Yeshiva of Eretz Israel

The Yeshiva Eretz Israel (Hebrew: ישיבת ארץ ישראל‎) was the chief talmudic academy in Syria Palaestina and the central legalistic body of the Palestinian Jewish community during the middle of the ninth century, or even earlier, until its demise in the 11th century. It competed with the talmudic academies in Babylonia (Lower Mesopotamia) to support the growing diasporic communities.[1] The Egyptian and German Jews particularly regarded the Eretz Israel geonim as their spiritual leaders.[2]

The history of the Palestinian gaonate was revealed in documents discovered in the Cairo Geniza in 1896. Sparse information is available on the Geonim before the middle of the ninth century. The extant material consists essentially of a list in Seder Olam Zutta relating all the geonim to Mar Zutra.[3]

In the middle of the ninth century, the leadership of the academy was transferred from Tiberias to Jerusalem.[4] It was forced to move to Tyre, Lebanon in 1071; authority was later transferred to Fustat, Egypt. The Palestinian Academy had probably ceased to exist before the Christians conquered Palestine. 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."[5]

  1. ^ Jeffrey L. Rubenstein (2002). Rabbinic stories. Paulist Press. p. 89. ISBN 978-0-8091-0533-5.
  2. ^ Isaac Landman (1942). The Universal Jewish Encyclopedia ...: an authoritative and popular presentation of Jews and Judaism since the earliest times. The Universal Jewish Encyclopedia, inc. p. 72.
  3. ^ Elizur, S. A contribution to the history of the gaonate in the eighth century : An elegy for the head of the academy in Palestine, Siyyon 1999, vol. 64, no3, pp. 311-348, [Note(s): XXI (39 p.)]. Historical Society of Israel, Jerusalem, ISRAEL (1935).
  4. ^ Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning; Dropsie University; Annenberg Research Institute; University of Pennsylvania. Center for Judaic Studies (1942). The Jewish quarterly review. Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning.
  5. ^ Gaon, Jewish Encyclopedia.