Hezekiah Gaon was the last gaon of the Talmudic academy in Pumbedita from 1038-40. Hezekiah was a member of the exilarchal family. He was elected to the office of principal after the murder of Hai Gaon, but was denounced to the fanatical government of the Buyyids, imprisoned, and tortured to death. With him ended his family, with the exception of two sons who escaped to the Iberian Peninsula, where they found a home with Joseph ben Samuel, the son of Samuel ha-Nagid. The death of Hezekiah also ended the line of the Geonim, which began four centuries before (see Hanan of Iskiya), and with it the Academy of Pumbedita. The gaon Hiyya al-Daudi (died 1154) descended of David, on of the Hezekiah's sons. According to Ibn Daud and Zacuto, he was the last known member of the David's lineage in Iberia.
Bibliography
- Rabad, Sefer ha-Kabbalah;
- Zacuto, The book of Lineage;
- Gans, Ẓemaḥ Dawid, i.;
- Grätz, Gesch. v. 428;
- Jost, Gesch. der Juden und Seiner Sekten, ii. 287.
References
- This article incorporates text from the 1901–1906 Jewish Encyclopedia, a publication now in the public domain.
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