Baʿqūba

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BAʿQŪBA

BAʿQŪBA , town c. 25 mi. (40 km.) north of Baghdad. Under the Abbasid caliphate, Baʿqūba was a district center, with a prosperous Jewish community. At the end of the eighth century, Manasseh b. R. Joseph of Baʿqūba, was head of the academy of *Pumbedita. Even later, many Jews lived in the town. In the early 12th century, a self-styled herald of the messiah, Ibn Shadad, appeared in Baʿqūba and began a movement which was suppressed by the Muslim authorities. The community existed into the 19th century.

bibliography:

J. Obermeyer, Landschaft Babylonien (1929), 144f.; Goitein, in: jjs, 4 (1953), 79; Mann, in: rej, 71 (1920), 90f.; A. Ben-Jacob, Yehudei Bavel (1965), 13f., 222.

[Eliyahu Ashtor]