Cohen Mark R. Poverty and Charity in the Jewish Community of Medieval Egypt (Jews, Christians, and Muslims from the Ancient to the Modern World)

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not wait, however. Furthermore, word had it that other communities

were themselves hard pressed to come up with the needed money. So, by

communal agreement, the elders decided to tap another resource: the es-

tate (it amounted to thirty dinars) of a deceased Jew whose heirs (if he

had any) had not yet shown up on the scene. The man safeguarding the

estate refused to surrender the money for fear of repercussions from the

deceased man’s heirs, so some members of the community stood surety

for the amount. This, in turn, led to legal issues unrelated to the ransom-

ing of the poor captive, which constituted the actual reason for the query

to Maimonides and his response.

Maimonides’ involvement as jurist in

1180 will take on additional poignancy later in this chapter when we dis-

cuss other campaigns to ransom captives in which he played a major role.

Captives of Crusaders

Corresponding to the plight of captives seized by pirates was the predica-

ment of Jews captured in war and transported to enemy territory. In our

period, two wars (as distinguished from Bedouin depredations in eleventh-

century Palestine) affected the immediate region of Egypt: the Seljuk in-

vasion and conquest of Palestine in the 1070s, and the Crusader conquest

of most of Palestine in 1099 and the ongoing Christian-Muslim conﬂict

that followed. In the Geniza sources, we hear about captives taken and

held by Crusaders in neighboring Palestine. The Latin Christian captors

seem to have lost some of the ardor to slaughter Jews that they (or many

of them) had displayed at the start of the Crusade in Europe in 1096, es-

pecially in the Rhineland. Having reached their goal, the triumphant

Christians preferred now to take captives, hoping that some of them

would convert to Christianity, or, thinking more practically, intending to

proﬁt from selling them as well as books plundered from their syna-

gogues to Jews living in Muslim territory.

A moving letter (in draft form) from Cairo at the time of the Crusader

conquest of Jerusalem illustrates the reaction of Jews in neighboring

Arab lands. It is addressed to the community of Ascalon, which escaped

conquest at the time (it was not captured until 1153), and describes how,

with a moving plea, the head of the Jews in Egypt, the nagid Mevorakh

b. Saadya, inspired local Jews to contribute 123 dinars to ransom Torah

scrolls and prisoners that the Crusaders had brought to Ascalon to be

114 CHAPTER 3

Moses ben Maimon, Teshuvot ha-Rambam (Responsa), ed. Joshua Blau (3 vols., Jeru-

salem, 1957–61), 2:733–34 (no. 452) (hereafter: Rambam); cf. Med. Soc., 1:329.

S. D. Goitein, “New Sources on the Fate of the Jews at the Conquest of Jerusalem by the

Crusaders” (Hebrew), in Ha-yishuv, 231–58. See also my review of Ha-yishuv in Tarbiz 53

(1983–84), 149–54.

sold to Jews. The writer refers to the conquest of the Holy City as “the

colossal calamity” (al-mihna al-amuma) and to the Christians as “ene-

mies of God and haters of His people” and “the evil kingdom, may God

destroy and annihilate it” (an allusion to rabbinic hostility toward Roman

Christendom). Goitein comments that the amount of money raised seems

relatively small. He adds, however, that this may have been just the be-

ginning of the effort. Moreover, the event followed four years of pesti-

lence and plague that had impoverished the wealthier class. Finally,

Goitein observes, only a small portion of the Jews lived at that time in

Cairo (most still lived in Fustat).

Awareness of Jewish solidarity and charitable generosity may have in-

duced one Christian captor to demand a huge sum in Ascalon for a single

victim, probably three times the going rate, but the community was un-

able to bear the burden alone. The captor had provisionally released his

prisoner, giving him extra time to come up with the money, but the pris-

oner, for his part, was afraid that time was running out and that his

Christian master would return him to captivity. Responding to a plea

from Ascalon, the Jews of Fustat wrote letters calling for assistance.

Most of the money had been raised (eighty dinars) in Ascalon; only a little

more was needed (from the Jews in the Egyptian countryside?).

