Palestinian Ketubah (Damascus)

On the fifth day [of the week], twenty-eight days in the month of Adar II, year 3 of the sabbatical cycle, which is year 4 thousand, six hu[ndred] and ninety-three A.M., in Damascus, Eli b. Wuhayb married Hiba, the virgin, daughter of Jonah, and gave [to her] as mohar a choker and a pair of gold zayla‘ ornaments—5 din. And there remain incumbent upon him twenty dinars, the balance of the mohar. She brought in from her father’s house: a pair of gold bracelets—30 din., a shiny coat—5 din., a colored coat—3 din., a coat—all of it [?]‌ [ . . . ] . . . a shiny . . .—. din., an unpatterned kerchief—3 din., a col[ored] coat, four shirts—4 din., two covers—5 din., colored “bathing clothes”[?]—[.] din., a rashīdī slip—2 din., a veil, a wimple and five kerchiefs—[.] din., a Maisani [from the district of Maisān, in southern Iraq—Ed.] container with all its needs—twenty din., a flyswatter—15 din., a ra[shīdī] container—25 din., two brocade bed covers—8 din., 6 velvet covers [?]—10 din., 10 pillows . . . 7 din., 2 curtains—6 din., a stand, an oven, a basin, two pails, a dyeing vessel, a pitcher, a lamp, a cooler, 11 cups, 11 jugs, a serving-tr[ay] all of them copper—40 din., a ẓarā’if container—15 din., 4 chests—8 din., 4 racks for slips—4 din., a box—2 din. [She] also brought in from her father’s house an apartment [house] which has two rooms, one ground level and one middle level, in the compound of Ibn Armīnī[?], in the eastern part of the compound. Their boundaries: to the south, [her] father’s rooms, to the east, the rooms of Aaron b. Naḥmī; to the north, the room of Ibn Lwr’[?]; and to the west the gate of the compound and the public thoroughfare. These rooms are [conveyed] with every right which they possess, exposed and con[cealed]. These[?] [that] she brought in are 3 portions from 8 portions, the boundaries of which are set forth in this writ, mixed not divided. They are her mohar and dowry: two hundred and sixty-two dinars, excluding these portions. May they build and prosper. He added for her a sum of fifteen dinars a gift for mohar.

Isaac b. Samuel b. Ni[hmi].

Nissin b. Savoy, witness, testified. Joshua b. Sulḥ, whose soul is at rest, witness.

Ezra b. Samuel b. Ezra testified to the acknowledgement of Eli the groom to all this in this wr[it], on the date given within.

Aaron b. [Ben]jamin b. Nihmi, witness. Bishr b. Khalaf ha-Kohen witness[ed].

[Ab]raham b. ‘Uthman, witness.

Ḥasan b. ‘Imrān was a witness. And this was on the day of gathering.

[Isaa]c b. Jacob, the Kohen and the scribe, witness.

Source: CUL T-S 16.181d.

Translated by Mordechai A. Friedman.

Notes

Words in brackets appear in the original translation unless otherwise indicated.

Credits

Hiba bat Jonah and Eli ben Wuhayb, Palestinian Ketubah (Damascus), trans. Mordechai A. Friedman, from Mordechai A. Friedman, Jewish Marriage in Palestine: A Geniza Study, vol. 2 (Tel Aviv and New York: Tel Aviv University, Chaim Rosenberg School of Jewish Studies and Jewish Theological Seminary, 1980–1981), 423–24. Courtesy of The Jewish Theological Seminary and Tel Aviv University, The Chaim Rosenberg School of Jewish Studies and Archaeology.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 3: Encountering Christianity and Islam.

Engage with this Source

This fragmentary Palestinian ketubah, dated from the creation of the world (A.M. or Anno Mundi), would have been written at the stage of marriage known as the nisu’in, the second step in the two-part wedding process according to Jewish law. The document contains a detailed list of items that Hiba bat Jonah brought into her marriage to Eli ben Wuhayb. The name Hiba was rare for a Jewish woman. The signatures at the bottom of the document are written in both Hebrew characters and, surprisingly, Arabic ones.

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