imagining God: Gender Issues in Classic Midrash”, Agendas for the Study of Midrash in the Twenty-First Century, ed. Marc Lee Raphael, Williamsburg: College of William and Mary, 1999, pp. 63–83. Wertheimer, A.J., Batei Midrashot, vol. 1, 2nd edn, Jerusalem: Mossad Harav Kook, 1954. Williams, Benjamin, “The Ingathering of Midrash Rabbah: A Moment of Creativity and Innovation”, Midrash Unbound: Transformations and Innovations, eds. Joanna Weinberg and Michael Fishbane, Oxford: Littman, 2013, pp. 347–370. van Wolde, Ellen, Texts in Dialogue with Texts: Intertextuality in the Ruth and Tamar Narratives, Leiden: Brill, 1997. Yeivin, Israel, A Collection of Mishnaic Genizah Fragments with Babylonian Vocalization, Jerusalem: Makor, 1974.

Index of Sources Bible Genesis 15:8 171 18:18 171 25:20 149 25:21 147 29:25 171 31:32 171 37 166 37:1 152 37:31 165, 171 37:32 165, 167, 169, 171, 173 38 154, 156, 166, 175 38:1 169 38:17 171 38:25 158, 165, 167, 169, 171, 173 38:26 170 39 156, 166 39:1 152

72:17 118:6

65 29

Proverbs 5:11 118 10:8 116 Ruth 1:15 1:16 3:9

153 153, 164 153

Ezra 23:10

117, 118

Targum Jonathan Gen. 38:25

155, 169

New Testament Gospel of Luke 3:23

Exodus 9:27 20:13

118 116, 117

Leviticus 13:45 19:16

133 116, 117

Judges 4:5

144

Isaiah 27:8 32:18

169 152

Hosea 10:11 14:1

117 152

Talmud Yerushalmi

Psalms 45:14 56:1

134 158

Yoma 38d Megillah 72a Ketubbot 35c

127

Mishnah Megillah 4:10 Sotah 3:8 Avot 1:3 5:3

175 133 127 127

Tosefta Berakhot 4:17 Sotah 3:5–15

154 167

135 135 155

188 Hagigah 77d Sotah 16d 19a Sanhedrin 23c Horaiot 47d

Index of Sources 112, 115 154, 155 134 112 135

Babylonian Talmud Berakhot 31b 148 Yoma, 82a 100 Moed Qatan 3:5 152 Hagigah 4b 126 Yevamōt 47a–b 90 64a 151 Ketubbot 62b–63a 161 Nazir 23a–b 162 Sotah 1:8–9 167 7b 154 9a 169 9a–14a 167 10a 154, 155 10b 154, 155, 158, 160 12a–12b 161 Gittin 89a 133 Kiddushin 35a 132 Bava Metzia 58b–59b 125 Bava batra 9b 31 Sanhedrin 44b 123 67a 126

Minor Tractates Kallah 15–16 Kallah Rabbati 3:23

129 130

Midrash Aggadat Bereshit 61 64

170, 173 162

64:3 154 83 154 Avot de-Rabbi Nathan version A ch. 6 version B ch. 13 version B 45

163 163 155, 163

Bereshit Rabbati 23:1 38:26

130 170

Deuteronomy Rabbah Ekev

154

Exodus Rabbah 1:13 16:4

161 154

Genesis Rabbah 21:7 133 42:1 161, 163 63:5 148, 149 84:19 168, 170 85 156 85:1 166 85:2 166 85:3 166, 170 85:7 155, 161 85:9 166 85:10 162 85:11 160, 166, 168 86:1 152 98:7 154, 169 Lamentations Rabbah 20:19

