The Strange Connection Between a Medieval Shopping List and a Divorce Contract

A shopping list found among the treasures of the Cairo Genizah was scrawled on the back of a rather important document.

It happens to us all about once a week – the refrigerator and cabinets are suddenly bare and we need to go to the grocery store to restock. Most of us don’t have a special place to write a shopping list – a pad or a notebook dedicated to such mundane things. Typically, we will improvise, grabbing the closest piece of scrap paper to use for scribbling down a basic list of groceries to get us through the week.

It’s easy to forget that people have struggled with the same mundane parts of life as we do for thousands of years – things like grocery shopping and list-making – and like us, they improvised, finding creative solutions to everyday annoyances. In fact, the Cairo Genizah held one extreme example where a random, unremarkable shopping list was actually scrawled on the back of a torn-up divorce agreement from the Middle Ages.

The Ben Ezra Synagogue, originally built over a thousand years ago in Fustat, the heart of ancient Cairo had a special room which held a Genizah. The Genizah was a place where, per Jewish tradition, documents containing holy Jewish texts were deposited instead of simply throwing them in the trash. Over time, people began depositing any document written in Hebrew lettering, including items like marriage contracts, divorce papers, court documents, and private letters. Materials were deposited in this room from the time the synagogue opened through the 19^th century. When it was rediscovered, the incredible collection of papers written in a variety of languages including Hebrew, Arabic, and Aramaic served as documentation of a thousand-year history of Jewish culture and society in the Middle East.

Among the treasures found inside the Genizah is what appeared at first glance to be a simple shopping list scrawled on a scrap of paper that is now held by the Cambridge University Library and is digitally preserved in the National Library of Israel collection. The list seemed perfectly ordinary, filled with everyday purchases that would be made in the local market. It was relatively detailed as each entry in the list included specific weights of each good to be purchased, using the dirham as the unit of measure. The dirham, equivalent to approximately 3.125 grams, is frequently mentioned in Jewish law as it was used to measure such things as the weight of a quantity of silver promised in a marriage contract.

A shopping list from the Cairo Genizah, Cambridge University Library.

This particular list included ordinary ingredients like sumac and tahini, as well as olive and sesame oil. When researchers turned the list over however, it became far less commonplace when they realized the list was written on the back of a fragment from a torn-up Get (Jewish divorce contract).

Talk about grabbing a piece of scrap paper.

As it turns out, this was not as unusual as it sounds. In accordance with Jewish law, when a marriage ends in divorce, the Get (divorce agreement), is torn to pieces so it cannot be used again. Historically, these agreements were written on the front side of large pieces of paper and the backs were left blank. Once the contract had served its purpose and was no longer necessary, the torn pieces were simply used for scrap paper – recycling ahead of its time. This might lend explanation as to why something so trivial as a shopping list would be scrawled on the back of a divorce contract.

The back of the shopping list from the Cairo Genizah with the text from a divorce contract, Cambridge University Library.

The shopping lists found in the Cairo Genizah tend to be written in order of what was required for a specific recipe. This means that sometimes lists include the same product more than once but with different weights for each entry, as the product was needed for more than one recipe. For example, on this list, sesame oil is included twice as the shopper expected to purchase the amounts needed for two different dishes. The list read as follows:

Sumac 3/8 (dirham)

Tahini ¼

Olive and Sesame Oil ¾

Salt ¼

Sesame Oil 1 5/8

Wood for Fuel 1/4

Serving suggestion: For anyone wishing to recreate a recipe based on this list, it seems the best option would be to prepare a fresh batch of tahini. We recommend mixing raw tahini paste with some sumac and water. Add some sesame oil and salt to taste.

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Four Ketubot and a Wedding

Okay, two weddings, but this is still the strangest story you will have heard in a while...

National Library | 10.09.19

סודות כתבי היד העבריים

By Chen Malul

A ketubah is a traditional Jewish wedding contract. As such, it is not a particularly romantic item, and not just for the obvious reasons. Consider, for example, the four ketubot that were recently unearthed by the staff of the National Library’s Manuscripts Department on an old microfilm reel. These four documents appear to attest to a strange sequence of events, and they unfortunately represent the only evidence available…

The story begins in Italy. The year was 1842, and in the port city of Trieste (which served as a free-trade zone of the Austro-Hungarian Empire) the dear bride-groom Jehoiakim ben Shimon Schulhaff was being wed to the honorable virgin Leah bat Yaakov Gabriel. The groom’s signature and that of the two witnesses at the bottom of the ketubah sealed its validity. But, apparently, the groom did not hold up his end of the bargain, failing to financially support his bride, and soon enough she was married to another suitor.

