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THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA
VOL. II
Babylonia (in part)
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[page 413] After an interval of a few years, a nephew of the deposed Ukba, David b. Zakkai (920-940), was made exilarch, and Cohen Zedek II was forced to recognize him. Foiled as this ambitious Pumbeditan thus was in regard to the exilarchate, he was in addition compelled to witness the rise and development of the Academy of Sura, also strongly opposed by him, but which under Saadia reached a point of unprecedented splendor. Saadia, who had been called to Sura from Egypt because there was no scholar of sufficient Talmudic authority there, had already made himself famous by his translation of the Bible into Arabic, and by his commentary upon it. His activity as gaon of Sura (928-942) was even more meritorious than this accomplishment. His battles with the Karaites form but one side of the general polemic activity which ruled at this time in Irak among the professors of the various religions. There was a Parsee controversy (" shikand gumanik Vijar ") against Jews and Christians In the ninth century (Darmesteter, "Rev. Et. Juives, xviii. 4). Sabaryeshu, a Jacobite presbyter of Mosul in the tenth century, waged a discussion with a Jewish sage (Assemani, l.c. iii. 1, 541; compare Steinschneider, "Polemische Literatur, p. 85); and Mohammedan writers like Al-Kindi were continuous in their attacks, from the ninth century on, against Jews and Christians alike (Steinschneider, l.c. p. 112). Two califs, Al-Muktadir and Kahir, interfered in the disputes between the exilarchate and the gaonate, with the result that both institutions suffered in influence. David had successfully maintained himself against his brother Joshua, whom Saadia had declared exilarch, and had thereafter made friends with the gaon, who had in the interval been banished to Bagdad. He left a son, Judah, to succeed him; but he ruled only seven months. Saadia then took affectionate charge of Judah's infant son, until the latter was slain in a Moslem riot. The exilarchate had to be suspended (about 940) until quieter times permitted its artificial revival. There are some faint traces that a certain Hezekiah, a grandson of David's son Judah, was exilarch for a time; but, according to other authorities, he was only gaon of Pumbedita—a post which, with his violent death in 1040, also passed way alter an existence of 800 years.
The Academy of Pumbedita flourished for a century longer. Aaron ibn Sargado, a wealthy merchant of Bagdad and an opponent of Saadia, acted as gaon of Pumbedita (943-460) and very effectively.
Of less importance was Nehemiah, son of Cohen Zedek; but in SHERIA (968-1000) and his son HAl or Haia, the Jews of Babylonia possessed two incumbents of the gaonate who shed unrivaled brilliancy upon their office. Yet both these respected dignitaries found themselves the victims of calumnious representations made to the calif AlKadir, probably through the instrumentality of scholars who felt themselves slighted. The two geonim were for a time imprisoned, but ultimately were set at liberty, and the now aged Sherira resigned his office favor of Hai, who discharged the duties of the gaonate until 1038. Upon his death the above-mentioned Hezekia ruled for two years longer, and with his murder the gaonate of Pumbedita came to an end.
The gaonate of Sura was extinguished less suddenly. About 970 a certain R. Jacob b. Mordecai is said to have written to the Jewish communities on the Rhine on the matter of a false Messiah (Mannheimer, "Die. Juden in Worms," p. 27); this is, however, considered to be a fabrication. The last gaon of Sura was Samuel b. Hophni, the father-in-law of Hai; he was distinguished for his literary activities. When he died in 1034, the gaonate of Sura retrograded more and more, until at last it expired quietly and unnoticed.
A special intervention of Providence, according to Ibn Daud, was arranged in order that Babylonian learning should be transplanted to Europe. Four scholars, sent to the West to gather funds for the academies, were captured on the Mediterranean by an admiral of the calif of Cordova; and after many experiences these four became the founders of rabbinical academies in Alexandria, Kairwan, Cordova, and perhaps Narbonne. Babylonia thus lost its central importance for Judaism: it was, however, replaced by the rising communities of Spain, whither the two sons of the unfortunate Hezekiah above mentioned had also migrated.