135

Lekach Tov Gen. 25:21 Gen. 30:1 Gen. 38:23 Gen. 38:24 Gen. 38:25 Gen. 38:17

148 147 173 162 173 173

Leviticus Rabbah 23

149

189

Index of Sources Mekhilta de-Rabbi Yishmael Beshalah 5 154

Pesikta de-Rav Kahana Zachor 1

168

Mekhilta de-Rashbi 14:22

Ruth Rabbah 7:14 8:1

148 162

Ruth Zuta 1:12 1:13

163 155

154

Midrash Aggadah Gensis 25:20 149 25:21 148, 151 25:22 148 Midrash Hagadol Genesis 25:20 25:21 25:22 38:1–13

149 148 148 175

Midrash Mishlei 34:15

130

Midrash Tehillim 59:1 151 116:9 155 116:16 162 Midrash Shmuel 2:10 148 6:3 148 9:6 154

Tanhuma Lech Lecha 10 163 Veyetze 19 147 Vayeshev 4 152 12 166 13 166 17 155, 160, 162, 166 Miketz 1–4 152 Yalkut Shimoni, Shm.I

78 148

Responsa Maimonides, Responsa, no. 211 100

Index of Names and Subjects Abi Ibrahim Yizhak 24 Abraham (biblical) 147, 150, 151, 164, 171, 172 Abraham b. Eli 51 Abraham b. Ḥalfon 66 Abraham b. Ḥalfon b. Abraham 66 Abraham b. Isaac 51, 69 Abraham b. Shabbetay 58 Abraham ben Yijū 103 Abraham Maimonides 15, 102, 103 Absalom 167 Abū ʿAlī 40 Abū ʿAlī Yefet the parnas See Yefet b. Shemarya Abū ʿAlī Yefet b. Abraham See Yefet b. Abraham b. Sahl al-Tustarī Abu al-Fadl 23, 44 Abū al-Faḍl Ezra 46 Abu al-Fadaʾil al-Bawaridi 31 Abū al-Faraj Ismaʿīl b. Ezra 44 Abū al-Fatḥ ʿAbd al-Ḥākim b. Saʿīd al-Fāriqī  47, 48 Abū l-Ḥasan 7, 44 Abū al-Ḥasan Ezra b. Ismaʿīl b. Ezra by Ṭayyib b. Majjānī 44 Abū al-Ḥusayn Mevorakh 46 Abū al-Khayr 62–66 Abū Manṣūr Ghālib 53 Abū Manṣūr b. Ḥalfon See Abū Manṣūr Ghālib Abū al-Qāsim al-Jarjarāʾī 48 Abu Saʿīd 23, 25 Abū Saʿīd Ḥalfon b. Ghālib 53 Abu al-Surur 23 Abū Yaʿqūb Isaac b. Ghālib 53 Abu Zikri 23 Aden 28 Agnon, S.Y. 141 al-Ḥākim 59, 60, 76 al-Kindī 47 al-Qamara 31 al-Rum. See Byzantium Aleppo 49, 104 Alexandria 8, 14, 16, 31, 66, 102 Alush 26 ʿAmram b. Yefet 58–61, 75, 79

Ashkelon 112 Ashkenaz 92, 98, 105, 121, 130, 163, 176 Ashur, Amir 15, 38, 43 Asin Palacios, Miguel 123 ʿAyyāš b. Nissim 8 ʿAzīza bt. Elʿazar 62–66, 80, 83 Baghdad 20, 144 Bahiyya bt. Yaʿīsh 58–61, 75, 79 Barhūn 9, 21, 23 Bārra bt. Ḥalfon 51–55, 71, 72 Barūkh b. Yiṣḥaq 104 Baruch the Jew 96–97 Beit Arié, Malachi 121 Bilbays 15, 17 Brezis, David 126, 127 Bronner, Leila Leah 145 Byzantium 26, 27, 97, 102, 176, 178 Cairo 16, 56, 66, 73, 176, 179. See also Fustat Curnow, Tim 24 Dallāl 47 Danzig, Neil 92 David 153, 154, 162 David ha-Nasi b. Hezekiah 51, 54 David HaReʾuvenī 104, 105 Deborah 144, 145 dhayl 47, 48 Elazar ben Asher Halevy 113 Eleazar Qalir 172 ʿEli (he-Ḥaver) b. ʿAmram 59, 62 ʿEli ha-Kohen b. Yaʿīsh 59, 62 Elijah (prophet) 112, 114, 119 Elijah (b. Zekharia), Judge 15 Elijahu de Vidas 113 Elizur, Shulamit 172, 173 Emanuel, Simcha 98, 113, 121 Engel, Edna 90 Ephraim al-Damīrī 39, 40 Epstein, Yachin 146 Esau 151, 172, 175 Ezra b. Samuel b. ʿAzarya 46 Ezra b. Ishmael / Ismaʿīl b. Ezra see Ezra b. Samuel b. Ezra