A year and a half after the lavish seaside wedding at Trieste, a second ketubah was inscribed, but not signed, in another Italian port city, Ancona. On the thirteenth day of the month of Iyar, in the year 5604 (1844), the same young lady – Leah bat Yaakov Gabriel – was to be married once again. This time, the groom answered to the name Joseph ben Yehuda Schwarzenberg.

Neither the groom’s signature, nor the two required witness signatures appear in this second ketubah. This made it a matter of no consequence whatsoever for our honorable bride to be married yet another time, this time to (according to our best estimation) the former groom’s brother – Gershon ben Yehuda Schwarzenberg. Did this unusual arrangement for a wedding offer any benefit to the Schwarzenberg family? Perhaps they got a better deal on the catering? Whatever the reason – the ketubah indicates that this festive event took place on the sixteenth day of Iyar, only three days after the date on the previous ketubah. This time, the wedding was supposedly held on the Mediterranean island of Corfu, raising the possibility that the whole episode was a ruse meant to disguise the smuggling of the couple out of Italy. The third ketubah is also unsigned, meaning the union was never given the kosher seal of approval, the document remaining null and void.

This fact, however, served to enable the existence of the aforementioned fourth ketubah! This wedding would be held even further away from Italy, on the shores of the same sea but on a different continent. The event was to be set in Alcara (near Fustat), part of modern-day Cairo in Egypt.

Ketubah number four was composed and signed on the 29^th of the same month and year as the previous two. The newlyweds were the same couple appearing on the Corfu ketubah – Gershon ben Yehuda Schwarzenberg and Leah bat Yaakov Gabriel. This time, the document was signed. Incidentally, in the ketubah we see here, the groom’s last name was written incorrectly (“Schwarsenbilgi”), indicating that the scribe was not familiar with Ashkenazi surnames.

The National Library’s Manuscripts Department is at a loss as to the meaning and significance of this strange affair. They even declined to comment for this article. At any rate, mazal tov to the newlywed couple!

The National Library of Israel is in possession of the largest collection of ketubot in the world. You can browse through them here.

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Hermitage Exhibit to Display NLI Afghan Geniza Treasures for First Time

The exhibition "Life in Medieval Khorasan. A Geniza from the National Library of Israel" is on display at the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia

Zack Rothbart | 09.09.19

Documents from the historic Afghan Geniza. Photo by Polina Aizenberg, the National Library of Israel

Some two dozen extremely rare treasures from the National Library of Israel’s Afghan Geniza collection are being displayed to the public for the first time as part of “Life in Medieval Khorasan. A Geniza from the National Library of Israel” at the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. The exhibition also features rare artifacts from the Hermitage’s collections that will give a fuller sense of life in Medieval Khorasan.

The exhibit featuring the National Library’s Afghan Geniza documents at the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia

The Afghan Geniza presents virtually the only original documentation about this once-thriving Jewish community on the Silk Road, as well as the region’s Islamic and Persian cultures prior to the devastating Mongol invasion. The 11^th-13^th century documents provide an unprecedented glimpse into the day-to-day life, society, and economy along the Silk Road, the ancient highway which once linked Europe and China.

A page from an account book containing information about the economic activity of its owner, “Yehuda son of Daniel”, from the early 11th century. The many names of individuals and localities recorded in the book attest to strong ties between this Jewish trader and the Muslim rural and urban populations of Bāmiyān. The National Library of Israel

The National Library of Israel’s Afghan Geniza holdings comprise nearly 300 pages, some 250 of which were acquired in 2016 with the generous support of the William Davidson Foundation and the Haim and Hanna Salomon Fund. It is considered perhaps the most important find of Hebrew manuscripts since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the mid-20^th century.

Much of the collection comes from an archive of the eleventh-century Abu Netzer family of Jewish traders living in and around the city of Bāmiyān, a once-bustling commercial center located on the Silk Road. One fragment represents the earliest evidence of a rabbinic text found in Persian-speaking lands to the East of the rabbinic centers of Babylon. The collection, written in Persian, Arabic, Aramaic, and Judeo-Persian, also includes legal documents, liturgy, poetry, texts of Jewish law, a historical chronicle, and biblical passages.

