JEWSdistributed by three); a prayer-house, a bath-house, lavatories, a phy-
sician, a barber, a scribe, and a teacher for children."53
In general, the council in each Jewish community in Sasanian Iraq
consisted of a chairman and seven advisers in charge of the collection
and distribution of alms, the synagogue, communal property, and the
schools. Officers were appointed to keep order, to check weights and
measures, and to act as watchmen against floods. According to the
Talmud, alms had to be collected by two who formed the adminis-
trating body and had to be distributed by three. Food was to be
collected every day and distributed to the poor of the city. At Pum-
baditha in the time of Rabbi Joseph in the early fourth century, each
poor man received a fixed sum from charity.54
The possession of communal property also helped to create the
bonds of a religious community. In each city or town the synagogue,
the administrative building which was often separate from the syn-
agogue, the ritual bath, the cemetery, and the school buildings were
owned by the community in common. The use of an erubh (Heb.),
the legal device for converting public property such as thoroughfares
"nd courtyards into communal property, because the latter had the
advantage of being treated as private property in the application of
the Sabbath law, was an effective means of excluding non-Jews from
Jewish enclaves. In some places this device was extended to entire
cities or districts. Erubhin are said to have been made for all of Pum-
baditha and Mahoza and by the Jews of Mabhraktha adjoining Ma-
hoza.^55
The creation of social boundaries was an important part of the
formation of such a religious community. The activity of the Talmudic
scholars in consolidating the Rabbinic community did not include the
conversion of non-Jews. The rabbis tended to discourage Persian and
pagan Aramaean influences, opposed social contact and the sale of
wine to non-Jews, and objected to intermarriage because the children
might be lost. 56 Nor was the witness of sectarians or apostates from
Judaism (Heb. minnim) admitted in the Rabbinic court.
Although social isolation was increasing, it was never total. There
is an example in Talmudic times of a Jew who rented and operated a
53 Rodkinson, Talmud, XV, "Sanhedrin," 41.
54 Grayzel, History, p. 225; Rodkinson, Talmud, VIII, "Taanith," 63; idem, X, "Baba
Kama," 210; idem, XIII, "Baba Bathra," 20.
ss Grayzel, History, p. 226; Rodkinson, Talmud, III, "Erubin," 107, 139, 143.
56 Rodkinson, Talmud, XVIII, "Abuda Zara," 126-27.