Letter: L-G Misc. 55

Description

Letter sent from Alexandria to Avraham ha-Rav ha-Sefaradi. (Perhaps the same Avraham ha-Sefaradi as in ENA 2558.13, who corresponded with the Nagid Yehoshuaʿ Maimonides in the first half of the 14th century.) In Hebrew. The sender conveys the plight of a woman who is his neighbor, presumably urging Avraham to intercede. This woman comes from a distinguished, educated, and wealthy family from Barcelona. After she had been a widow for 12 years, a man named Yosef arrived from "the city of Castile" (Toledo? or does it just mean "one of the cities of Castile"?). He said that he was a great sage and physician, and the widow's parents delightedly took him as their son-in-law. It turned out that he was a liar, a fraud, an ignoramus, and a great heretic ("Who commanded us to wear tzitzit? Who commanded us to put on tefillin? God did not command these things.") Her parents are inconsolable; she is their only child. The husband has already swindled them out of 500 pieces of silver. He does not even give her food to eat. The pair have since gone to Fustat. ASE.