Legal document: T-S Misc.23.3

Translated by Dora Zsom

The three of us sitting together, we formed a court of law, we the undersigned, and the following happened: Mar Muvḥar ha-zaken [“the elder”] ben Mar Tsedakah came before us, and said to us:

“I was present in the vestibule of the house of the most honored Za‘im al-Mulk, in Alexandria, and ‘Imrān and Ezra, the sons of Bashīr ben Naḥum, were also present. And I warned them against the quarrels that they are engaged in these days, and while we were speaking, I mentioned the excommunication that our master Daniel ha-Nasi, the head of the academy of the Pride of Jacob, had placed upon their house. The abovementioned ‘Imrān said, ‘May God crush the bones of Daniel into dust in the mouth of this ‘Imrān.’ And his brother, the abovementioned Ezra, said: ‘Amen.’ And they repeated this several times.” And this Mar Muvḥar mentioned that Ezra the aforementioned also supported his brother ‘Imrān regarding the words he said.

It is a shame for both of them! We, the court of law, wrote down this case in order to corroborate this testimony and in order to attach to it another testimony that was given by another witness against the abovementioned Ezra, similar to this testimony, in order to determine at this time what has to be done in this matter according to the imperatives of the law. And our signatures were delayed, because of what happened in our presence when this testimony was brought before us on Tuesday, [the tenth of Sivan,] in the year 4839 after the creation of the world, according to the system of counting that we use in the city of Alexandria, which sits on the shore of the Great Sea.

This was confirmed and attested by Jacob ha-Kohen ben Yeshu‘a, Hillel ha-Ḥazan ben Eli, Manasseh bar Yefet.