Capture by Crusaders continued to plague Jewish life as the Latin

Kingdom of Jerusalem tried to expand its borders or defend its ﬂanks. In

1168, Amalric, the Christian king of Jerusalem, attempted to subdue

Egypt. In November he sacked and burned Bilbays, an important town

on the caravan route between Cairo and Palestine and home of a small

but signiﬁcant Jewish settlement. Benjamin of Tudela visited Bilbays

around the same time. He also spent time in Fustat, which he described

as being “in ruins.”

Along with Muslims, many Jews were killed or taken

captive.

Moses Maimonides had only recently arrived in Egypt when he found

himself deeply involved in coordinating countrywide efforts to redeem

captives—the captives of Bilbays, Goitein convincingly surmises. Moreover,

he thinks that it was precisely the campaign he led to rescue them that

catapulted Maimonides to public attention at that time and resulted in

his appointment as head of the Jews so soon after his arrival in the coun-

try.

The documentation begins with a fragment of a circular letter that

CAPTIVES, REFUGEES, AND PROSELYTES 115

TS AS 146.3, ed. Goitein, Ha-yishuv, 254–56; cf. Cohen, Jewish Self-Government, 261.

We possess a pair of draft letters about this, which were copied by the Fustat court scribe,

Halfon b. Menasse ibn al-Qataif, early in his career (his dated documents are 1100–38). TS

AS 147.5 a and b, summarized brieﬂy by Goitein, Ha-yishuv, 256–57.

Benjamin of Tudela, Itinerary, ed. and trans. Marcus Nathan Adler (London, 1907), 65–66

(Hebrew), 73–74 (English).

Goitein, “Moses Maimonides, Man of Action: A Revision of the Master’s Biography in

Maimonides addressed to the Jewish communities of the lower Egyptian

countryside (the Rif). It is one of three or possibly four, if not ﬁve, circu-

lar letters from Maimonides about ransoming captives from his early

years in Egypt. In this one, he mentions a mission to Palestine by two

veteran judges, whom Goitein ingeniously surmises had been sent by

Maimonides to negotiate with the Franks for release of the Egyptian Jews

held prisoner there. The communities of the Rif are told that they must

now do their part by pledging money and sending the proceeds to the

capital to be combined with what had been raised in Fustat. Maimonides

requests that the contributions be remitted to his emissary to the Rif com-

munities, named Aaron. Aaron had accepted the task of going around to

the various communities and reading Maimonides’ letter, in spite of his

own indigency, “because he sees the reward to be gained thereby.”

Performing the same task, the same Aaron (called Aaron ha-Levi, the

scribe) crops up in another circular letter from Maimonides on behalf of

Jewish captives in Crusader hands. The decipherment of the date on the

letter has been the subject of debate (Goitein thinks 1169 and I agree

with him), but in any event, the connection with captives is secure.

Colorfully, Maimonides again emphasizes the efforts already made by the

Jews of Fustat, including himself and his colleagues.

Act upon it in the same way as we, all the judges and the elders and the stu-

dent(s), have acted, going around, night and day, urging people in the syna-

gogues, the markets, and at the doors of dwellings, in order to collect

something towards this great goal. Having contributed as much as we our-

selves are able, you, too, should do for them (the captives) as ﬁts your gen-

erosity and your [renown] as seekers of merit [through] kindness and love.

Write to tell us the total amount you collect on their behalf, through God the

ex(alted’s) compassion and your own. Exert yourselves to collect it quickly

and send it to us with our abovementioned dignitary R. Aaron ha-Levi.

116 CHAPTER 3

Light of the Geniza Documents,” Hommage à Georges Vajda (Louvain, 1980); Med. Soc.,

5:54–55.

TS 16.9, ed. Goitein, Ha-yishuv, 314–16; idem, “Moses Maimonides, Man of Action,”

158–59.