This forms an appropriate point at which to consider the general influence of Babylonia upon European Judaism. Luzzatto (" Hebraeische Briefe," p. 865) thus, in substance, describes it: The West received both the written and the oral Law from Babylonia. Punctuation and accentuation were begun in Babylonia; so also the piyyut, rime, and meter. Even philosophy had its origin here: for the frequently mentioned but little-known David ha-Babli or Al-Mukammez, who lived before Saadia, is the oldest known Jewish philosopher. The greatest if not also the earliest payyetan, Eleazar Kalir, of the eighth century, was apparently a Babylonian. It is true indeed, adds Luzzatto, that heresy is also a Babylonian product; for, in addition to the Karaites, Hiwi al-Balkhi, Saadia's opponent, was a Persian-in a broader sense a Babylonian. [The Talmudic usage survived for a long time of calling all Western Jews (ma'arbaye") "Palestinians" and all Eastern Jews ("madinhaye") Babylonians.] One peculiarity of the Babylonians, however, made no headway among the Jews of other lands: this was the system of supralineal punctuation (see Pinsker,"Einleitung in das Babylonisch-Hebraische Punctuationssystem "), called the Babylonian or Assyrian, and said to have been invented by the Karaite, R. Aha of Irak (see Margoliouth, in "Proc. Soc. Bibl. Archaeology," 1898, p. 190). To Babylonian literary activity, in addition to the Babylonian Talmud, must be ascribed possibly the Targum Onkelos, together with some Midrashic works ("Rabhot"), "Halakot Gedolot," and the well-known works bearing the names of the geonim Aha of Shabha, Amram, Sàadia, Sherira, Hal, Hophni, and others. Babylonian learning, always great from Rab's time, expressed itself in independent works only toward the close of the period, and then disappeared altogether.
Babylonia, however, still continued to be regarded
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[page 414] with reverence by the Jews in all parts. Eldad, who in the ninth century traveled extensively from Africa, notes that the Jews of Abyssinia placed "the sages of Babylon" first in their prayers for their brethren of the diaspora (Zemah Gaon, in Epstein, "Eldad ha-Dani," p. 8);
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Middle Ages. |
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Benjamin of Tudela. |
Both travelers recount many legends and popular traditions concerning Daniel's grave in Susa (see Cambridge Bible, Daniel. p. xxi.). Ezekiel's synagogue, and the graves of individual Talmudists—traditions which survive to-day in great measure there, but which evidence considerable superstition on the part of the Babylonian Jews, a failing they share, however, with their Mohammedan neighbors. Al Harizi sings of Ezekiel's grave in his 53rd makama; Niebuhr saw the grave in 1765, and was assured that even then many hundred Jews annually visited it (Ritter, l.c. x. 264). Benjamin went to Kufa, where seven thousand Jews dwelt, and visited also the academic cities, Sura and Pumbedita; in ruined Nehardea, Pethahiah found a congregation, and in the celebrated Nisibis there were then eight hundred Jews. He relates that the "nasi " of Damascus received his ordination from the academic head of Babylonia, so that this country was still predominant in the minds of the Jews of the Moslem world. The gaon of Bagdad, Samuel b. Ali ba-Levi, did not hesitate to oppose Maimonides publicly. Two hundred years later, about 1880, there lived in Babylonia a prince, David b. Hodayah, who took up the cause of a German rabbi, Samuel Schlettstadt; this prince traced his descent, not from Bostanai, but from the Palestinian patriarchs (Coronel, "Commentarii Quinque," p. 110, Vienna, 1864). There was likewise an exilarchate in Syria under the Egyptian sultan in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, with its seat at Damascus; the exilarch Yisha of Damascus (1288) joined hands with the exilarch David of Mosul and the rabbinical authorities of Babylonia-that is, Bagdad-in opposing the anti-Maimonists ("Hemdah Genuzah, p. 21b; "Kerem Hemed," iii. 170).
Temporary commotion was caused in the life of the Jews of the califate by the appearance of David ALROY, who called himself in his Messianic capacity by the name of Menahem b. Solomon.
The califate hastened to its end before the rising power of the Mongolians. These heathen tribes knew no distinction, as Bar Hebraeus remarks, between heathens, Jews, and Christians; and their grand mogul Cubalai showed himself just toward the Jews who served in his army (Marco Polo, book ii, ch. vi). Hulagu, the destroyer of the califate (1258) and the conqueror of Palestine (1260), was tolerant toward both Jews and Christians; but there can be no doubt that in those days of terrible warfare the Jews must have suffered much with others.
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Mongolian Period. |