Palestinian Gaonate
Encyclopedia
The Palestinian Gaonate was the chief talmudical academy
and central legalistic body of the Jewish community in Palestine
during the middle of the ninth century till its demise during the 11th-century. During its existence, it competed with the
Babylonian Gaonate
for the support of the growing diasporic communities. The Egyptian and German Jews particularly regarded the Palestinian geonim
as their spiritual leaders. The history of the gaonate was revealed in documents discovered in the Cairo genizah in 1896. Sparse information is available on the Palestinian geonim prior to the middle of the ninth century. The extant material consists essentially of a list in Seder Olam Zuta relating all the geonim to Mar Zutra
.
In the middle of the ninth century, the Palestinian academy was transferred from Tiberias to Jerusalem. It was forced to move to Tyre
, Lebanon
in 1071; authority was later transferred to Fostat
, Egypt
. The Academy of Palestine had probably ceased to exist before Palestine was conquered by the Christians, but the tradition of the Palestinian gaonate seems to have survived at Damascus
, for Benjamin of Tudela
(c. 1170) says that the teachers of Damascus were considered as the "scholastic heads of the Land of Israel
."
, the last Babylonian gaon. The earliest evidence of this is a mention of Josiah the ḥaber being ordained at the "holy yeshiva of Palestine" in a document dated 1031. A postscript to a small chronicle dating from the year 1046 says that Solomon ben Judah was then the "head of the Academy of Jerusalem". Three generations of the descendants of this Solomon ben Judah were heads of the Palestinian academy, and bore the title of "gaon." A work of one of these geonim of Palestine, the Megillat Abiathar, which was discovered by Schechter in the genizah of Cairo, and gives a very clear account of this interesting episode in the history of the Jews of Palestine.
During the 11th-century, daily prayers were offered at the Cave of Machpela for the welfare for the head of the Gaonate.
, the president of the court, ranked next to the gaon, and that another member of the college, called "the third" ("ha-shelishi"), held the third highest office. A letter in the "Mittheilungen aus der Sammlung der Papyrus Erzherzog Rainer" is addressed to Solomon b. Judah, "the first gaon of Palestine". This letter clearly shows the same close connection between the Jews of Egypt and those of Palestine as is indicated in the Megillat Abiathar. Solomon ben Judah was succeeded at his death by his son Joseph Gaon, his other son, Elijah, becoming av beit din. When Joseph died in 1054, Daniel ben Azariah
, a scion of the house of exilarch
s who had gone from Babylon to Palestine, and had formerly done much injury to the brothers, was elected gaon, to the exclusion of Elijah, who remained av beit din. Daniel ben Azariah died in 1062 after a long and serious illness, which he himself is said to have acknowledged to be a punishment for his ill treatment of his predecessors. Elijah now became gaon, filling the office down to 1084.
, near the old tannaic
tombs, a large concourse of people attending the burial. Shortly after Abiathar entered upon his office, David ben Daniel, a descendant of the Babylonian exilarchs, was proclaimed exilarch in Egypt. David ben Daniel succeeded in having his authority recognized also by the communities along the Palestinian and Phoenician coasts, Tyre alone retaining its independence for a time. But when this city again came under Egyptian rule in 1089, the Egyptian exilarch subjected its community also, forcing Abiathar to leave the academy. The academy itself, however, resisted the exilarch, declaring his claims to be invalid, and pointing out his godlessness and tyranny while in office. Fast-day services were held (1093), and the sway of the Egyptian exilarch was soon ended. The nagid
Meborak, to whom David ben Daniel owed his elevation, called a large assembly, which deposed David ben Daniel and reinstated Abiathar as gaon (Iyar
, 1094). Abiathar wrote his Megillah in commemoration of this event.
A few years later, at the time of the First Crusade
, Abiathar sent a letter to the community of Constantinople
. It is dated from Tripolis in Phoenicia, to which the academy may have been removed. Abiathar was succeeded by his brother Solomon. An anonymous letter, unfortunately without date, dwells on the controversies and difficulties with which the academy had to contend.