JTS MS 8254.7 (formerly: 2896), ed. Goitein, Ha-yishuv, 312–14 and translated by him

into English in “Moses Maimonides, Man of Action,” 156–57. Also ed. Y. Shailat, Iggerot

ha-Rambam (Epistles of Maimonides), 1:64–65. The translation above is my own. The let-

ter was originally published by S. H. Margulies, “Zwei autographische Urkunden von

Moses und Abraham Maimuni,” Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des

Judentums 44 (1900), 8–13. Goitein could not locate the letter in Cambridge, where he as-

sumed it was still located since the time of Marguiles. Using the facsimile in Marguiles’s ar-

ticle and in Norman Bentwich, Solomon Schechter: A Biography (Philadelphia, 1940), opp.

p. 143, he read the date as Tammuz (1)480 (of the Era of Documents), that is, the summer

of 1169, and connected the appeal with the crusader sack of Bilbays the previous

A third circular letter (or perhaps one of the two just described) is men-

tioned in a legal document from the provincial town al-Mahalla in the

summer of 1170. Aaron ha-Levi and another emissary had organized a

pesiqa (pledge drive) there, and the list of contributors had been for-

warded to Maimonides in the capital. One of the donors was constrained

to sell his slave girl to pay part of his pledge. The al-Mahalla court docu-

ment is essentially about this. It records that the donor was conveying the

proceeds to Maimonides through an agent acting as his power of attor-

ney. On the back, Maimonides acknowledges receipt of the money and

releases the bearer of all further responsibility.

Of the two remaining circular letters, both of them copied by

Mevorakh b. Nathan b. Samuel he-Haver, there remain only fragments.

One is a scrap from the beginning of a letter to the communities of the Rif

bearing the name of the sender Moses b. Maimon in the address on the

back.

The second was sent by Maimonides to ﬁve provincial communi-

ties, Damira, Jaujar, Sammanud, Damsis, and Sambat (= Sunbat), solicit-

ing their charitable assistance (Goitein says: for the ransom of captives).

Four of these communities had some years earlier contributed a total of

sixty-three dinars to a circular appeal for ransom of captives that yielded

a total of 225 3/8 dinars during the headship of Samuel b. Hananya

(1140–59).

CAPTIVES, REFUGEES, AND PROSELYTES 117

November. Margulies thought the date was (1)484 = 1173 and Bentwich wrote 1172.

Shailat prefers to read (1)481, hence the summer of 1170, and connects the episode with a

collection of money on behalf of captives that, according to another document, was sent to

Maimonides from the city of al-Mahalla in the Egyptian Delta (see below). His hypothesis

about the date of the letter does not negate the signiﬁcance of Goitein’s interpretation of

Maimonides’ rise to prominence. I examined the letter at the Jewish Theological Seminary

under bright light and also ultraviolet light and did not see any letter after the tp, which

stands for 480; hence I agree with Goitein’s reading of the date. For a different opinion see

Menahem Ben-Sasson, “Maimonides in Egypt: The First Stage,” in Maimonidean Studies,

ed. Arthur Hyman, vol. 2 (1991), 4–5, following Mordechai A. Friedman, “New Sources

from the Geniza for the Crusader Period and for Maimonides and His Descendants”

(Hebrew), Cathedra 40 (1986), 72–75, who, after studying a photograph of the document

sent him by the Seminary librarian, reopened the case for the date proposed by Margulies-

Bentwich and suggested further that Maimonides may already have been head of the Jews

when he lead the campaign to ransom the captives.

TS NS Box 309.12, ed. Goitein, Ha-yishuv, 316–18; cf. idem, “Moses Maimonides, Man

of Action,” 160.

TS 12.238, ed. Mann, Jews, 2:317. Originally Goitein thought this was the beginning

of TS 16.9, but later retracted his opinion, since the margins of the two fragments are so

dissimilar. See Ha-yishuv, 314. On the scribe Mevorakh b. Nathan, see Med. Soc., 2:514,

App. D no. 22.

BM Or 5533, mentioned in Goitein, Ha-yishuv, 314.

*TS 8 J 17.18, ed. Mann, Jews, 2:289–90; trans. Starr, Jews in Byzantine Empire, 220–

21; cf. Med. Soc., 2:481, App. C 29.