191

Index of Names and Subjects Ezra b. Samuel b. Ezra 42–46, 48 Ezrūn 44–45

Ismaʾil b. Barhūn Tahertī 8, 21, 24 Italy, Italians 27, 102, 113, 173, 176

Faraḥ b. Muʾammal 48, 49 Fonrobert, Charlotte Elisheva 145, 146, 151, 160 Friedman, Mordechi Akiva 63, 88, 89, 90, 173 Fusṭāṭ 8, 15, 20, 21, 26, 29, 31, 34, 42,43, 44, 46, 48, 49, 50, 53, 58, 59, 61, 65, 66, 69, 71, 73, 75, 77, 80

Jacob (biblical) 147, 151, 154 Jacob b. Yaʿīsh ha-Kohen 59, 60 Jerusalem 43, 44, 45, 46 Joseph (biblical) 166, 167, 170, 172 Joseph b. ʿAzarya 49, 62 Joseph b. Ṣedaqa 55–56, 73, 74 Joseph b. Yisra ʾel al-Tustarī 49 Joshua b. Ismaʾil 26, 27 Joshua ben Levi 112, 113, 114, 130, 135 Joshua b. Samuel. See Joshua b. Ismaʾil Judah (biblical) 153, 154, 156–160, 162–175 Judah b. Joseph 8 Judaeo-Spanish 16, 17

Ghālib 51–55, 71, 72 Ghālib b. Ḥalfon 53 Ghaniyya bt. Ḥasan 55–56, 57, 73, 74 Gil, Moshe 44, 63 Ginzberg, Louis 113, 114, 140, 147, 165 Goitein, S.D. 2, 7, 14, 15, 19, 20, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 33, 34, 41, 46, 51, 56, 58, 59, 71 Goody, Jack 177 Gurevich, Aaron 110 Heinemann, Joseph 149 Ḥalfon the oil seller 51, 53, 54 Ḥalfon b. Menasse ha-Levi 20, 71 Hannah 148 Harīsa 47 Ḥasan ha-Kohen 62 Hasan-Rokem, Galit 123 Haya Gaon 103 Hebrew 16, 17, 26 heqdesh 63, 65 ḥerem (ban) 43, 52 Hillel b. Eli 20, 71 Himmelfarb, Martha 110, 114, 121, 122, 126, 127, 128, 135 hurrayq 28 Iberia 103, 105. See also Spain, Spanish Ibn Abbas Ibn Burd 47 Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī 47 Ibn Muyassar 47, 48 Ibrahim 6, 7 India 19, 89, 103 Isaiah (prophet) 112, 113, 114, 116, 117, 125, 126, 128, 133, 135 Ishac Ibn Wahab 123 Isaac (biblical) 146–151, 164, 171, 172, 176

