Nehardea

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Nehardea was an important center of Jewish learning and the seat of a famous academy. The city was in Babylonia at the confluence of the Euphrates and the Malka Canal, which connected the Euphrates with the Tigris . Flavius ​​Josephus mentions in his Antiquitates Judaicae that the city was surrounded by walls and the Euphrates river to prevent enemies from entering.

According to tradition, the first settlers came from the time of the first Babylonian exile , the time of King Jehoiachin . They built a synagogue here , using stones and earth from the Jerusalem temple . Here half a shekel and other donations for the temple in Jerusalem were collected before they were sent to the Holy Land. Before the Babylonian uprising , Rabbi Akiba traveled from Jawne to Nehardea in 114 and set the dates of the leap year here . Later Nehardea was the seat of the Exilarchen and his Beth Din . Nehardea achieved its greatest importance at the time of the scholar Samuel von Nehardea , who headed the academy there, which exerted a significant influence at the time. In 259 the Academy of Nehardea was destroyed by Papa ben Neser, and the Talmudic scholars there moved to Pumbedita , which was considered to be the successor settlement of Nehardea and was often equated with it. Even Benjamin of Tudela , the area around 1170 traveled, identified Pumbedita with Nehardea.

literature