The circulars of 1169 describe a crisis regarding captives and how

Egyptian Jewry dealt with it under the leadership of Maimonides. As

in Alexandria, this had to be a countrywide effort (“following what was

always the custom”) because the costs were so high, much higher than

the costs for routine charitable purposes. That it incidentally afforded

Maimonides the opportunity to gain countrywide notoriety and perhaps

set the stage for his rise to the political leadership of Egyptian Jewry is a

fascinating sidelight. His central participation in the process so soon after

his arrival in the country seems also to be reﬂected in his presentation of

the central importance of ransoming captives in the laws of charity in the

Mishneh Torah, on which he worked during the years following his ar-

rival in the country. We shall come to this shortly.

More about the problem of captives in Egypt and particularly a cap-

tive’s urgent need and the help that was given is to be learned from a let-

ter from Ascalon dated by Goitein after 1153 (incidentally conﬁrming the

continued presence of Jews in that city after its conquest by the Crusaders).

Writing to his brother in Bilbays the author explains how he did a friend

a kindness by redeeming his sister, who was held captive by Christians in

Nablus. He put up some cash and stood surety for the balance of sixty di-

nars—making this an exorbitant total price for one captive. A young

woman in captivity presented a particularly extreme case of need, for

obvious reasons, and this probably inﬂated the price. With permission

of the writer, the friend then went off to Egypt to try to collect money

for the ransom. The Frank to whom the writer owed the balance (doubt-

less the girl’s captor) called in the debt. Desperate, the writer tried to

pledge his own son as collateral to borrow the sum due, but no one would

accept the offer. He now asks his brother in Bilbays to locate the brother

of the captive girl and tell him to send the money, or to send the girl her-

self (with whom, presumably, the writer would then circulate himself, ap-

pealing for money).

A case from Christian Spain in the fourteenth or

ﬁfteenth century shows a similar venture in private Jewish charity that

had the same result.

118 CHAPTER 3

TS NS J 270, ed. Goitein, Tarbiz 31 (1962), 287–90; republished, Goitein, Ha-yishuv,

306–309; rev. ed. Gil, Eres yisrael, 3:460–61.

A letter included in an epistolary formulary tells the story of a Jew named Samuel who

ransomed Isaac, a Portuguese Jew. The latter was threatened with death by his pirate cap-

tors. Samuel paid 155 gold coins. After Isaac’s release, he went off with Samuel to solicit

money from different communities, but soon, while collecting donations in Saragossa, Isaac

ﬂed to return home. Samuel was left to bear the burden alone. The purpose of the letter is

to vouch for Samuel’s sad plight and to ask would-be benefactors to give him sedaqa. Haim

Beinart, “A Fifteenth-Century Hebrew Formulary from Spain” (Hebrew), Sefunot 5 (1961),

no. 21, pp. 104–106; summary 81. The letter has a month but no year; the latest dated let-

ter in the collection is 1451 and the earliest, 1303. Cf. Bashan, Shivya u-fedut, 33.

Other Needs of Captives

Even before their ransom was concluded captives required eleemosynary

support, as captors sometimes demanded they be fed by the Jews while

gathering the ransom money. We hear about this from the voices of

redeemers and captives alike. A pirate demanding the full ransom of

233 1/3 dinars for seven Jews in his custody (four Rabbanites and three

Karaites) was met by the plaint of a local Jewish notable in Alexandria:

“You haven’t left these poor people (he meant, the Alexandrians) enough

sustenance to afford to feed them, let alone to afford their price.”

A dif-

ferent Alexandrian Jewish notable writes to Nahray b. Nissim in Fustat

around the middle of the eleventh century at a time of hardship and of

oppression by the city authorities:

Three captives arrived in the company of harsh masters from among the king’s

merchants. They announced, “We found these three people taken off a ship

wherein Byzantine soldiers had plundered them and stripped them of all their

merchandise.”. . . (The letter goes on a few lines later:) We took upon ourselves

the yoke of providing their food for about a month. We labored hard seeking

the cost of one of them, but found only ten dinars in pledges. We request that

of the ﬁfty dinars needed, forty remain the obligation of the communities of

Fustat, (may your) R(ock) p(rotect you), their total cost being ﬁfty dinars.

