Judaica DH at the Penn Libraries Blog //10 Marriage Contracts from Penn's Cairo Geniza Collections
Blog //10 Marriage Contracts from Penn's Cairo Geniza Collections

As the Judaica Digital Humanities Coordinator at the University of Pennsylvania Libraries, I have worked extensively on Scribes of the Cairo Geniza, a project to sort and transcribe Cairo Geniza fragments in partnership with the Penn Libraries, the Princeton Geniza Project, the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary, the Genizah Research Unit at the Cambridge University Library, and the Zooniverse. One of my roles was to pull together and organize Penn’s Geniza images and metadata. For me, as a non-expert, I found it fascinating to examine and compare visually Penn’s Geniza fragments which contain marriage contracts. These marriage contracts span centuries and originate from disparate places. Yet all of these fragments still somehow ended up in the Geniza in Cairo. Below, I share ten marriage contracts from Penn’s collection (see the entire collection here):

1) Ḳetubah, Orient, 869–870, Halper 331, More Information

Fol. 1r

Fol. 1v

2) Marriage contract of Zein, daughter of R. Aaron ha-mumḥeh (the expert), Fustat, Egypt, 1080–1114, Halper 333, More Information

Fol 1r

Fol. 1v

3) Marriage contract of Sitt al-Dar daughter of Rabbi Isaac, Fustat, Egypt, 1063, Halper 339, More Information

Fol. 1r

Fol. 1v

4 and 5) Marriage contract of Ḳarimah daughter of Rabbi Natsr (El’azar), Fustat, Egypt, ca. late 11th century, Halper 341 + 348,More Informationon 341,More Informationon 348

Halper 341, Fol. 1r

Halper 341, Fol. 1v

Halper 348, Fol. 1r

Halper 348, Fol. 1v

6) Marriage contract (draft)given by Abraham ben Ṣedaka to the daughter of Pinḥas ben Levi the Elder, Ramla, Israel, 1062 or 1069, Halper 364,More Information

Fol. 1r

7) Marriage Contract to bridegroom Ghaleb, Fustat, Egypt, 1026–1056?, Halper 366, More Information

Fol. 1r

8) Marriage Contract for Esther, Italy, 1892, Halper 372,More Information

Fol. 1r

9) Marriage contract of Saʹidah (virgin) daughter of Saʹid al Ḥatrushi to Salim ben Saʹid al-Akhlufi. One of the witnesses is signed Judah ben Musi al-Shaḥb, Date Unknown,Yemen, Halper 373, More Information

Fol. 1r

Fols. 2r and 2v

10) Marriage contract for Shimʹah (virgin), daughter of Daud to Ḥaim ibn Suleiman, the witnesses are Saʹid ben Sulaiman Najjār and Yaḥyah ben Saʹid Kabāssi, Almuḥbasha,Yemen, Halper 374, More Information

Fol. 1r

By Judaica DH at the Penn Libraries on August 16, 2017.

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Exported from Medium on April 14, 2020.

Cite this post: Laura Newman Eckstein. “10 Marriage Contracts from Penn's Cairo Geniza Collections”. Published August 16, 2017. https://judaicadh.github.io//blog/2017-08-16-marriage-contracts/. Accessed on .