In 1969, however, when Norman Golb retranslated the document, he discovered that the referral to the pogrom’s location as a town did not coincide correctly with Mann’s assessment of the locale as Anjou, which was recognized as a province during the time period.

The manuscript itself serves a unique purpose in that it was not written in the context of memoirs such as those of Usama Ibn Munqidh[6] and Fulcher of Chartres,[7] but was constructed as a letter of recommendation for a woman of note who was living in the community of Monieux during the time of the pogrom.

When she began to fear that her relatives would find her via the established Christian authority in Narbonne, she left the city and settled in the remote village of Monieux, France, roughly six years prior to the arrival of the Crusaders.

[8] Obadiah writes of the harrowing fate of the proselytess during the severe attack on the Jews by the French Crusaders, in which her husband was murdered in the synagogue and her two young children, a boy and a girl, were taken captive—likely to be converted to Christianity by the enemy.

The discovery of the letter in Egypt suggests that the woman may have travelled far eastward from Monieux after the pogrom, ultimately settling in the flourishing Jewish community of Cairo, where she could be cared for effectively.