Abaye ben Natronai Kohen Ṣedeq Gaon of Pumbeditha

• Preferred Name: Abaye ben Natronai Kohen Ṣedeq Gaon of Pumbeditha^[1]
  
• Gender: M
  
• FSID: G317-FDD
  
• Birth: 800 in Iraq at LATI: N3 LONG: E4 with note: date in the source.
  
• Death: Y
  
• Notes:

  === Kohen Sedeq II "Yakob"Gaon Of Sura & Pumbeditha BEN YOSEF ===
  https://gw.geneanet.org/sathazagthoth?lang=en&n=ben+yosef&oc=0&p=kohen+sedeq+ii+yakob+gaon+of+sura+pumbeditha
  
  otes
  Individual Note
  About Kohen ?edeq II "Yakob" ben Yosef, Gaon of Sura & Pumbeditha
  Kohen ?edeq ben Joseph Gaon
  
  Kohen ?edeq ben Joseph—not to be confused with Kohen ?edeq Bar Ivomay, gaon of Sura from 832 to 843)—served as gaon of Pumbedita from February of 917 to 935 (see Yeshivot in Babylonia/Iraq). His gaonate was marked from the beginning by a series of heated and sometimes overlapping controversies, in all of which he played some part. The first of these concerned his own accession to the gaonate. Kohen ?edeq was appointed to succeed Judah ben Samuel by the exilarch David ben Zakkay I, but most (or at least the most influential) of the yeshiva’s scholars appointed Mevasser ha-Kohen ben Qimoy. The yeshiva was riven by two factions, each asserting the legitimacy of its own gaon. The two sides were reconciled in August 922. Thereafter the two gaons shared the office until Mevasser’s death in December of that same year, upon which Kohen ?edeq was confirmed as sole gaon of Pumbedita.
  
  The next controversy concerned a difference of opinion between the Palestinian gaon, Aaron ben Me’ir, and the Babylonian authorities as to when Passover was to be celebrated in the year a.m. 4682 (= 921/22 C.E.). It broke out just as the previous controversy neared a resolution, and to a certain degree must have contributed to the impetus for that resolution. Saadya ben Joseph (not yet gaon) played a significant role in the dispute, first by calling attention to the issue and then by strongly defending the Babylonian position. In a letter to his supporters in Fustat written on January 3, 923, after he had become a member of the Pumbedita yeshiva, Saadya refers with not unnatural reverence to Kohen ?edeq’s judgment on the matter. He exhorts the letter’s recipients to keep the gaon’s epistolary statement on the calendar issue ready at hand to be studied “at every opportunity” (Ar. f? kulli waqtin), “for every one of [Kohen ?edeq’s] statements is a doctrinal fundamental” (Ar. fa-inna kull kalima min kal?mih? a?l min al-u??l; per Gil, Be-Malkhut, vol. 2, p. 25, ll 6–8).
  
  Yet another major controversy arose in 930, two years after Saadya was appointed gaon of Sura by the exilarch David ben Zakkay (with the support of Kohen ?edeq). As a result of a disagreement about the validation of an especially large inheritance, Saadya tried to depose the exilarch. This put Saadya in direct conflict with his former gaon, Kohen ?edeq, who sided with the exilarch. In contrast to the aforecited encomium of Kohen ?edeq, Saadya, in a fragment of his Sefer ha-Galuy relating to this conflict, now refers to Pumbedita (albeit not explicitly to the gaon) as “the flies on the left” (Heb. ha-zevuvim asher ‘al ha-?ema’lit; see Mann, p. 166). Notwithstanding this belittlement, however, the combined power of David ben Zakkay, Kohen ?edeq, and their ally Aaron ibn Sarjado was too much for Saadya. He ultimately had to go into hiding and was replaced as gaon by Joseph bar Sa?ya, but in 937 he was reconciled with the exilarch, and hence also with Kohen ?edeq.
  
  Another controversy sometimes thought to have plagued Kohen ?edeq’s gaonate—per the account of Nathan ha-Bavl? in his Akhb?r Baghd?d (Chronicle of Baghdad)—concerned the equal division of the ?oq and rashut funds between the two Babylonian yeshivot. However, as shown by Mann and confirmed by Gil (ibid., vol. 1, sec. §140), this took place ca. 907, during the gaonate of Kohen ?edeq’s predecessor, Judah ben Samuel.
  
  Michael G. Wechsler
  
  === Gaon of Pumbeditha ===

• m. BEF 820 in Iraq

1. Paltoi Yishai bar Abaye ha-Kohen, b. ABT 820     d. ABT 858

1. Title: Abaye ben Natronai Kohen Ṣedeq Gaon of Pumbeditha in Geneanet
   Author: Online Geneanet.com
   Publication: Name: https://gw.geneanet.org/sathazagthoth?lang=en&n=ben+yosef&oc=0&p=kohen+sedeq+ii+yakob+gaon+of+sura+pumbeditha;
   Note: Long historic narratives of situations
   Page: Source