Letter: T-S 13J13.16

Description

Petition to David b. Daniel from a destitute woman with no family and afflicted with a serious illness (leprosy, it seems). Dating: ca. 1090 CE. She begs “Our lord David, the great nasi, head of the diasporas of all Israel,” to assist her and concludes the note with wishes for David, that “male children may fill your place.” (Mark Cohen, Jewish Self-government in Medieval Egypt, 207, 219; trans. Cohen, Voice of the Poor, #21, pp.52-3); EMS. The letter describes her as a "lonesome bird on a rooftop"; the same phrase appears in a poem attributed to Yehuda ha-Levi in L-G Lit. I.50. The scribe, a Byzantine, has been identified by Ben Outhwaite. This scribe wrote T-S 12.237, T-S NS 325.184, T-S 13J13.16, and T-S 8J16.29.