Exilarch Topics

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Exilarch, Exilarch

The origin of this dignity is not known, but the princely post was hereditary in a family that traced its descent from the royal Davidic line. It was recognized by the state and carried with it certain prerogatives. The first historical documents referring to it date from the time when Babylon was part of the Parthian Empire. The office lasted to the middle of the sixth century CE, under different regimes (the Arsacids and Sassanid). During the beginning of sixth century Mar Zutra formed a politically independent state where he ruled from Mahoza for about 7 years. He was eventually defeated by Kavadh I, King of Persia. http://jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=171&letter=Z&search=Mar%20zutra The position was restored in the seventh century, under Arab rule. Exilarchs continued to be appointed through the 11th century. Under Arab rule, the exilarch was treated with great pomp and circumstance.

For the second, Arabic, period, there is a very important and trustworthy description of the institution of the exilarchate ( See the sections Installation ceremonies and Income and privileges ); this description is also important for the first period, because many of the details may be regarded as having persisted from it.

His son Judah survived him only by seven months; at the time of Judah's death, he left a twelve-year-old son, whose name is unknown. The only later exilarch whose name is recorded is Hezekiah, an exilarch who also became gaon in 1038, but fell from power in 1040, both the last exilarch and the last gaon.

A chronicle from about the year 800 - the Midrashic Seder 'Olam Zuta - fills up the gaps in the early history of the exilarch. The captive king's advancement at Evil-merodach's court - with which the narrative of the Second Book of Kings closes (II Kings 25:27) - was apparently regarded by the author of the Seder 'Olam Zuta as the origin of the exilarchate. A list including generations of the descendants of the king is given in I Chronicles 3:17 et seq.

Then follows Nahum, with whom the authentic portion of the list probably begins, and who may, perhaps, be assigned to the time of the Hadrianic persecution (135). This is the period in which are found the first allusions in traditional literature to the exilarch.

Nehemiah was succeeded by his son Mar 'Ukban III, whose chief advisers were Rabbah ben Nahmani (d. 323) and Adda. He is mentioned as "'Ukban ben Nehemiah, resh galuta," in the Talmud 56b; Bava Batra 55a . This Mar 'Ukban, the third exilarch of that name, was also called "Nathan," as were the first two, and has been made the hero of a legend under the name of "Nathan di Zzuta" 56b . The conquest of Armenia (337) by Shapur II is mentioned in the chronicle as a historical event occurring during the time of Mar 'Ukban III.

Mar Zutra was succeeded by his son Kahana (Kahana II), whose chief adviser was Rabina, the editor of the Babylonian Talmud (d. 499). Then followed two exilarchs by the same name: another son of Mar Zutra, Huna V, and a grandson of Mar Zutra, Huna VI, the son of Kahana.

Bostanai was the ancestor of the exilarchs who were in office from the time when the Persian empire was conquered by the Arabs, in 642, down to the eleventh century. Through him the splendor of the office was renewed and its political position made secure. His tomb in Pumbedita was a place of worship as late as the twelfth century, according to Benjamin of Tudela.

The list of the exilarchs down to the end of the ninth century is given as follows in an old document "Medival Jewish Chronicles," i. 196 : "Bostanai, Hanina ben Adoi, Hasdai I, Solomon, Isaac Iskawi I, Judah Zakkai (Babawai), Moses, Isaac Iskawi II, David ben Judah, Hasdai II." Hasdai I was probably Bostanai's grandson. The latter's son Solomon had a deciding voice in the appointments to the gaonate of Sura in the years 733 and 759 [2] . Isaac Iskawi I died very soon after Solomon. In the dispute between David's sons Anan and Hananiah regarding the succession the latter was victor; Anan then proclaimed himself anti-exilarch, was imprisoned, and founded the sect of the Karaites. (So says the Jewish Encyclopedia of 1906; the origin of the Karaites is not uncontroversial.) His descendants were regarded by the Karaites as the true exilarchs. The following list of Karaite exilarchs, father being succeeded always by son, is given in the genealogy of one of these "Karaite princes": Anan, Saul, Josiah, Boaz, Jehoshaphat, David, Solomon, Hezekiah, Hasdai, Solomon II "Likkute Kadmoniyyot," ii. 53 . Anan's brother Hananiah is not mentioned in this list.

