Letter: T-S 13J20.9

Description

Letter from Yiṣḥaq b. Barukh, in Sammanūd, to his wife, in Fustat. In Hebrew. The address reads, "to be delivered to Eitan ha-Ezraḥ (cf. Psalms 89) Abū l-Bayān the cantor." He expresses his longing and exhorts her to look after their son and to get along with Umm Thanāʾ, whose ḥumash he still needs to complete. He says he will try to come home as soon as he can, when his work is finished. Greetings to Abū l-Bayān. He says the letter was written on the first of Kislev in Sammanūd, and that he spent Shabbat in Banhā, and that he didn't have a bite to eat between his departure on Thursday until Friday night. Dating: ca. 1180–1200 CE, as Umm Thanāʾ appears as donating a Torah codex (muṣḥaf/ḥumash) to the Iraqi synagogue in Bodl. MS heb. f 56/50 (PGPID 6539) (1181/82 CE) and in Bodl. MS heb. f 56/49 (PGPID 6538) (1186 CE), and she appears also in T-S K15.3 (PGPID 1332) (ca. 1200 CE) and BL OR 5549.6 (PGPID 479) (ca. 1201 CE). There is a brief discussion of her activities in Goitein and Friedman, India Traders, p. 793 (and in the Hebrew edition of the India Book, vol. III, doc. 56). Abū l-Bayān the cantor could well be Moshe b. Levi ha-Levi (suggestion of Oded Zinger), which fits with the dating. It is also possible that the puzzling phrase after the sender's name (יש לו עצה(?)) could be a date: [1]511 Seleucid = 1199/1200 CE.