page_title: Judah ha-Nasi
section_title: Youth
hierarchical_section_title: Judah ha-Nasi / Biography / Youth
caption_attribution_description: From The Historical Atlas by William R. Shepherd (1923) via [1]
context_page_description: Judah ha-Nasi or Judah I, was a second-century rabbi and chief redactor and editor of the Mishnah. He lived from approximately 135 to 217 CE. He was a key leader of the Jewish community during the Roman occupation of Judea.
context_section_description: Judah the Prince was born in 135 CE to Simeon ben Gamliel II. According to the Talmud he was of the Davidic line. He is said to have been born on the same day that Rabbi Akiva died as a martyr. The Talmud suggests that this was a result of Divine Providence: God had granted the Jewish people another leader of great stature to succeed Rabbi Akiva. His place of birth is unknown.
  Judah spent his youth in the city of Usha. His father presumably gave him the same education that he himself had received, including the Greek language. This knowledge of Greek enabled him to become the Jews' intermediary with the Roman authorities. He favored Greek as the language of the country over Jewish Palestinian Aramaic. In Judah's house, only the Hebrew language was spoken, and the maids of the house became known for their use of obscure Hebrew terminology.
  Judah devoted himself chiefly to the study of the traditional and of the written law. In his youth he had close relations with most of the great students of Akiba; and as their student and in converse with other prominent men who gathered about his father at Usha and later at Shefar'am, he laid the foundations of that wide scholarship which enabled him to undertake his life-work, the redaction of the Mishnah.
caption: The Galilee in Late Antiquity
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