This fragment of Tractate *Avoda Zara* from the Mishnah represents the earliest evidence of a rabbinic text found in Persian-speaking lands to the East of the traditional rabbinic center in Babylonia. The National Library of Israel

“This is a particularly impressive find related to the lives and culture of Jews from this part of the world from the beginning of the second millennium,” explained Prof. Haggai Ben Shammai, a world-renowned expert on Jews of the Islamic world. According to Ben Shammai, the collection is of exceptional importance due to the previous dearth of first-hand accounts and evidence of Jewish life under local dynastic rule. Literary source materials had also been severely lacking until this discovery.

Another portion of the collection contains documents dating from the early 13^th century, chronicling the broader Islamic culture on the eve of the devastating Mongol conquests of 1221. As a result of the destruction wrought by Genghis Khan and his army, almost no documentation of the Persian and Arabic culture and language of the region exists besides these documents.

The first few lines of a letter sent by a woman named Nāzuk, daughter of Yosef, to Yehuda, son of Daniel. Nāzuk was either a member of Yehuda’s family or a close friend. For example, she mentions Bā (=Abū) ʿImrān Moshe, probably Yehuda’s son, who came to visit her. This is the only known letter from the family archive thus far to be sent by a woman, though it is not clear if she wrote it herself (early 11th century). The National Library of Israel

Many items in the collection had been part of a local administrator’s archive, and contain administrative documents and fragments of religious and literary works, mainly in Persian. This material provides an unparalleled view into the workings of government administration, politics, and law in the region.

Though later Muslim scholars have written histories of the Islamic dynasties who reigned over the region, this singular collection of primary sources has shed light on uncharted areas of research including economics and geography, as well as social and political history.

A tax receipt concerning the delivery of 240 mann of wheat to the “royal granary” (anbār-i khāṣṣā) by Aḥmad b. Abū Bakr, an inhabitant of Funduqistān (in the Ghūrband valley). The collection contains around thirty receipts issued in the years 564–566/1169–1171 and 579–581/1183–1185, which provide valuable information regarding the tax collection system of Ghurid Bāmiyān. The National Library of Israel

NLI has digitized the materials and made them available to the international community of scholars and the general public. They will be preserved and displayed in the National Library of Israel’s new landmark campus, now under construction adjacent to the Knesset (Israeli Parliament) in Jerusalem.

David Blumberg, Chairman of the National Library of Israel Board of Directors, said, “We are grateful to our partners at the Hermitage for this historic collaboration. The exhibit highlights the National Library of Israel’s role as a dynamic international cultural center dedicated to promoting discourse and opening access to knowledge. It reflects the timeless Jewish values of treasuring the power of texts to unify, educate, and inspire.”

David Blumberg, chairman of the National Library of Israel board of directors, and Mikhail Piotrovsky, director of the State Hermitage Museum, officially open the exhibit

The exhibition curator is Anton Pritula, leading researcher in the State Hermitage Museum’s Oriental Department, PhD in Philology. You can read more about the exhibition here.

The exhibition has been made possible with the generous support of Barbro and Bernard Osher and The David Berg Foundation.

Information on the Afghan Geniza documents included in the captions above is based on research conducted by Ofir Haim.

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What Did Freud Really Think of Zionism?

Spoiler alert: The father of psychoanalysis was not the biggest fan of establishing a Jewish state in Mandatory Palestine.

Ro Oranim | 08.09.19

Europe Gesher L’Europa History of Israel Land of Israel Life Before The Holocaust Zionism

So, as it turns out, Sigmund Freud was not a fan of the Zionist dream.

The good doctor was, in fact, vehemently against the foundation of a Jewish state in the Land of Israel and had no qualms about expressing his disapproval – something he did in a rather eloquent and sharp manner in a letter he sent to the head of the Keren HaYesod branch in Vienna in 1930.

Sigmund Freud, the Abraham Schwadron Portrait Collection, the Pritzker Family National Photography Collection at the National Library of Israel.

Let’s take a step back for a moment.

The hostilities began on a hot day in the middle of August 1929. The longtime struggle between the Arabs and Jews in the Land of Israel over ownership and access to the Western Wall had officially come to a boiling point. On Friday, August 16, 1929, an Arab mob that had been riled up by the Supreme Muslim Council, descended upon the Western Wall, expelled the Jewish worshippers from the site and proceeded to burn holy books and Torah scrolls. This event unleashed a wave of violence in the Land of Israel and, in just one week, the Palestine Riots of 1929 saw more than 130 Jews killed and hundreds more injured in Hebron, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, Tzfat, Hulda and Be’er Tuvia.