Kadari, Adiel 144 Kanarfogel, Ephraim 97 Karaite 44, 45, 46, 49, 62, 77, 92, 97 Khalaf 32, 39 Khalaf ha-Melammed b. Joshua 49 Kraemer, Joel L. 14, 15, 16, 17, 20, 25, 26, 27, 28, 32, 33, 34 Krakowski, Eve 21 Kushelevsky, Rella 130 Le Goff, Jacques 110, 126 Lerner, Myron Bialik 141 Levant 178 Levenson, Alan T. 159 Lieberman, Saul 113, 114, 121, 122, 123, 124, 127, 132, 135 Libya 27, 34 Maharam of Rotenberg 113 Mahdiyya 8, 21, 27, 28 Maimonides 17, 27, 91, 94, 100, 101, 103, 104 Maliha 25 Mann, Jacob 140, 147, 148, 159 Margulies, Mordecai 148 Mawlat 22, 23, 24 Melammed, Uri 14, 34 Menachem ben Shlomo 173, 174 Meshullam 57–58, 75, 76 Mevasser b. Ḥalfon 51 Mevorakh b. Ephraim 59, 60, 61 Mevorakh b. Meshulam See Abū al-Khayr Mevorakh b. Qayyām 49

192 Mevorakh b. Saadya 14 Michael (angel) 153, 154, 156 Middle English 1, 3, 5 Milikowsky, Chaim 112, 141 Miriam (biblical) 161, 167 Miriam (Maimonides’ sister) 17, 18 Moses (biblical) 112, 114, 120, 130, 167 Motzkin, Aryeh Leo 15, 16, 18 Mubāraka 42–53, 66, 68 Mujāhid 95 nagid 14, 28 Nahray b. Nissim 23 Najiyya 22, 23, 24 Najmiya 19 Nasi 44, 45, 51, 54 Nathan b. Abraham 48, 58 Nathan b. Khalaf 44 Natan ha-Kohen b. Solomon ha-Kohen 66 Nathan b. Samuel he-ḥaver 80 Nethanel b. ʿAmram 59, 62 Newman, Hillel 140, 145, 172 Normans 27, 28 North Africa (Maghreb) 6, 8, 9, 10 Ottoman 10, 103 Outhwaite, Ben 43 Ovadiah (the Norman convert) 104 Oved 153 Paston letters 2, 3 Peraḥya Rosh ha-Pereq b. Muʾammal he-Ḥasīd 48 Perry, Craig 38 Perry, Micha 130, 135 Petachiah of Regensburg 144 Pharaoh 112, 117, 118, 130, 161 Plene spelling 7, 8, 9 qadi, qāḍī 14, 38, 43, 47, 48, 55 Qalyub 40 Qayyām b. Mevorakh 49 Qayrawān 8, 21 Qinyan 57 Qiyyum 59 Qodesh See heqdesh Qūṣ 6 Raziel-Kretchmer, Yoel 147 Rebecca 146–151, 160, 161, 164, 176

Index of Names and Subjects Regourd, Anne 60 Rosen-Zvi, Ishai 131, 132 Roseblum, Oded 171 Rustow, Marina 80 Ruth 148, 152–156, 159–163 Sacher, Tova 146 Ṣadoq ha-Levi b. Levi 49 Safed 16 Sagi, Avi 95 Salāma 56 Salāma b. Ḥasan 56 Salāma b. Yefet ha-Kohen See Salāma b. Ḥasan Ṣāliḥ 49–51, 69, 70 Samael 156, 158 Samson 167, 168 Samuel b. ʿAzarya b. Mevasser 46 Samuel b. Eli 144 Samuel b. Ezra 44, 45, 47 Samuel ha-Nagid 65 Satan 153, 154, 156, 158, 160 Ṣayd 6 Sedaka 23 Ṣedaqa b. ʿAyyāš 6, 8, 9, 10, 11 Ṣedaqa b. Menaḥem 56, 73 Sitt al-Ḥusn bt. Berakhot 53 Schechter, Solomon 140 shamash (beadle) 26 Shelomo Cohen 104 Shelomo Gaon b. Yehuda 43, 44–45, 46, 51 Shem 162 Sherira Gaon 103 Shimon ben Shetach 112 shofeṭ 43 See also qadi , qāḍī Shlomo b. Elijah 15, 22, 29 Sicily 27 Sitt Ghazal 16 Sitt al-Jamal 16 Sitt Nisrīn 7 Slave 6, 7 Solomon 25 Solomon b. Ḥalfon 49 Solomon ha-Kohen b. Yefet See Salāma b. Ḥasan Spain, Spanish 16, 17, 18, 19, 121, 151 Strauch Schick, Shana 146, 147 Sumerian 1

