Letter: ENA 2556.7

Letter ENA 2556.7

Tags

Input date

In PGP since 2017

Description

Letter addressed to the judge R. Yeshuʿa in Fustat. The sender's name may be legible: [...] al-[Iskan?]darānī b. Ibrāhīm. The sender asks the addressee "to help him get rid of his wife to whom he has already sent the bill of divorce but needs an official confirmation of its being received before being allowed to marry another woman (on this see Friedman, Polygyny, 241). The sender writes: I have heard that she is in Fustat and the bill of divorce reached her, but you did not send me an answer. Do not neglect the small one (i.e., the writer's child) and do not allow him to travel down to Alexandria. May God deal with her as she has acted. She separated me from my son. If there is Paradise, it is Damascus. I have heard that the son of R. Moshe arrived in Jerusalem. By your faith in God! do not listen to her, for [or: claiming that] she will come to Syria (Bilād al-Shām). For she has broken me and exhausted me, behaving like an idiot (taballadat) in the land (fī l-balad). I swear I have been sick for 30 days..." Translation based on Oded Zinger's translation in "If There is a Paradise, It is Damascus" (2012). ASE

ENA 2556.7 1

1

Transcription

Translation

ENA 2556.7 2

2
Image Permissions Statement
  • ENA 2556.7: Images provided by the Jewish Theological Seminary Library (JTSL)