رسالة: T-S AS 149.51 + Bodl. MS heb. d 74/47

الوصف

Formal petition in Judaeo-Arabic from a group of (sugar?) laborers to a notable titled Peʾer ha-Qahal, (‘the crown of the congregation'). Header: Psalms 41:2. Hand of Hillel b. ʿEli (active 1066–1100 CE). The petitioners were apparently newcomers to a provincial town (though it is not clear where the document says this) and were dragged to the corvee (forced labor) and forced to work for the government by doing some job (the specifics are lost in a lacuna in line 5) which is perceived by their fellow Jews as tantamount to idolatry. They also assert that the indigenous inhabitants did not permit them to exercise their craft (Goitein). Or, alternatively, the threat of excommunication is for the scenario in which they continue working for the government, and they now wish to be exempted from this work, by asking the addressee to intervene with the ṣāḥib al-shurṭa on their behalf. (Information in part from CUDL and Mediterranean Society, II, pp. 394, 612.) Join: Oded Zinger. The join is very likely but not 100% certain as there are no words clearly split across the two fragments. There may also be a third intervening piece.