Letter to the Jewish Community of Fustāt (I)

This short declaration, written in Hebrew in a professional hand and intended to be publicly displayed, came from the Jewish community of Damascus as they sought to locate a husband who had abandoned his family and left them in dire straits. The Damascene Jews had heard that the wayward husband had turned up in Fustāt (Old Cairo), and they attempted to secure his return. As there was no confirmation that the husband had died, the wife remained an agunah, a woman who is unable to remarry. This document is of further interest because the husband had apparently also abandoned Karaism in favor of Rabbanite Judaism for unknown reasons, but perhaps to receive charity from the Rabbanite community in Egypt.