Cairo Genizah : Letter

Yešuʿa b. Joseph

Cairo Genizah

<p style='text-align: justify;'>Letter from Yešuʿa b. Joseph, an official in Alexandria, to Nahray b. Nissim. Yešuʿa writes to raise money to free three Jews held by Italian merchants. The merchants had acquired their human cargo from Rum (Byzantine) pirates. The pirates had beaten and almost killed their captives. Jewish communities in Egyptian port towns bore the brunt of these expenses. Charitable collections were often held throughout the Jewish communities of Egypt to help free co-religionists captured in wartime or in acts of piracy.</p>