Thoth distribution@thoth.pub 20260408T110119

urn:uuid:e499979f-dcdb-4f06-87b0-4dee9c3d2530 03 01 01 urn:uuid:e499979f-dcdb-4f06-87b0-4dee9c3d2530 15 9781805110729 06 10.11647/OBP.0352 00 EB E107 10 Creative Commons License 02 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ 01 01 'Wisdom and Greatness in one Place' The Alexandrian Trader Moses ben Judah and his Circle 1 A01 21 0000-0001-5395-6653 Dotan Arad 2 A01 Esther-Miriam Wagner 01 eng 00 548 03 20 Archival material 12 BJ B2 Cambridge Semitic Languages and Cultures 93 DND 04 DS135.E42 10 LCO011000 12 2CSR 93 CJ 10 FOR002000 B2 Linguistics 20 Moses ben Judah 20 Egyptian Jewry in the late Mamluk period 10 FOR011000 12 JFSR1 B2 Material Culture 93 NHDJ 12 2CSJ 10 HIS037010 20 Judaeo-Arabic 12 HBLC1 20 Late Middle Ages 12 HMC 20 Mediterranean trade 03 00 The manuscript collections of the Bodleian Library contain a corpus of dozens of documents from the archive of Moses ben Judah. A leader of the Jewish community in Alexandria, he was also a prominent businessman and in contact with individuals from Cairo to Sicily. This collection of documents at the Bodleian likely did not emerge from the Cairo Genizah, but from another depository, and appears to have been buried at some point. The documents, which include letters and deeds, shed light on the world of the Jewish elite of a Mediterranean city at the end of the Middle Ages, their communal and business life, connections between Jewish communities, and intellectual trends and tastes among educated Jews. They improve our understanding of the lives of Alexandrian Jews in the late Middle Ages and provide new data about the local leadership and its relations with the Nagidate (the central Jewish leadership) in Cairo, the cantors, the poll tax and its effects, and more. We hear about tensions within this society and the growing presence of European (Italian, Greek, Iberian, and conversos) Jews within the complex social mosaic of Egyptian Jewry in the late Mamluk period. The documents inform us about Alexandria’s Jewish community and the commercial networks of the Mediterranean world, in which Jews traded alongside Christians and Muslims. This volume makes an important contribution to the study of Judaeo-Arabic at a watershed moment. Sources from the late Mamluk period show Judaeo-Arabic at a linguistic border between Classical and Late Judaeo-Arabic. The volume will therefore further readers’ knowledge of historical linguistics of Arabic in general, and Judaeo-Arabic in particular. The phrase ‘Wisdom and Greatness in One Place’ in the title of the book is a quotation from the Babylonian Talmud (Giṭṭin 59a), the meaning of which is that it is rare to find combined in one man political leadership and intellectual pre-eminence. 04 00 Introduction Part I: Documents C: Communal Documents: The Public Affairs of Alexandria C.1: Letters from Solomon b. Joseph ha-Nagid C.2: Letter from Nathan Sholal ha-Nagid to Moses b. Judah C.3: Letter from David ibn Shams to Moses b. Judah C.4: Letter from Elijah Qarqūsa to Moses b. Judah C.5: Letter from a Certain Hārūn to Moses b. Judah C.6: Voucher for Collection of a Will by the Leaders of the Community of Alexandria C.7: Sample Letter, Based on a Letter to the Community of Cairo P: Private Letters: Moses b. Judah’s Circle P.1: Letter from Moses b. Judah (?) to Saʿīd ibn Muhaḏḏab P.2: Letter to Moses b. Judah, Probably from Nathan Sholal P.3: Letters from David ibn Shams to Moses b. Judah P.4: Letters from Ṣedaqah Nis to Moses b. Judah P.5: Letters from Elijah b. Elyaqim to Moses b. Judah P.6: Letter from Isaac Bayt ʿAṭṭān to Moses b. Judah P.7: Letter from Ṣuriel Dayyan to Moses b. Judah P.8: Letter from Mardūḵ Qarqūsa to Israel ʿAṭāʾīn and Yeraḥmiel ʿAṭāʾīn P.9: Letter from an Anonymous Scholar to Moses b. Judah P.10: Letter from an Anonymous Writer to Moses b. Judah P.11: Letter from an Anonymous Writer to a Certain Yedidiah P.12: Letter from an Anonymous Writer Part II: Literary Works W: Literary Works W.1: Qohelet Rabbah W.2: Mishne Torah, Sheḥitah Laws (Maimonides) W.3: Commentary on Kings (R. David Qimḥi) W.4: Mikhlol (R. David Qimḥi) W.5: Sefer ha-Yirʾah (R. Jonah Girondi) W.6: Commentaries on Talmud Bavli and Hilkhot ha-Rif W.7: List of Biblical Quotations for Use in Letters W.8: Unidentified Work Part III: Linguistic Analysis of the Judaeo-Arabic in the Corpus Abbreviations References Table of Orientation Indices 20 00 Open Access Open Book Publishers 01 Open Book Publishers Cambridge, UK 04 01 20250722 13 15 9781805110712 09 Open Book Publishers 02 Publisher's website: web shop https://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/OBP.0352 99 01 09 Open Book Publishers 29 Publisher's website: download the title https://books.openbookpublishers.com/10.11647/obp.0352.pdf 99 01