193

Index of Names and Subjects Surura 23 Syriac 122 Tamām b. Abraham 49 Tamar 143, 145, 151–171, 173, 174, 175 Tamīm ha-Kohen b. Jacob b. Yaʿīsh 59 Tiberias 44, 49 Tripoli 27, 34 Ṭoviyya 57–58, 105 Ṭoviyya b. Moshe 49 Tuviah ben Eliezer 173 Tunisia 21, 27 Turner, Victor 94 Tustari 8, 11, 44, 45, 49 Tuwayr al-ʿIshā 39 Umm Daud 15, 16, 18 Umm Ismail 7 Umm Makhin 15 Umm Salama 25 Vachman, Gila 151 van Gennep, Arnold 94 Vanthieghem, Naim 80 Venerabilis, Peter 130

Wagner, Esther-Miriam 18 Wagner, Judith Romney 132 waqf See heqdesh Wertheimer, A.J. 140 Witztum, Joseph 65 Yaakov the Hazan 17 Yaʿīsh ha-Kohen b. Abraham 59 Yassif, Eli 133 Yefet b. Abraham b. Sahl al-Tustarī 44, 52, 53, 54 Yeshuʿa b. Abraham 51, 61 Yeshuʿa ha-Kohen b. Abraham 51 Yeshuʿa ha-Levi b. Abraham 51, 61 Yefet b. Shemarya 66 Yefet ha-Levi b. Ṭoviyya 59, 62 Yishay 153 Yishmael 171, 172 Yosef 29 Zalābiya 47 Zinger, Oded 14, 19, 20, 21, 22, 25, 29, 34, 35 Zohar, Zvi 95 Zoroastrianism 111, 122, 123, 126, 128, 135

Index of Genizah and Other Manuscripts Adler Collection, Jts, New York

Cambridge University Library

ENA 2560.6 ENA 2597.3–6 ENA 2630.2 ENA 4011.54 ENA 4011.67 ENA 4011.73 ENA 4100.9c ENA NS I.99 ENA NS 21.10 ENA NS 48.6

CUL Or. 1080 J 194

40 152, 178 92 63 62, 64, 80, 83 38 56 29, 30 90 15

Bodleian Library, Oxford Bodl. MS Heb. a. 3.1 Bodl. MS Heb. a. 3.40 Bodl. MS Heb. a. 3.45 Bodl. MS Heb. b. 11.3 Bodl. MS Heb. b. 11.10 Bodl. MS Heb. b. 11.31a Bodl. MS Heb. c. 18.38 Bodl. MS Heb. c. 28.67 Bodl. MS Heb. d. 65.25 Bodl. MS Heb. d. 66.11 Bodl. MS Heb. d. 66.15 Bodl. MS Heb. d. 66.21 Bodl. MS Heb. d. 66.69 Bodl. MS Heb. d. 66.133 Bodl. Heb. e. 47.44

104 53 58 53 44, 46 53 103 44 53 66 8, 9, 10, 11 28 48 49, 50, 69, 70 163

16

Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, Philadelphia Halper 339 Halper 354