" a letter to a certain Abraham, in which he gives his whole genealogy, adding the full title of "gaon, rosh yeshivat geon Yakov," to the names of his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. The Academy of Palestine had probably ceased to exist before Palestine was conquered by the Christians, and its head, the gaon Maẓliaḥ, went to Fostat, where there was an academy that had seceded from the authority of the Palestinian academy at the time of the Egyptian exilarch David ben Daniel. It is not known what office Maẓliaḥ occupied at Fostat, although he retained his title of gaon. A daughter of Maẓliaḥ presented to the academy a book by Samuel ben Ḥofni which she had inherited from her grandfather, the gaon Solomon ben Elijah. In 1112 the Mushtamil, the philological work of the Karaite scholar Abu al-Faraj Harun, was copied for Elijah, a son of the gaon Abiathar, "grandson of a gaon and great-grandson of a gaon". In 1111 the same Elijah purchased at Fostat Rabbeinu Hananel's commentary to Joshua, which subsequently fell into the hands of his cousin, the gaon Maẓliaḥ. It may be noted here that the geonic family of Palestine was of Aaronite origin and that Abiathar claimed Ezra as his ancestor.
Yeshiva
Yeshiva is a Jewish educational institution that focuses on the study of traditional religious texts, primarily the Talmud and Torah study. Study is usually done through daily shiurim and in study pairs called chavrutas...
and central legalistic body of the Jewish community in Palestine
Palestine
Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....
during the middle of the ninth century till its demise during the 11th-century. During its existence, it competed with the
Babylonian Gaonate
Talmudic Academies in Babylonia
The Talmudic Academies in Babylonia, also known as the Geonic Academies, were the center for Jewish scholarship and the development of Jewish law in Mesopotamia from roughly 589 CE to 1038 CE...
for the support of the growing diasporic communities. The Egyptian and German Jews particularly regarded the Palestinian geonim
Geonim
Geonim were the presidents of the two great Babylonian, Talmudic Academies of Sura and Pumbedita, in the Abbasid Caliphate, and were the generally accepted spiritual leaders of the Jewish community world wide in the early medieval era, in contrast to the Resh Galuta who wielded secular authority...
as their spiritual leaders. The history of the gaonate was revealed in documents discovered in the Cairo genizah in 1896. Sparse information is available on the Palestinian geonim prior to the middle of the ninth century. The extant material consists essentially of a list in Seder Olam Zuta relating all the geonim to Mar Zutra
Mar Zutra
Mar Zutra was a Jewish Amora sage of Babylon, of the sixth generation of the Amora era. He was a colleague of Amemar and Rav Ashi. He headed the Yeshiva of Pumbedita, and according to the book "Seder Tannaim ve-Amoraim", previous to Rav Aha b. Rava...
.
In the middle of the ninth century, the Palestinian academy was transferred from Tiberias to Jerusalem. It was forced to move to Tyre
Tyre
Tyre is a city in the South Governorate of Lebanon. There were approximately 117,000 inhabitants in 2003, however, the government of Lebanon has released only rough estimates of population numbers since 1932, so an accurate statistical accounting is not possible...
, Lebanon
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
in 1071; authority was later transferred to Fostat
Fostat
Fustat , was the first capital of Egypt under Arab rule...
, Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
. The Academy of Palestine had probably ceased to exist before Palestine was conquered by the Christians, but the tradition of the Palestinian gaonate seems to have survived at Damascus
Damascus
Damascus , commonly known in Syria as Al Sham , and as the City of Jasmine , is the capital and the second largest city of Syria after Aleppo, both are part of the country's 14 governorates. In addition to being one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Damascus is a major...
, for Benjamin of Tudela
Benjamin of Tudela
Benjamin of Tudela was a medieval Jewish traveler who visited Europe, Asia, and Africa in the 12th century. His vivid descriptions of western Asia preceded those of Marco Polo by a hundred years...
(c. 1170) says that the teachers of Damascus were considered as the "scholastic heads of the Land of Israel
Land of Israel
The Land of Israel is the Biblical name for the territory roughly corresponding to the area encompassed by the Southern Levant, also known as Canaan and Palestine, Promised Land and Holy Land. The belief that the area is a God-given homeland of the Jewish people is based on the narrative of the...
