Description of Center for Advanced Judaic Studies Library, Halper 378: Letter to Ephraim he-Ḥaver ben Shemarya
Center for Advanced Judaic Studies Library
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In mail format; recto has 42 lines of text, plus one of signature, almost filling the page; Verso contains the names of the addressee and sender, in two columns of two lines. In the poetic segment (ll. 2-11), verse endings denoted by a punctus; The author, whose name indicates that he originated in Constantinople, was a captive, redeemed by the Fustat Jewish Community. He has taken a loan from the non-Jews. He now asks for the aid of the head of the Community, in the wake of an unspecified tragedy; His Hebrew is florid, his script is that of an expert. The letter opens with a panegyric poem of six strophes. Regards are sent to Ephraim's scribe Yephet (b. David);Ephraim ben Shemaryah served as the head of the Erets Israeli community of Fustat, (in whose synagogue the Genizah was housed) in documents between 1020-1047 (see E. Bareqet, Shafrir Mitsraim, 1995, pp. 100-121, = Fustat on the Nile, Leiden, 1999, pp. 129-160). He earned the title "he-Ḥaver", as in this letter, in 1025 (Bareqet, ibid. p. 104, idem. 135).
Condition: complete; faded, erasures.
United States
Philadelphia
University of Pennsylvania
Center for Advanced Judaic Studies Library
Cairo Genizah Collection
Halper 378
https://franklin.library.upenn.edu/catalog/FRANKLIN_9940420563503681
Hebrew
Letter to Ephraim he-Ḥaver ben Shemarya
Eliyah ben Shelomoh, 11th cent.
Paper
24.8 X 17.8 cm
Columns: 1 (recto), 2 (verso); lines: 42 (recto), 2 (verso).
Hebrew Byzantine square
Black ink
ca. 1025-1047?
Orient
Cairo Genizah Collection (University of Pennsylvania. Center for Advanced Judaic Studies. Library).
Cairo Genizah Collection (Dropsie College. Library).
Amram.
Laudatory poetry, Hebrew