The Deprivation of the Recently Liberated

From the moment they permanently left the hands of their unwanted

masters, former captives certainly had to be fed, clothed, and housed.

Separated often by many hundreds of miles from their families and stripped

of their possessions, they had no visible means of support. This was the

condition of a woman “who was taken captive in the land of Israel” and

now, after her ransom, had nothing.

I inform the holy congregation—may God enhance its splendor—that I am a

woman who was taken captive in the land of Israel. I arrived here this week

from Sunbat “naked,” with no blanket and no sleeping carpet. With me is a

little boy and I have no means of sustenance. I beseech now God the exalted

and beseech the congregation—may you be blessed—to do with me what is

CAPTIVES, REFUGEES, AND PROSELYTES 119

Bodl. MS Heb. a 3.28, lines 34–37, ed. Cowley, Jewish Quarterly Review, o.s. 19 (1907),

250–54.

TS 12.338, lines 17-margin, verso, lines 1–5, ed. Mann, Jews, 2:240–42.

proper to be done with any wayfarer. May the Holy One, may He be praised,

repay you many times and be your help so that you shall never be driven

from your homes. And may He bring the Redeemer in your days, Amen.

An ex-captive from Constantinople

also exempliﬁes the ongoing need

of those recently freed from captivity. All he had left after his ransom

in Fustat was a loan taken from Muslims, and his family was in great

distress.

The child of the “woman who was taken captive in the Land of Israel”

at least had a living parent to protect him. Less fortunate children, with-

out parents, might be taken in by relatives or other families—another

form of charity. Witness the pitiful account of a young captive orphan girl,

adopted into a family in which she remained a foster child until she

reached maturity. When they married her off to one of their own sons, she

left him after just a few weeks, saying, picturesquely, that she would not

stay with him “even if he pours money (al-mal) over my head.” The other

siblings drove her out of the house after failing to change her mind. The

story is told in a rabbinic question about the propriety of marrying her off

in the ﬁrst place; it is torn off at the bottom, so we lack the response.

The government levied a duty on the sale of captives, and this, too, had

to be paid by someone.

So did the poll tax, as the newly emancipated

Jews joined the ranks of the local dhimmis.

Sometimes captives were

expected to repay their ransomers. These and other burdens assured that

120 CHAPTER 3

*ENA 4020.62 (formerly ENA Uncatalogued 98), ed. Goitein, Eretz-Israel 4 (1956),

149–50; Med. Soc., 2:501, App. C 94; reprinted Goitein, Ha-yishuv, 288–89; trans. Med.

Soc., 2:170 (slightly revised here).

This was one of the many ways Byzantine Jews (rum) ended up in Egypt.

Dropsie 378, lines 30–31, ed. Bareket, Yehudei misrayim, 24.

ENA 2808.15a, ed. Goitein, Jewish Quarterly Review, n.s. 66 (1975–76), 85–88 (= Ha-

yishuv, 310–11); cf. Med. Soc., 3:248.

Ha-mekhes asher aleha la-shilton: ENA 2804.9, lines 17–19, ed. Mann, Jews, 2:88–89;

rev. ed. Bareket, Yehudei misrayim, 122–23.

In the midst of a long letter (from the time of Saladin) by a judge in Alexandria accused

of rebelliousness against the “elders,” the writer interjects: “In the midst of things some

captives showed up owing 8 dinars. As there was no one to collect them (the money), I

tended to this, along with the cantors and the parnas, and we collected it.” TS 16.272v,

lines 7–8. Goitein observes that this rate of 1 5/8 dinars per head is consistent with the low-

est rate reported for Egypt by Ibn Mammati (d. 1209); cf. Med. Soc., 2:387. PER H 17 B,

ed. Assaf, Meqorot u-mehqarim, 59–60; rev. ed. Gil, Eres yisrael, 2:748–74, contains a let-

ter in Hebrew from a European Jew whose ship sank while carrying him to fulﬁll a vow to

visit Jerusalem. He had been brought to Alexandria, where the gentiles (Muslims) tried to

“punish” him (i.e., collect the poll tax). Rescued by a Jew, he was taken in (in Fustat?), but

he was harassed by the tax collector and was hiding out, lest he be thrown into prison. His

host could no longer support him because of high bread prices. Hence he turned to the com-

munity for help. See below, chapter 4.

many captives remained poverty stricken and in debt long after their

release.