."
The gaonate in Palestine
The academy in Palestine existed already during the lifetime of Hai GaonHai Gaon
Hai ben Sherira , was a medieval Jewish theologian, rabbi and scholar who served as Gaon of the Talmudic academy of Pumbedita during the early 11th century. He was born in 939 and died on March 28, 1038...
, the last Babylonian gaon. The earliest evidence of this is a mention of Josiah the ḥaber being ordained at the "holy yeshiva of Palestine" in a document dated 1031. A postscript to a small chronicle dating from the year 1046 says that Solomon ben Judah was then the "head of the Academy of Jerusalem". Three generations of the descendants of this Solomon ben Judah were heads of the Palestinian academy, and bore the title of "gaon." A work of one of these geonim of Palestine, the Megillat Abiathar, which was discovered by Schechter in the genizah of Cairo, and gives a very clear account of this interesting episode in the history of the Jews of Palestine.
During the 11th-century, daily prayers were offered at the Cave of Machpela for the welfare for the head of the Gaonate.
Hierarchy of the academy
The hierarchy of the Palestinian academy was similar to that of Babylonia, although it had become a dynastic institution. The three main positions were controlled by three families, two of which claimed priestly descent. The av beit dinAv Beit Din
Av Beit Din, Av Beis Din, or Abh Beyth Diyn . was the second-highest ranking member of the Sanhedrin during the Second Commonwealth period. He presided over the Sanhedrin in the absence of the Nasi, and was the chief of the Sanhedrin when it sat as a criminal court...
, the president of the court, ranked next to the gaon, and that another member of the college, called "the third" ("ha-shelishi"), held the third highest office. A letter in the "Mittheilungen aus der Sammlung der Papyrus Erzherzog Rainer" is addressed to Solomon b. Judah, "the first gaon of Palestine". This letter clearly shows the same close connection between the Jews of Egypt and those of Palestine as is indicated in the Megillat Abiathar. Solomon ben Judah was succeeded at his death by his son Joseph Gaon, his other son, Elijah, becoming av beit din. When Joseph died in 1054, Daniel ben Azariah
Daniel ben Azariah
Daniel ben Azariah was the gaon of the Land of Israel from 1051 till 1062. Descended from a Babylonian exilarch family, he was a scion of the House of David and was elected to head the Palestinian Academy in Jerusalem...
, a scion of the house of exilarch
Exilarch
Exilarch refers to the leaders of the Diaspora Jewish community in Babylon following the deportation of King Jeconiah and his court into Babylonian exile after the first fall of Jerusalem in 597 BCE and augmented after the further deportations following the destruction...
s who had gone from Babylon to Palestine, and had formerly done much injury to the brothers, was elected gaon, to the exclusion of Elijah, who remained av beit din. Daniel ben Azariah died in 1062 after a long and serious illness, which he himself is said to have acknowledged to be a punishment for his ill treatment of his predecessors. Elijah now became gaon, filling the office down to 1084.
Exile and contested authority
After Jerusalem was taken by the Seljuq Turks in 1071, the gaonate was removed from Jerusalem, apparently to Tyre. In 1082 Gaon Elijah called a large convocation at Tyre, and on this occasion he designated his son Abiathar as his successor in the gaonate, and his other son, Solomon, as av beit din. Elijah died two years later, and was buried in GalileeGalilee
Galilee , is a large region in northern Israel which overlaps with much of the administrative North District of the country. Traditionally divided into Upper Galilee , Lower Galilee , and Western Galilee , extending from Dan to the north, at the base of Mount Hermon, along Mount Lebanon to the...
