Narrating Debt and Migration: Yisrael Kssār from Ṣanʿāʾ to Bombay

This article examines a Judaeo-Arabic letter probably sent in 1930 by Rabbi Yisrael Kssār from Bombay to his son in Ṣanʿāʾ. Prompted by a demand to repay a debt from 1905 to the Bawsī family, the letter weaves together a retrospective narrative and a plea for assistance. It reveals how moral obligation, communal reputation and emotional life intersected within the Jewish community of Ṣanʿāʾ and its diaspora. Drawing on a corpus of correspondence (1923–1937), family documents and oral histories, the study situates the letter within the upheavals in Yemen (1904–1905), which destabilised Kssār's economic base and led to his migration to Bombay. It explores his intellectual world, shaped by Yemenite kabbalistic traditions and the Baghdadi Jewish diaspora. Combining micro-historical and epistolary analysis, the article argues that the imperative to settle the debt illuminates the moral economy of obligation and the affective dimensions of migration during a period of dislocation.