Hagronia
HAGRONIA
HAGRONIA (Lat. Agranium ), town on the Euphrates. It served as a kind of citadel for the town of *Nehardea, as its name Akra ("fort") di Hagronia (bb 73b) testifies. After Nahardea declined as a religious center following its partial destruction by Papa bar Nazar in 259 c.e. (see *Odenathus), most of its Jews settled in Hagronia. Its Jewish community, though not large (bb 73b), was of considerable importance. Rava, head of the Pumbedita academy from 338 to 52, went from Maḥoza to Hagronia to proclaim a public fast (Ta'an. 24b) and it is reported that the exilarch lectured there during the second half of the fourth century (Yoma 78a). Its scholars were termed "the elders of Hagronia" (Shab. 11a). Many talmudic scholars are known to have been born there – Avimi (bm 77b), Judah (Av. Zar. 39a), Samuel b. Abba (bk 88a), Hilkiah (Yev. 9a), Eleazar (Ta'an. 24b), and Mordecai (Sot. 46b).
bibliography:
Neubauer, Géog., 347f.; A. Berliner, Beitraege zur Geographie und Ethnographie Babyloniens im Talmud und Midrasch (1883), 31f.; J. Obermeyer, Die Landschaft Babylonien im Zeitalter des Talmuds und des Gaonats (1929), 265–70; Neusner, Babylonia, 2 (1966), 248. add. bibliography: B. Eshel, Jewish Settlements in Babylonia during Talmudic Times (1979), 102–03.
[Moshe Beer]