Letter: ENA 3787.10
Letter ENA 3787.10What's in the PGP
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Description
Letter of appeal/recommendation from the community of Damascus to the community of Fustat. The senders are writing on behalf of an ʿaguna who has been abandoned by her husband. He is a redheaded Qaraite named Yosef who was traveling with another man named Yosef. They heard that he settled in Fustat and became a Rabbanite. She is living in poverty with four children in Damascus. The addressees are to find the husband and try to force him to return or, if he has died, to send word about him.
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Translator: Rustow, Marina (in English)
ENA 3787.10 1
Partial translation
There is a woman [here] who has been “a widow in [her husband’s] lifetime” for more than three years now. We have heard that her husband is in Egypt. His name is Yosef, and with him is another man also named Yosef. He is a young man with reddish hair, and his distinguishing characteristic is that he was a Qaraite, one who does not acknowledge the words of our sages, and now has become a Rabbanite. She is an ‘aguna with four children who are dying of starvation. In your kindness, if he is there, tell him to return to his wife. And if he has left, or you have heard that he is verifiably deceased, please send her a letter here in Damascus [to that effect].
ENA 3787.10 2
