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Daughter of Nissīm b. Peraḥyā Ben Yijū

Metadata

Gender
Female
Social role
  • Jewish community member

Description / Bio

The daughter (name unknown) of Nissīm b. Peraḥyā Ben Yijū and of a daughter of Shemuʾel Ibn al-Amshāṭī. She married her paternal cousin, Yosef b. Moshe, who went off to Fustat to study Torah alongside his cousin and later brother-in-law, Peraḥyā b. Nissīm Ben Yijū. Meanwhile, the bride lived with her in-laws, possibly in Alexandria, or possibly in Minyat Ziftā and Minyat Ghamr, where her father-in-law Moshe was a judge. Unfortunately, it seems that she struggled or was poorly-treated in her in-laws' household--to the point that in the absence of her own mother (now deceased), her maternal uncle, the notable Ḥananel b. Shemuʾel Ibn al-Amshāṭī, had to intervene. He added a section in a letter to Moshe imploring him to treat her well (PGPID 1730). --SBS

Select bibliography

  1. S. D. Goitein, "Chief Judge R. Ḥanan'el b. Samuel, In-law of R. Moses Maimonides‎" (in Hebrew), Tarbiz / תרביץ‎ 50, no. 10 (Mandel Institute for Jewish Studies / המכון למדעי היהדות ע"ש מנדל, 1980), 95-371.
  2. S. D. Goitein and Mordechai Akiva Friedman, India traders of the middle ages : documents from the Cairo Geniza : India book (Brill, 2008), vol. 1.
Sasha Batz Stern, "Daughter of Nissīm b. Peraḥyā Ben Yijū," available online through the Princeton Geniza Project at https://geniza.princeton.edu/people/daughter-bt-nissim-b-perahya-ben-yiju/, accessed August 6, 2026.
https://geniza.princeton.edu/people/daughter-bt-nissim-b-perahya-ben-yiju/