Lewis-Gibson : Letter

Lewis-Gibson

<p style='text-align: justify;'>Letter from a Jewish woman who has suffered at the hands of the invading Seljuk Turks in the 1070s CE. She had to flee from Jerusalem to Tripoli in the Lebanon, where she reports on the carnage she witnessed: ‘I was with him on the day I saw them killed in terrible fashion... I am an ill woman on the brink of insanity, on top of the hunger of my family and the little girl who are all with me, and the horrid news I heard about my son.’ She suggests it would be better to be captured since those in captivity ‘find someone who gives them food and drink’, whereas uncaptured, she and her children are starving.</p>