Mar Sutra (Exilarch)

Mar Sutra , also Mar Sutra II. (* Around 495; † around 520), was Exilarch , ie leader of the Baylonian Jews, at the beginning of the 6th century.

His life is often embellished with legend, whereby much of the likewise legendary life of the later Bostanai was transferred to him.

Life

Mar Sutra was the son of the exile Huna, who fell victim to the persecution of the Persian king Peroz , led the victorious Jewish uprising against the Persians - already at the age of fifteen - and fought for a brief independence of the Persian Jews in a small, independent state with the capital Machusa .

Only seven years later, Mar Sutra and his grandfather, Mar Chanina, were captured and executed by the Persians. Their bodies were clearly attached to the Machusa bridge.

Under Kobad (518-531) the Jews there were again subjected to severe persecution.

Some family members of the exile house had been able to flee. Mar Sutra's son, who had the same name as his father (Mar Sutra bar Mar Sutra = Mar Sutra III.), Became Resch Pirka (chairman of a college of scholars) in Palestine because of his outstanding scholarship .

literature

• Graetz , History of the Jews , Vol. V, Magdeburg 1860
• Dubnow , World History of the Jewish People , 1925 ff., Vol. III
• Samuel Atlas, Article Mar Sutra II. In: Jüdisches Lexikon , Berlin 1927, Vol. III