Hezekiah Gaon - Biography

Hezekiah Gaon (or Hezekiah ben David; , or Hezekiah b. David) was the last Gaon of the Talmudic academy in Pumbedita from 1038-40.

Hezekiah was a member of the exilarchal family, son of David,who was son the of Zakkai,who was the son of Avraham, who was the son of Nathan, son of David a Rabbi, whose father was Hazub. He was elected to the office of principal after the murder of Hai Gaon, but was denounced to a fanatical government of the Buyyids, imprisoned, and tortured to death. With him ended his family, with the exception of two sons who escaped to the Iberian Peninsula, where they found a home with Joseph ben Samuel, the son of Samuel ha-Nagid. The death of Hezekiah also ended the line of the Geonim, which began four centuries before (see Hanan of Iskiya), and with it the Academy of Pumbedita. The Spanish poet Hiyya al-Daudi (d. 1154) was descended of one of the Hezekiah's sons, named David.

Bibliography

• Rabad, Sefer ha-Kabbalah;
• Zacuto, The book of Lineage;
• Gans, Ẓemaḥ Dawid, i.;
• Grätz, Gesch. v. 428;
• Jost, Gesch. der Juden und Seiner Sekten, ii. 287.