Yehudai ben Nahman

For other people with the same name, see Yehudai HaKohen Gaon ben Haninai.
Rabbinical eras

Yehudai ben Nahman (or Yehudai Gaon; Hebrew: יהודאי גאון, sometimes: Yehudai b. Nahman) was the head of the yeshiva in Sura from 757 to 761, during the Gaonic period of Judaism. He was originally a member of the academy of Pumbedita, but Exilarch Solomon ben Hisdai appointed him as Gaon of Sura as "there is no one there (at Sura) as distinguished as he is for wisdom".[1]

He waged a strong campaign, continued by his disciple Pirqoi ben Baboi, for the acceptance of the Babylonian Talmud as the standard for Jewish law in all countries. This was opposed by the Jews of Eretz Yisrael, who relied on the Jerusalem Talmud and their own older traditions. Yehudai argued that, as a result of Byzantine persecution, the Jews of Eretz Yisrael had only preserved Jewish tradition in a fragmentary and unreliable form.[2]

  1. ^ Letter of Sherira Gaon.
  2. ^ See Iggeret Pirkoi ben Bavoi, Ginzberg, Geonica pp. 48-53; idem, Ginze Schechter, pp. 544-573; Lewin, Tarbiz vol. 2 pp. 383-405; Mann, R.E.J. vol. 20 pp. 113-148. It is reprinted in Toratan shel Geonim.