Naturally, captives wished to return home. Expenses for their travel

also qualiﬁed as charity. One of the letters from Alexandria mentioned

above sings the praises of the local benefactor, Nethanel ha-Kohen, who

ransomed two captives with his own money “and clothed them and gave

them both provisions for the road and sent them on their way after pay-

ing the ship’s fees. They went home to their land, happy and pleased by

the kindness he did towards them.”

It is surprising that no alms list discovered so far records the name of a

captive, whereas captives or their children crop up on about a dozen reg-

isters as contributors to charity.

Notwithstanding the general caveat

about drawing statistical conclusions on the basis of the largely serendip-

itous data in the Geniza, this calls for some speculation. Some captives

had probably been people of means in their homelands or at least had

been regularly employed at the time of their capture and so, out of

shame, may have eschewed the public dole. They or their offspring, on

the other hand, once established with their feet on the ground, and more

aware than most of the value of helping the needy, would have been “good

citizens” of the community that had helped them (or a parent) out of

their dire straits and willing donors of charity for others. And, of course,

many captives were sent home and so would not have appeared on any

Fustat lists.

Captives and the Halakha

Ransom of captives is discussed in the Babylonian Talmud, in tractate

Bava Batra. An anecdote relates that Hormiz, the mother of Shapur, King

of Persia, sent a gift of gold coins to R. Joseph, asking that it be dedicated

to a “great religious duty” (misva rabba). The rabbis decided that ran-

soming of captives qualiﬁed. The Talmud explains why, both textually

(with biblical quotations) and logically. It may be implicit from the dis-

cussion that the Talmud considers ransoming captives the most impor-

tant form of charity of all, but it took Maimonides in his Code to make

this explicit.

CAPTIVES, REFUGEES, AND PROSELYTES 121

TS 13 J 14.20, lines 6–7, ed. Mann, Jews, 2:87. See also Bodl. MS Heb. a 3.28, lines 29,

48, ed. Cowley, Jewish Quarterly Review, o.s. 19 (1907), 250–54.

Examples: “The captive” appears on a list of collectors of weekly alms (TS Box K 15.43v,

line 4, Med. Soc. 2:494–95, App. C 62); Bu Sad the captive is listed among individuals and

ﬁrms to be solicited for contributions (TS Box K 6.177b, line 23, Med. Soc., 2:482–83,

App. C 31); Abu Mansur the son of the captive is registered among contributors toward the

poll tax of the poor; *ENA 2591.6, line 17, Med. Soc., 2:505, App. C 128.

The ransoming of captives has precedence over the feeding and clothing of

the poor. Indeed there is no religious duty more meritorious than the ran-

soming of captives, for not only is the captive included among the hungry,

the thirsty, and the naked, but his very life is in jeopardy. He who turns his

eyes away from ransoming him transgresses the commandments “Thou shalt

not harden thy heart, nor shut thy hand” (Deuteronomy 15:7), “Neither shalt

thou stand idly by the blood of thy neighbor” (Leviticus 19:16), and “He

shall not rule with rigor over him in thy sight” (Leviticus 25:53). Moreover,

he nulliﬁes the commandments “Thou shalt surely open thy hand unto him”

(Deuteronomy 15:8), “That thy brother may live with thee” (Leviticus 25:36),

“Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” (Leviticus 19:18), “Deliver them

that are drawn unto death” (Proverbs 24:11), and many other admonitions

like these. To sum up, there is no religious duty greater than the ransoming

of captives.