58 46

National Library of Russia EVR Arab. I (Firkovitch II) 1700, 6 EVR II A455/6

60 151, 161

Lewis-Gibson Collection L-G Arabic 2.51 L-G Arabic 2.129 L-G Misc. 11

33 6 38

Manchester Rylands A 125 A 1084 A 1807

142 146 146

British Library BL Or. 5550 BL Or. 5566B.21 BL Or. 10587.23

49 53 146

Mosseri Mosseri VII.138.2 20 Mosseri VII.131 57, 75, 76

Index of Genizah and Other Manuscripts

Papyrussammlung Erherzog-Rainer, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna PER H 31 PER H 160

53 58

Taylor-Schechter Collection T-S 8.111 T-S 8.137 T-S 8.168 T-S 8.225 T-S 12.120 T-S 12.130 T-S 12.232 T-S 12.261 T-S 12.262 T-S 12.347 T-S 12.445 T-S 12.460 T-S 12.492 T-S 12.497 T-S 12.613 T-S 12.631 T-S 16.5 T-S 16.18 T-S 16.32 T-S 16.34 T-S 16.44 T-S 16.50 T-S 16.109 T-S 16.123 T-S 16.131 T-S 16.180 T-S 16.192 T-S 16.217 T-S 20.3 T-S 20.21 T-S 20.23 T-S 20.32 T-S 20.53 T-S 20.62 T-S 20.124

53 77 63 53 53 53 90 8, 9, 10, 11 8, 9, 10, 21 49 53 53 61 53 53 53 53 44 58 53 53 44, 46 49 56 49, 62 61 53 53 53 53 21 49, 58, 60, 75, 79 62 53 58

T-S 24.15 T-S 24.16 T-S 28.2 T-S 28.19 T-S 28.23 T-S C1.45 T-S C1.49 T-S C2.42 T-S C2.77 T-S C2.178 T-S C2.202 T-S 6J3.22 T-S 6J8.7 T-S 8J4.8 T-S 8J4.21 T-S 8J4.23 T-S 8J5.7 T-S 8J5.9 T-S 8J6.8 T-S 8J9.9 T-S 8J12.1 T-S 8J19.29 T-S 8J22.19 T-S 8J36.2 T-S 8J36.10 T-S 8K22.8 T-S 10J5.25 T-S 10J10.5 T-S 10J14.20 T-S 10J15.10 T-S 10J18.1 T-S 10J19.20 T-S 10K8.13 T-S 13J1.8 T-S 13J8.1 T-S 13J8.14 T-S 13J18.29 T-S 13J19.13 T-S 13J20.22 T-S 13J22.7 T-S 13J23.14 T-S 13J30.3 T-S 13J31.6 T-S 13J34.9 T-S 13J37.8 T-S 18J1.25

195 53 53 48 14 53 146, 147 174 146, 147 152, 178 147 178 32 53 62 66 66 53 53 42, 48, 66, 67, 68 56 66 34, 35 25 53 51 59 62 49 26, 27, 28 58 17 26, 27 103 49 55, 56, 73, 74 44, 45 31, 32 40 20, 39 15 8, 9 42, 48, 49, 66, 67, 68 66 15 47 66

196 T-S 18J2.5 T-S 18J2.15 T-S 18J4.21 T-S Ar. 38.41 T-S Ar. 38.91 T-S AS 62.61 T-S AS 145.136 T-S AS 148.206 T-S Misc. 8.23 T-S Misc. 25.14 T-S Misc. 35.15 T-S Misc. 35.106 T-S Misc. 36.122 T-S Misc. 36.194 T-S Misc. 36.188 T-S NS 31.9 T-S NS 224.22 T-S NS 224.29 T-S NS 224.33

Index of Genizah and Other Manuscripts 51, 53, 54, 71, 72 56 77 44 44 146, 147 58 62 38 58 49 113, 114 145 165, 170 113 53 38, 51 38, 51 38, 51

T-S NS 327.11 T-S NS J145

44 27

Manuscripts Collection Oxford Oxford Mich. 140 Bodl. Opp. 187 Huntington 115

171 155 152

Parma Parma 563

148