Letter: ENA 4009.5
Letter ENA 4009.5Description
Two epistles addressed to Ḥasday ibn Shaprut (d. c. 970), the first from a notable of Bari, the second from Yehuda b. Yaʿaqov of Rome. In rhymed Hebrew. These are later copies. The first letter narrates the martyrdom of certain rabbis of Otranto and offers an excuse for a certain Shemuel who was bearing letters and a copy of the book of Yosippon and was robbed by bandits and who rode against the bandits to try to get them back. Ed. Adler, Revue des Etudes Juives LXVII (1914), pp. 42-43, and ed. Mann, Texts & Studies vol. I pp. 23-27. Mentioned briefly in Goitein, Med Soc II, p. 242 n. 2 ("As early as the tenth century we find a physician at the head of the Jewish community of Bari in southern Italy, a town famous for its religious scholars"). Previously known as MS. Adler 2156.
