Oxford, Bodleian MS. Heb. c. 28/31

Bodleian Library (Oxford, United Kingdom)

Paper

Brown (iron-gall)

Calamus

No ruling

20+marginalia

12th Century CE

Dating: probably January 1140 CE (though Goitein originally believed it to be 1129 CE, he later revised his dating and Friedman agrees). (Information from Goitein and Friedman, India Book IV).

Egypt, Alexandria

Al-Andalus, Cairo, Fustat

Judeo-Arabic

Letter

India Book IV, 17 (ח66). Letter from Ḥalfon b. Netanʾel ha-Levi, in Alexandria, to Yiṣḥaq Ibn ʿEzra, in Spain. In Judaeo-Arabic. The letter deals with the death of Ḥalfon's brother and other notables and the series of disasters that struck Ḥalfon and the community. Dating: probably January 1140 CE (though Goitein originally believed it to be 1129 CE, he later revised his dating and Friedman agrees). (Information from Goitein and Friedman, India Book IV.)

Goitein summarizes the letters as follows: "A perfect picture of the influence of emotions on physical and mental health is found in the long letter written by the noble India trader Ḥalfon b. Netanel nine months after his return to Egypt from a long sojourn in Spain. As expected from a man like him, he dedicates the first twenty lines to the praise of his gracious and learned hosts, whom he so greatly missed. Then he goes on to bemoan one after another the disasters that disturbed his mind: civil war, anarchy, the high cost of living in Egypt, the death of the Head of the Jerusalem Academy (which then had its seat in Cairo) and of several luminaries of the Jewish spiritual and social upper crust; hardly had the months of mourning for those passed when Halfon's misfortune was topped by the demise of his eldest brother, who was the president of the Jewish High Court of Justice. He found himself unable to act, even to supervise the unloading of his goods, and let the perishables rot. During his long stay in Alexandria his body and soul never enjoyed full health, but he was also unable to bring himself to go up to Cairo: how could he visit the place vacated by his brother? Family and friends came down to Alexandria to induce him to return home, but he did not find in himself nahḍa, energy, to do so. For this reason, he was also not in a position to send to his friends in Spain (mostly physicians) the pharmaceutical plants promised, for these were to be had only in the capital (the terminal of the India trade), not in the Mediterranean port. Nor for the time being was he in a frame of mind to continue writing the learned discussions that were started during his sojourn in Spain. He concludes with a refined twist; he really did not want to send this letter but he was overcome by yearning for his Spanish friends, and asks them, considering his state of mind, to overlook his shortcomings in style and script (in that order)." (Goitein, Med Soc V, pp. 243–44.)

No vowels or accents

Bought through the Rev. Prof. Sayce, 1896 (from the Genizah).

990053399080205171

https://www.nli.org.il/en/discover/manuscripts/hebrew-manuscripts/itempage?vid=KTIV&scope=KTIV&docId=PNX_MANUSCRIPTS990053399080205171&SearchTxt=heb.%20c%2028.31,AND (Date accessed: 2025-12-16)

https://genizah.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/catalog/volume_36#MS_Heb_c_28-part12-item1 (Date accessed: 2025-12-16)

S. D. Goitein, Mordechai Akiva Friedman and Amir Ashur, India Book 4: Ḥalfon the Traveling Merchant Scholar‎ (in Hebrew) (Ben Zvi Institute, 2013), vol. 4 B.
ח66
Miriam Frenkel, The Compassionate and Benevolent: The Leading Elite in the Jewish Community of Alexandria in the Middle Ages‎ (in Hebrew) (Ben-Zvi Institute for the Study of Jewish Communities in the East, 2006), Doc. #2, pp. 240-247

Moshe Gil and Ezra Fleischer, Yehuda Ha-Levi and His Circle‎ (in Hebrew) (ha-Igud ha-ʻolami le-madaʻe ha-Yahadut, 2001), p. 21

Available online through the Princeton Geniza Project at https://geniza.princeton.edu/documents/9271/ (accessed December 16, 2025).