Bnei Bathyra

Rabbinical Eras

Bnei Bathyra (Hebrew: בני בתירא, lit. "The Children of Bathyra"; Also referred to in the Jerusalem Talmud as זקני בתירא, lit. "The Elders of Bathyra") were Jewish sages family that in a certain period of time, headed the religious leadership of the Jewish people, during the Destruction of the Second Temple, and in close proximity to the beginning of the era of the Tannaim. This family is known for its many important Jewish Sages over the course of many generations. A hundred-year before the Destruction of the Second Temple, the family's sages have passed the torch of the Jewish leadership to Hillel the Elder, that made Aliya to the Land of Israel from Babylon and had studied at Sh'maya and Abtalion. The sages of the family are considered "Gedolei Hador", the intellectual giants of the religious world of these generations, even after the Destruction of the Second Temple, and are known to have held a prominent position among the Yavne Sages. The general consensus attributes some Tannaim to this family, and the most known of these attributions is Judah ben Bathyra, who resided in Nusaybin west to Babylon.

See also