Collection ID: 0002 | Metadata type: TEI | TEI XML | Data

Title

Authors

• Yitsḥaḳ ben Benvenishti, 12th cent.

Call number

Alternate identifiers

• https://franklin.library.upenn.edu/catalog/FRANKLIN_9940420703503681

Publisher

Language

Origin

Place

Damietta

Notes

• Address and signature may have appeared on missing upper portion; The writer, an immigrant from Narbonne, has become a friend (בן בית)of Joshua ben Dosa, and, in a different letter, benefited from Joshua's influence in the court of Wazir al-Malik al-Afdal (Cambridge T-S 20, 114 in Mann: The Jews in Egypt and in Palestine under the Fātimid caliphs / Jacob Mann. London : Oxford University Press, 1920-1922, v. 2, p. 271-273); Our Joshua, who served in the court of Samuel ha-Nagid, is known to have also befriended another European immigrant, Judah ha-Levi (Mann, ibid. vol. I pp. 217-219). Both are on their way (l. 5 אני על הדרך) from Europe, through Egypt, to Erets Israel; Isaac writes in florid Hebrew, decorated with Biblical and Talmudic phrases. Writing from Damietta, he describes how he has been robbed of his good clothes, 4 and one half dinar of gold, and his "beautiful" books; He now asks for assistance, through Joshua's brother Jacob (originally of Tinnis). He requests that Jacob, when he comes from Tinnis, should influence the 'gracious'Karaite Abu Radha (who has taken care of Isaac when he was in Tinnis), to convince the Emir of Damietta to grant him safe passage; This will enable Isaac to fulfill his oath not to settle in Egypt or the Rif, rather to complete his ascension to Erets Israel, through Jaffa, Akko, Tyre or Tripoli. He hopes to embark on a ship before Sukkot; Isaac ben Benveniste, wrote an epic poem (קצׄה) most of which (41 folios) is found in Petersburg, RNL Evr. II A 101. See Graetz, Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judenthums, v. 36 (1887), p. 304. He may by the Rabbi Isaac the European (אלרומי) who is listed as having received support (מקדר), in a distribution list, Cambridge K15, 48 verso l. 4.
   
• Condition: torn, losses in upper edge; folded in mail format; verso is blank.
   

Extent

Support

Layout

Decoration

Black ink

Script

Provenance

• Cairo Genizah Collection (University of Pennsylvania. Center for Advanced Judaic Studies. Library).
   
• Cairo Genizah Collection (Dropsie College. Library).
   
• Sulzberger.
   

Subjects topical

• Hebrew letters

Licenses

• Text

  These images and the content of Center for Advanced Judaic Studies Library, Halper 393: Letter to Joshua ben Dosa, Fustat are free of known copyright restrictions and in the public domain. See the Creative Commons Public Domain Mark page for usage details, http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/.

  URL

  http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/

• Text

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  URL

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