Letter: JTSA MS 4391

Description

Letter from Sherira bar Ḥananya Gaʾon and Hayye bar Sherira to Yaʿaqov b. ʿAwkal enclosing letters for Yaʿaqov b. Nissim in Qayrawān. It is unknown where this manuscript is today. Long story short: this shelfmark refers to a copy of the manuscript made by Firkovich. (Longer version: Gil published the text on the basis of the editio princeps, made by Alexander Marx in "Studies in Gaonic History and Literature," JQR n.s. 1 (1910): 101, having copied it from what Marx calls Codex Steinschneider 29, "which for the most part contains liturgical fragments," folios 19-20 — although apparently Steinschneider himself designated it CnP1. Gil says that he attempted to locate the text at JTS and failed, but then labels it "Unidentified Firkovitch." This seems puzzling until one reads Benjamin Richler, "Steinschneider's Manuscripts," which explains that after Steinschneider died in 1907, Marx was able to purchase 25 of Steinschneider's manuscripts for the JTS library, in addition to his archives and about two dozen notebooks containing bibliographical notes and copies of manuscripts. One of these notebooks, now JTS MS 4391, which Richler calls "one of the more curious items in Steinschneider's library," contains copies of piyyutim and other fragments in the hand of Firkovich, which Firkovich sent to Steinschneider, "perhaps for his appraisal, perhaps as a gift." So what's at JTS is a copy, and if the original fragment surfaces, it will probably surface in St. Petersburg. MR