We thank the Most High who gave us the opportunity of fulfulling this pious deed, and granted to you to take a share in it with us. We spent the money for the ransom of some of the captives, after due consideration of the instructions contained in your letter, that is, we send what was available to those who [had already been ransomed.]

We did not fail to reply to what you have written us, and indeed we answered, but we were seeking a man who would bring our reply to you. Afterwards it happened that these illnesses came upon us; plague, pestilience, and leprosy, which filled our minds with anxiety, that we ourselves or some of our relatives might be stricken with the disease. A man whom we trust went from here and must have explained to you the position with respect to the sums you sent: that they reached us safely and that they were spent in the manner indicated [in your letter.]

News still reaches us that among those who were redeemed from the Franks and remained in Ascalon some are in danger of dying of want. Others remained in captivity, and yet others were killed before the eyes of the rest, who themselves were killed afterwards with all manner of tortures; [for the enemy murdered them] in order to give vent to his anger on them. We did not hear of a single man of Israel who was in such plight without exerting ourselves to do all that was in our power to save him.

The Most High has granted opportunities of relief and deliverance to individual fugitives, of which the first most perfect instance—after the compassion of Heaven—has been the presence in Ascalon of the honourable Shaykh ‘Abu l-Fadl Sahl son of Yusha ‘son of Shay’a (may God preserve him), an agent of the sultan (may God bestow glory upon his victories), whose influence is great in Alexandria where his word is very much heeded. He arranged matters wisely and took great pain in securing the ransom; but it would require a lengthy discourse to explain how he did it. But he could only ransom some of the people and had to leave the others. In the end, all those who could be ransomed from [the Franks] were liberated, and only a few whom they kept remained in their hands, including a boy of about eight years of age. It is reported that the Franks urged the latter to embrace the Christian faith of his own free will and promised to treat him well, but he told them, how could he become a Christian priest and be left in peace by them [the Jews], who had disbursed on his behalf a great sum. Until this day these captives remain in their [Franks] hands; as well as those who were taken to Antioch, but these are few; and not counting those who abjured their faith because they lost patience as it was not possible to ransom them, and because they despaired of being permitted to go free.

We were not informed, praise be to the Most High, that the accursed ones who are called Ashkenazim (Germans) violated or raped women, as did the others.

Now, among those who have reached safety are some who escaped on the second and third days following the battle and left with the governor who was granted safe conduct; and others who, after having being caught by the Franks, remained in their hands for some time and escaped in the end; these are but few. The majority consists of those who were ransomed. TO our sorrow, some of them ended their lives under all kind of suffering and affliction. The privations which they had to endure caused some of them to leave for this country without food or protection against the cold, and they died on the way. Others in a similar way perished at sea; and yet others after having arrived here safely, became exposed to a "change of air"; they came at the height of the plague, and a number of them died.

And when the aforementioned honoured shaykh arrived, he brought a group of them, i.e., the bulk of those who had reached Ascalon; he spent the Sabbath and celebrated Passover with them on the way in the manner as is required by such circumstances. He contracted a private loan for the sum that he had to pay the camel drivers and for their maintenance on the way as well as caravan guards and for other expenses, after having already spent other sums of money, which he did not charge to the community.

"Contemporary Letters on the Capture of Jerusalem by the Crusaders." Journal of Jewish Studies. Vol.3, no.4. 1952, pp 162-77.