In 1930, just a few months after the violence had come to a stop, Keren HaYesod, a fundraising organization established by the Zionist Congress to help Jews to immigrate to the Land of Israel, launched a public relations campaign for the Yishuv, the Jewish settlement in the Land of Israel. The organization sent out letters to the world’s prominent Jews asking if they might be willing to issue a statement of support on behalf of the Jews living in the Land of Israel. One such letter, sent by Chaim Koffler, the head of the Keren HaYesod in Vienna, made it to the hands of one Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis who also happened to be Jewish.

The envelope that held the letter from Freud to Dr. Koffler, from the National Library of Israel archives.

Freud, it appears, took some time to consider this request. His response sent on February 26^th, 1930, came in a carefully crafted, subtly scathing but perfectly polite letter sent back to Dr. Koffler where he made his feelings on the subject of Zionism and Jewish settlement in the Land of Israel very clear.

Not only did Freud decline the request to issue a public statement of support, but he also made it very clear that he was, let’s call it – unsympathetic – to the plight of the Jews living in the Yishuv.

“I cannot do as you wish,” wrote Freud. “Whoever wants to influence the masses must give them something rousing and inflammatory and my sober judgment of Zionism does not permit this.”

The response from Sigmund Freud to Chaim Koffler, from the National Library of Israel archives.

Freud explained that, while he identified with the goals of Zionism in creating a home for Jews and found a measure of pride in the university that had been established in Jerusalem, he had no understanding of the Zionist movement. He believed that there would never be a state for Jews in the Land of Israel – an opinion he conceded as likely to be unpopular.

“I do not think that Palestine could ever become a Jewish state, nor that the Christian and Islamic worlds would ever be prepared to have their holy places under Jewish care. It would have seemed more sensible to me to establish a Jewish homeland on a less historically-burdened land. But I know that such a rational viewpoint would never have gained the enthusiasm of the masses and the financial support of the wealthy.”

As for expressing sympathy for the Hebrew pioneers who had suffered through the riots, Freud felt that “the baseless fanaticism of our people is in part to be blamed for the awakening of Arab distrust. I can raise no sympathy at all for the misdirected piety which transforms a piece of a Herodian wall into a national relic, thereby offending the feelings of the natives.”

Freud closed the letter with about as much sympathy as he started it.

“Now judge for yourself whether I, with such a critical point of view, am the right person to come forward as the solace of a people deluded by unjustified hope.”

Upon reading Freud’s reply, Dr. Koffler, surprised by its contents, wrote in pencil in the top corner of the letter, “Do not show this to foreigners.” In fact, the letter remained unpublished for 60 years.

“Do not show this to foreigners,” added in the corner of Freud’s letter by Chaim Koffler. From the National Library of Israel archives.

Upon hearing of the letter, Abraham Schwadron whose vast collection is now kept in the National Library of Israel, asked Dr. Koffler if he might send him the correspondence so that it could be added to the Library’s archives. Dr. Koffler agreed to send him the letter for his perusal but asked for Schwadron to please do him the courtesy of returning it – for if the letter were to be kept in the National Library, its contents would certainly find its way into the public sphere.

Letter from Chaim Koffler to Abraham Schwadron, from the National Library of Israel archives.

“Freud’s letter may be heartfelt and warm, but it does not serve our purposes,” wrote Dr. Koffler in April of 1930 in response to Schwadron. “Even if at this time I was unable to help Keren HaYesod, I still see myself as bound not to harm it.”

They say that hindsight is 20/20 and in all fairness, views such as Freud’s were not unheard of among Western European Jews in the early 1930s. Of course, Freud could never have predicted the horrors that would soon befall the Jews of Europe with the rise of the Nazi party and the beginning of the Holocaust. He would never learn the important role those pioneers played in successfully founding the State of Israel. While his opinions may have been “unpopular,” he certainly had his finger on the pulse of issues that still impact Israeli society today.

For further reading on this subject, check out “Freud in Zion: Psychoanalysis and the Making of Modern Jewish Identity,” by Eran J. Rolnik, Karnac Books, 2012.

This post was written as part of Gesher L’Europa, the NLI’s initiative to connect with Europe and make our collections available to diverse audiences in Europe and beyond.

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