, near the old tannaic
Tannaim
The Tannaim were the Rabbinic sages whose views are recorded in the Mishnah, from approximately 70-200 CE. The period of the Tannaim, also referred to as the Mishnaic period, lasted about 130 years...
tombs, a large concourse of people attending the burial. Shortly after Abiathar entered upon his office, David ben Daniel, a descendant of the Babylonian exilarchs, was proclaimed exilarch in Egypt. David ben Daniel succeeded in having his authority recognized also by the communities along the Palestinian and Phoenician coasts, Tyre alone retaining its independence for a time. But when this city again came under Egyptian rule in 1089, the Egyptian exilarch subjected its community also, forcing Abiathar to leave the academy. The academy itself, however, resisted the exilarch, declaring his claims to be invalid, and pointing out his godlessness and tyranny while in office. Fast-day services were held (1093), and the sway of the Egyptian exilarch was soon ended. The nagid
Nagid
Nagid, , is a Hebrew term meaning a prince or leader. This title was often applied to the religious leader in Sephardic communities of the Middle Ages, generally in Egypt. Among the individuals bearing this title are the following:* Samuel ha-Nagid...
Meborak, to whom David ben Daniel owed his elevation, called a large assembly, which deposed David ben Daniel and reinstated Abiathar as gaon (Iyar
Iyar
Iyar is the eighth month of the civil year and the second month of the ecclesiastical year on the Hebrew calendar. The name is Babylonian in origin. It is a spring month of 29 days. Iyar usually falls in April–June on the Gregorian calendar.In the Hebrew Bible, before the Babylonian Exile, the...
, 1094). Abiathar wrote his Megillah in commemoration of this event.
A few years later, at the time of the First Crusade
First Crusade
The First Crusade was a military expedition by Western Christianity to regain the Holy Lands taken in the Muslim conquest of the Levant, ultimately resulting in the recapture of Jerusalem...
, Abiathar sent a letter to the community of Constantinople
Constantinople
Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...
. It is dated from Tripolis in Phoenicia, to which the academy may have been removed. Abiathar was succeeded by his brother Solomon. An anonymous letter, unfortunately without date, dwells on the controversies and difficulties with which the academy had to contend.
Transfer to Egypt
The next generation of Solomon ben Judah's descendants dwelt in Egypt. In 1031 Maẓliaḥ, a son of Solomon ben Elijah, addressed from the "gate of the Academy of FostatFostat
Fustat , was the first capital of Egypt under Arab rule...
" a letter to a certain Abraham, in which he gives his whole genealogy, adding the full title of "gaon, rosh yeshivat geon Yakov," to the names of his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather. The Academy of Palestine had probably ceased to exist before Palestine was conquered by the Christians, and its head, the gaon Maẓliaḥ, went to Fostat, where there was an academy that had seceded from the authority of the Palestinian academy at the time of the Egyptian exilarch David ben Daniel. It is not known what office Maẓliaḥ occupied at Fostat, although he retained his title of gaon. A daughter of Maẓliaḥ presented to the academy a book by Samuel ben Ḥofni which she had inherited from her grandfather, the gaon Solomon ben Elijah. In 1112 the Mushtamil, the philological work of the Karaite scholar Abu al-Faraj Harun, was copied for Elijah, a son of the gaon Abiathar, "grandson of a gaon and great-grandson of a gaon". In 1111 the same Elijah purchased at Fostat Rabbeinu Hananel's commentary to Joshua, which subsequently fell into the hands of his cousin, the gaon Maẓliaḥ. It may be noted here that the geonic family of Palestine was of Aaronite origin and that Abiathar claimed Ezra as his ancestor.
See also
- Palestinian minhagPalestinian minhagThe Palestinian minhag as opposed to the Babylonian minhag, or Palestinian liturgy, refers to rite and ritual of medieval Palestinian Jewry in relation to the traditional order and form of the prayers....
- Palestinian PatriarchatePalestinian PatriarchateThe Palestinian Patriarchate was the governing legalistic body of Palestinian Jewry after the destruction of the Second Temple until about 425CE....
- Talmudic Academies in the Land of IsraelTalmudic Academies in the Land of IsraelThe Talmudic Academies in the Land of Israel were yeshivot that served as centers for Jewish scholarship and the development of Jewish law in the Levant and had a great and lasting impact on the development of world Jewry....
- Talmudic Academies in BabyloniaTalmudic Academies in BabyloniaThe Talmudic Academies in Babylonia, also known as the Geonic Academies, were the center for Jewish scholarship and the development of Jewish law in Mesopotamia from roughly 589 CE to 1038 CE...