Cairo Genizah : Legal document

Cairo Genizah

<p style='text-align: justify;'>Legal deed from Ramla, stating that the 'people of the Great Synagogue in the city of Ramla' (the Palestinian congregation) lease half of a ruin belonging to the synagogue to Ṣedaqa b. Yefet al-Šīrajī known as Ibn Mūḵāṭ al-Naʿja (Gil (1976) reads אלנעיה, al-Naʿya; but Assaf (1946) is correct in reading אלנעגה) for a period of 20 years, rent to be half a dinar a year, the proceeds of which will go to the upkeep and repair of the synagogue. The lease will start at the 'beginning of the fourth year of the šemiṭṭa which is 4799 of Creation' (so 1038 CE). After 20 years, the community will also pay Ṣedaqa for the cost of the timber and stones and other expenditures he may have made on the ruin, and may be willing to let him live there thereafter, provided he rents it according to the usual manner in which one rents properties. The ruin was probably a result of the earthquake of 1033 CE. The agreement is signed and witnessed by: Abraham ha-Kohen b. Isaac; Ṣedaqa ha-Levi b. Abraham; David ha-Kohen b. Yefet; Ephraim b. Moses the cantor; Ephraim b. Yaʿqūb; Yaḥyā b. Yešuʿa; Mevasser b. Ṭoviyya the scribe (הספר); Solomon b. Fuhayd; Menaḥem b. Yefet. Full edition and translation in Gil (1976: 147-9).</p>