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40* Summaries

of the fifteenth century and in the following decades is highlighted as I examine
textual evidence from the Genizah describing the lives and dealings of Jewish
refugees from the Sicilian Expulsion of 1493. References to Sicilian Jewish
communities that sprung up in the Near East are also discussed. Interesting
details about Sicilian Jewish communities in Tripoli, Beirut, Damascus, Safed,
and Cairo furnish insights into Jews of Sicilian descent. For instance, the
Genizah records a Sicilian scholar, R. Meir Sarag, a Dayyan on the Beit Din of
Cairo during the end of the Mameluk era and the beginning of Ottoman rule.

The Opinions of Babylonian Geonim
Regarding the Requirement of
Dual Condition

Mayer Lichtenstein

Herzog College

Many medieval rabbinic sources quote a geonic opinion limiting the requirement
of dual condition (Heb. tenay kaful, giving both sides of a condition) to
conditions formulated in cases of marriage and divorce. The disciples of R.
Meir of Rotenberg attribute this position to R. Samuel Ben Hofni. In this essay,

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fragments of R. Samuel ben Hofni’s book on conditions, discussing tenay kaful,

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are published and translated. Our analysis suggests that there were two geonic
positions regarding tenay kaful. R. Samuel quotes R. Saadaya Gaon limiting
tenay kaful to cases of marriage and divorce, whereas R. Samuel himself limited
tenay kaful to some cases of divorce, leaving some ambiguity regarding the
exact definition of those cases. The exposure of two geonic positions enables
us to reread eleventh-century sources, and to trace sources referring to R.
Samuel’s opinion. From the twelfth-century sources it seems that the Rishonim