A ketubbah (“writ”) is a pre-nuptual contract that specifies many of a groom’s obligations to his bride in the event of divorce or the death of the husband. Rooted in ancient traditions, the ketubbah, the purpose of which is to protect a woman’s interests, was for much of its history a genuine contract, the specifics of which could be modified for individual relationships.

The ketubbah in front of you is from the Cairo Genizah. An ordinary Genizah is a place where sacred Jewish writings that can no longer be used are stored until they are sent for burial. But the Genizah in the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Fustat (Old Cairo) was unique in two significant respects: (1) none of it was ever sent for burial, so it accumulated for nearly 1000 years, from the founding of the synagogue until the discovery of the Genizah by Europeans in the mid-19^th century; and (2) the Jews behind the Genizah apparently felt that Hebrew letters themselves were sacred, so anything written with Hebrew characters, including secular documents and writings in Arabic, for which Jews used Hebrew letters, was thrown into the Genizah.

This ketubbah is written in Hebrew, unlike common ketubbot, written in Aramaic. Near the beginning of the text that survives (in the 2^nd and 3^rd visible lines) are conditions stipulating that the woman not be forced to light Shabbat lamps nor to have sexual relations on the Sabbath. These conditions reflect Karaite (= “scripturalist” Jews who rejected rabbinic authority) law, indicating that the bride is from a Karaite family and the groom from a family following rabbinic law. Before discoveries like this, scholars assumed that Karaite and Rabbanite Jews would have had problems marrying one another. This ketubbah shows one way that problems could be solved. Given that, according to the evidence of the Genizah, Karaites were much more numerous than was once believed, it is likely that such “intermarriages” were not a rarity.