David ben Judah also had to contend with an anti-exilarch, Daniel by name. The fact that the decision in this dispute rested with the calif Al-Ma'mun (825) indicates a decline in the power of the exilarchate. David ben Judah, who carried off the victory, appointed Isaac ben Hiyya as gaon at Pumbedita in 833. Preceding Hasdai II's name in the list that of his father Natronai must be inserted. Both are designated as exilarchs in a geonic responsum (Harkavy, "Responsen der Geonim," p. 389).

In consequence of Saadia's call to the gaonate of Sura and his controversy with David, the latter has become one of the best-known personages of Jewish history. Saadia had David's brother Josiah (Al-Hasan) elected anti-exilarch in 930, but the latter was defeated and banished to Chorasan. David ben Zakkai was the last exilarch to play an important part in history. He died a few years before Saadia; his son Judah died seven months afterward.

His generous treatment of the grandson of his former adversary was continued until Saadia's death in 942. Only a single entry has been preserved regarding the later fortunes of the exilarchate. When Gaon Hai died in 1038, nearly a century after Saadia's death, the members of his academy could not find a more worthy successor than the exilarch Hezekiah, a descendant, perhaps a great-grandson, of David ben Zakkai; he thereafter filled both offices. But two years later, in 1040, Hezekiah, who was the last exilarch and also the last gaon , fell a victim to calumny. He was cast into prison and tortured; two of his sons fled to Spain, where they found refuge with Joseph, the son and successor of Samuel ha-Nagid. Hezekiah himself, on being liberated from prison, became head of the academy, and is mentioned as such by a contemporary in 1046 Quarterly Review , hereafter "J. Q. R.", xv. 80.

A descendant of Hezekiah, Hiyya al-Daudi, Gaon of Andalucia, died in 1154 in Castile (according to Abraham ibn Daud). Several families, as late as the fourteenth century, traced their descent back to Josiah, the brother of David ben Zakkai who had been banished to Chorasan (see the genealogies in 1890 pp. 180 et seq.). The descendants of the Karaite exilarchs have been referred to above.

The Seder 'Olam Zuta , the chronicle of the exilarchs that is the most important and in many cases the only source of information concerning their succession, has also preserved chiefly the names of those scholars who had certain official relations with the respective exilarchs. The phrase used in this connection ( "hakamim debaruhu" , "the scholars directed him") is the stereotyped phrase used also in connection with the fictitious exilarchs of the century of the Second Temple; in the latter case, however, it occurs without the specific mention of names — a fact in favor of the historicalness of those names that are given for the succeeding centuries.

Some of the Babylonian amoraim were closely related to the house of the exilarchs, as, for example, Rabba ben Abuha, whom Gaon Sherira, claiming Davidian descent, named as his ancestor. Nahman ben Jacob (d. 320) also became closely connected with the house of the exilarchs through his marriage with Rabba ben Abuha's daughter, the proud Yaltha; and he owed to this connection perhaps his office of chief judge of the Babylonian Jews. Huna, the head of the school of Sura, recognized Nahman ben Jacob's superior knowledge of the Law by saying that Nahman was very close to the "gate of the exilarch" ( "baba di resh galuta" ), where many cases were decided Batra 65b.

A remark of Samuel, the head of the school of Nehardea, shows that they wore certain badges on their garments to indicate their position 58a . Once a woman came to Nahman ben Jacob, complaining that the exilarch and the scholars of his court sat at the festival in a stolen booth 31a , the material for it having been taken from her. There are many anecdotes of the annoyances and indignities the scholars had to suffer at the hands of the exilarchs' servants 67b, the case of Amram the Pious; Avodah Zarah 38b, of Hiyya of Parwa; Shabbat 121b, of Abba ben Marta.

