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

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 the political situation pertaining to the Mediterranean Basin at the time, as well as an unique view with regard to how Jewish society fared and functioned. He was a determined writer and expressed himself well on many topics. Ben Amram 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. 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. His writing reveals that despite geo-political differences, there were substantive similarities among the Jewish communities of the Mediterranean Basin during early-medieval period. [Subject: Jewish Studies, Medieval Studies, History, Genizah Research & Studies]