Legal document: Yevr.-Arab. II 1561

Description

Court record issued by a Qaraite beit din at the Dar Simḥa Synagogue in Cairo. Dated: Monday, 4 Shevaṭ 5321 AM = 21 January 1561 CE. Written and signed by the dayyan Avraham b. Yeshaʿya Tawrīzī (a rare example of an early modern bialphabetic signature in both Hebrew and Arabic script). Also signed by a certain Yaʿaqov ("ha-mesharet"). The case involves ʿAbd al-Jawwād b. Farajallāh al-Kohen known as al-Khāzin. He asks the court why they have not allowed him the honor of going up with the Torah for the kohen blessings. They answer that this is because they heard that "the Shāmiyyīn" (this seems to refer to the Damascus or wider Syrian Qaraite community) had not allowed him to go up, therefore they have continued the practice until they find out the reason for it. ʿAbd al-Jawwād addresses the court, explaining that the judge ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz Fayrūz had prohibited him because the community suspected his late father Farajallāh of improper sexual relations with an Ethiopian woman (al-ḥabashiyya) in Egypt. No further details are provided about her identity or relationship with Farajallāh. The judge ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz intended to write to the Qaraite community in Egypt and inquire about this matter, though it seems he never did. ʿAbd al-Jawwād now asks the court to clear up the matter, and they affirm that the accusations were never substantiated against the father regarding the Ethiopian woman, and that the father had retained his right to go up with the Torah both in the Egyptian and Syrian Qaraite communities. The court concludes that ʿAbd al-Jawwād's right to go up with the Torah should be restored, and the document reports that he indeed did so on the following day (a Tuesday?). MCD/ASE Note: Though the document gives no indication of the woman's religion, Beta Israel Jews may have been present in Egypt in light of the crises that were unfolding in the contemporary Ethiopian Empire. Across the sixteenth and early-seventeenth centuries, Beta Israel Jewish communities lost their political autonomy through warfare and administrative consolidation. During the reign of Emperor Sarṣa Dengel (1563–97), for example, imperial forces waged three successive military campaigns against Beta Israel Jewish communities enslaving many of those captured and/or forcing them to convert to Christianity. Accordingly, it is possible that Ethiopian Jews came to sixteenth-century Cairo as refugees.