Once when certain preparations which the exilarch was making in his park for alleviating the strictness of the Sabbath law were interrupted by Raba and his pupils, he exclaimed, in the words of Jer. iv. 22, "They are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge" 26a.

Details are sometimes given of lectures that were delivered "at the entrance to the house of the exilarch" ( "pitha di-be resh galuta" ; see Hullin 84b; Betzah 23a; Shabbat 126a; Mo'ed Katan 24a). These lectures were probably delivered at the time of the assemblies, which brought many representatives of Babylonian Judaism to the court of the exilarch after the autumnal festivals (on Sabbath Lek Leka, as Sherira says; compare Eruvin 59a).

An old anecdote was repeated in Palestine concerning a splendid feast which the exilarch once gave to the tanna Judah ben Bathyra at Nisibis on the eve of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement Lam. R. iii. 16 . Another story told in Palestine Talmud Megillah 74b relates that an exilarch had music in his house morning and evening, and that Mar 'Ukba, who subsequently became exilarch, sent him as a warning this sentence from Hosea: "Rejoice not, O Israel, for joy, as other people." The exilarch Nehemiah is said to have dressed entirely in silk 20b, according to the correct reading; see Rabbinowicz, "Dikdukei Soferim" . The Talmud says almost nothing in regard to the personal relations of the exilarchs to the royal court. One passage relates merely that Huna ben Nathan appeared before Yazdegerd I, who with his own hands girded him with the belt which was the sign of the exilarch's office. There are also two allusions dating from an earlier time, one by Hiyya, a Babylonian living in Palestine Talmud Berakhot 5a , and the other by Adda ben Ahaba, one of Rab's earlier pupils 6b; Jerusalem Talmud Sheb. 32d , from which it seems that the exilarch occupied a foremost position among the high dignitaries of the state when he appeared at the court first of the Arsacids, then of the Sassanids.

Both Rab and Samuel said 5a that the judge who did not wish to be held personally responsible in case of an error of judgment, would have to accept his appointment from the house of the exilarch. When Rab went from Palestine to Nehardea he was appointed overseer of the market by the exilarch Talmud Bava Batra 15b, top . The exilarch had jurisdiction in criminal cases also. Aha b. Jacob, a contemporary of Rab Gittin 31b , was commissioned by the exilarch to take charge of a murder case 27a, b . The story found in Bava Kamma 59a is an interesting example of the police jurisdiction exercised by the followers of the exilarch in the time of Samuel. From the same time dates a curious dispute regarding the etiquette of precedence among the scholars greeting the exilarch Talmud Ta'an. 68a . The exilarch had certain privileges regarding real property Kamma 102b; Bava Batra 36a . It is a specially noteworthy fact that in certain cases the exilarch judged according to the Persian law Kamma 58b ; and it was the exilarch 'Ukba b. Nehemiah who communicated to the head of the school of Pumbedita, Rabbah ben Nahmai, three Persian statutes which Samuel recognized as binding Batra 55a.

This prerogative is referred to also in the account of the installation of the exilarch in the Arabic period, and this gives color to the assumption that the ceremonies, as recounted in this document, were based in part on usages taken over from the Persian time. The account of the installation of the exilarch is supplemented by further details in regard to the exilarchate which are of great historical value; see the following section.

In the first quarter of the eleventh century, not long before the extinction of the exilarchate, Ibn Hazm, a fanatic polemicist, made the following remark in regard to the dignity: "The ras al-jalut has no power whatever over the Jews or over other persons; he has merely a title, to which is attached neither authority nor prerogatives of any kind" p. 125.

The Aramaic prayer "Yekum Purkan," which was used once in Babylon in pronouncing the blessing upon the leaders there, including the "reshe galwata" (the exilarchs), is still recited in most synagogues. The Jews of the Sephardic ritual have not preserved this anachronism, nor was it retained in most of the Reform synagogues, beginning in the nineteenth century.

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