JEWSganized into the most fully developed community in Sasanian Iraq.
This, plus their geographical concentration in central Iraq, made it
both necessary and convenient for the Sasanians to deal with them as
a group. The exilarch was officially recognized by the state as the
legitimate ruler of the Jews for the Sasanians and was made responsible
for the administration of justice and the collection of taxes among
Jews. This meant that, in fact, the Jews were allowed to develop an
operating, autonomous community complete with a system of religious
law, social institutions, schools, and synagogues. The operation of
communal institutions depended, in turn, on an alliance between the
exilarch and the rabbis who staffed the religious courts, acted as local
administrators, and collected the poll tax. This actually put the rab-
binate in a position to apply the religious law to the life of the com-
munity through the courts and to enforce dietary laws as market
inspectors.
THE EROSION OF THE EXILARCHATE
A radical change in the position of the exilarch and the rule of the
Jewish community occurred in the late Sasanian and early Islamic
periods. For reasons that remain obscure, in the late fifth century Jews
were subject to unprecedented persecutions that recurred intermit-
tently until the end of the Sasanian dynasty. In the reigns of Yazdagerd
II (438-57) and firiiz (457-84), Jews were forbidden to observe the
Sabbath and were made subject to Persian law. Synagogues and schools
were closed; children were forced to commit apostasy and were turned
over to Magians to be raised; and the exilarch and several leading
rabbis were executed.^84
It is impossible to know how much of the governing structure of
the Rabbinic community survived through the difficulties in the late
Sasanian period. The disorders in the Sasanian empire lasted until the
early sixth century. The exilarchate was restored in the reign of Khus-
raw Aniishirvan in the persons of Akhunai (550-60) and his son Kafnai
(560-81). But Kafnai fell victim to a new persecution under Hurmizd
IV in 581. When the school at Pumbaditha was closed in 588, the
scholars escaped to Firuz Shapur (Anbar), which was under the Banii
84 Abraham ibn Daud, The Book of Tradition (Sefer ha-Qabbalah), ed. and tt. G. Cohen
(London, 1967), pp. 36, 41-42; D. Goodblatt, Rabbinic Instruction in Sasanian Ba·
bylonia (Leiden, 1975), pp. 18,26; Neusner, History, p. 61; idem, Talmudic judaism,
p.135.