There is something original about this passage. Rarely in the Code

does Maimonides marshal so many prooftexts from the Bible for a single

law. Here, in “Gifts for the Poor” 8:10, he adduces seven biblical com-

mandments, none of which constitutes a speciﬁc precept to redeem cap-

tives, and he alludes that there are many more. For Maimonides, this

ethical act is more important than all other forms of almsgiving. It should

not be supposed that Maimonides had the rabbinic precedent for this in

mind. The story about the mother of Shapur, King of Persia, and the rab-

bis’ response, which might have served the purpose, is used by him in the

immediately preceding section as a precedent for a different halakha:

gifts from heathen rulers should be accepted, but redistributed to the hea-

then poor.

Following halakha number 10 come eight more laws till the end of the

chapter, seven of which include ransom of captives. But chapter 8 has a

topic sentence reading: “Almsgiving is included in the category of vows.”

Maimonides embedded the dispersed rabbinic halakhot on ransoming

captives in this chapter because in Egypt, as we have seen and will see

more of later, the principal vehicle for raising money for that cause was

pledges, “vows” in the language of the Talmud.

I believe we are on safe ground, therefore, concluding that Maimonides’

emphasis on ransom of captives, his enhancement and reinforcement of

the talmudic statement that ransom constitutes a “great religious duty,”

his multiplication of prooftexts from the Bible (none of which actually

commands the fulﬁllment of this particular duty), and his placement of

the laws in a chapter about vows had much to do with his personal ex-

perience with the captive problem in Egypt. Like the law of “the poor of

122 CHAPTER 3

Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot mattenot aniyyim 8:10.

another town,” this nicely illustrates the interaction of halakha and real-

ity in medieval Egypt and the inﬂuence everyday life had on the forma-

tion of Maimonides’ Code.

Indigent Refugees

Like captives, refugees escaping from harm’s way or other difﬁculties ar-

rived in Egypt, both in the capital and provincial towns. Others wrote for

help from abroad. Like captives, these unfortunates were separated from

their families, and poor, often even if they found work.

The Almohad depredations and forced conversions in North Africa

and Spain in the middle of the twelfth century produced their share of

Jewish refugees. The newcomer (tari) from Morocco, whom Maimonides

recommended for a collection to pay his poll tax, was doubtless a refugee

from the Almohad persecutions in North Africa. Maimonides himself

had come to Egypt with his family as a refugee ﬂeeing from the Almohads,

first from Spain and then from Morocco.

Another refugee from the Almohad threat, “the poor foreigner,”

Ephraim b. Isaac of Ceuta, Morocco, a silversmith, left two letters that

ended up in the Geniza. In the ﬁrst he addresses Moses b. Nathan, a

banker and also an immigrant to Egypt.

Your submissive slave, the lonely, poor foreigner, informs your excellency

that I am a Maghrebi, a native of the city of Ceuta, which I left before the

forced conversion thirty-ﬁve years ago today. I lived in [the capital of] Sicily

for about ﬁfteen years. There, too, I witnessed a pillage. I was robbed and all

I possessed was lost. I came to this country, and needed nobody’s support,

for I earned my livelihood as a silversmith. I have been here now for seven-

teen years. Three years ago I fell ill with ophthalmia (trachoma), and lost

half of my eyesight. As an expedient, I took on four boys as a Bible teacher,

which brings me four dirhems a week. The Holy one, may He be blessed,

knows that one cannot make more with this. Ten of my masters and lords

united to help me, the poor stranger, paying the poll tax for me. Now, my

master and lord, I ask you to be so kind and write to my masters and lords,

your brothers . . . to be mindful of their slave, and [I request from your pie]ty

and generosity a little wheat for my sustenance.

CAPTIVES, REFUGEES, AND PROSELYTES 123

*TS 12.192, ed. Gottheil, Gaster Anniversary Volume, 174, 177; Assaf, Meqorot

u-mehqarim, 163ff.; trans. Joel L. Kraemer, Maimonidean Studies, 1:87–92. Cf. Med. Soc.,

2:46, 382 (partly translated), 498–99, App. C 82b.

TS 12.3, partly trans. Goitein, Med. Soc., 5:77. I translate qamh as “wheat” not “ﬂour”

(Goitein’s translation). See chapter 6, at note 21.