Eli Ben Amram and his Companions: Jewish Leadership in the Eleventh-Century Mediterranean Basin

Description

Eli Ben Amram’s correspondence, discovered in the Genizah of Cairo, consists of his communications with Jewish figures from Egypt, Palestine, Babylon and Spain. As the Fustat community leader during the second half of the eleventh century his writings reveal not only the political situation pertaining to the Mediterranean Basin at the time, but are unique with regard to how Jewish society fared and functioned. He was a determined writer in that he expressed himself well on many topics and wrote up his plans for his community, as well as his reservations, in dozens of letters, court documents and poems, all of which were revealed in the Genizah. Although not a senior Jewish leader, he was head of the Fustat community in Egypt – the most important in the Jewish hemisphere during the eleventh century. He had been appointed by higher-ranked leaders, such as the Gaon from the Palestine Yeshiva, and by wealthy Jewish courtiers from Cairo. Ben Amram’s local decision-making was dependent in some ways on the policies adopted by these leaders, but in turn they were aware of his key role and influence as leader of the wealthy Fustat community. His wide-ranging correspondence sheds light not only on Jewish leadership at this time, but on the prevailing circumstances under which Judaism was able to flourish. Eli Ben Amram’s correspondence reveals that despite geo-political differences, there were substantive similarities among the Jewish communities of the Mediterranean Basin during early-medieval period.