Tadef

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TADEF

TADEF , village 24 mi. (40 km.) E. of *Aleppo, the site of an ancient synagogue named after *Ezra the Scribe. Popular tradition holds that on his return from Babylonia Ezra stopped in Tadef and wrote the Scriptures. The synagogue walls bear inscriptions relating to the repairs carried out in the last years of the 14th century. Aleppo Jews were accustomed to make a Ziyāra (annual pilgrimage) to the synagogue. A Jewish community also grew up near the synagogue, and according to the traveler Benjamin the Second there were 20 Jewish families living there in the middle of the 19th century.

bibliography:

M.F. Oppenheim, Inschriften aus Syrien, Mesopotamien und Kleinasien (1913), 175ff.; Ashtor, Toledot, 1 (1944), 277–8; 2 (1951), 120; I. Ben-Zvi, She'ar Yashuv (19652), 488–90.

[Eliyahu Ashtor]