RES OURCESand early development of the Rabbinic tradition and of the Karaite
sect which survived among European Jews. The experience of this
community forms an integral part of surveys of Jewish history, such
as H. Graetz, History of the Jews (Philadelphia, 1894, 1941), where
it occupies the third volume; S. Doubnow, An Outline of Jewish His-
tory (New York, 1925) in the second volume; S. Grayzel, A History
of the Jews (Philadelphia, 1947, 1968); S. D. Goitein,Jews and Arabs:
Their Contacts through the Ages (New York, 1955); and S. W. Baron's
multivolume Social and Religious History of the Jews (New York,
1958). Such works place the Iraqi community in a general historical
context, and help to identify the older scholarship and interpretive
lssues.
Much of what these surveys have to say about the Jews of Iraq
comes from S. Funk's two-volume Die Juden in Babylonien, 200-500
(Berlin, 1902-1908). For Jews as Sasanian subjects, see G. Widengren,
"Jews in Mesopotamia and Iran," Vetus Testamentum, suppl. IV (1937),
pp. 197-241, and "The Status of the Jews in the Sassanian Empire,"
Iranica Antiqua 1 (1961): 117-62. The most important reevaluation
over the past two decades has been the prolific, critical, provocative,
and controversial work of J. Neusner. His fifth volume, Later Sasanian
Times (Leiden, 1970) of A History of the Jews in Babylonia (Leiden,
1965-1970) was particularly useful for this study. His "Rabbi and
Magus in Third-Century Sasanian Babylonia," History of Religions 6
(1966): 169-78, compares these two kinds of religious authority and
leadership. Several of his important articles are collected in Talmudic
Judaism in Sasanian Babylonia: Essays and Studies (Leiden,1976).
His critical approach to the historical value of Rabbinic literature is
directed mainly against those who take it literally and use it as a basis
of generalizing about all Jews, as outlined in "Jews and Judaism under
Iranian Rule: Bibliographical Reflections," History of Religions 8 (1968):
159-77, and in the other articles on historical method collected in his
Method and Meaning in Ancient Judaism (Missoula, Montana, 1980).
For a balanced evaluation of his work in general, see L. Jacobs's review
of Neusner's A History of the Mishnaic Law of Women, pts. 1-5
(Leiden, 1980) in BSOAS 44 (1981), which nevertheless is critical of
his "vast theories, unsupported by the evidence." There is also a recent
survey of the history of Jews in pre-Islamic Iraq by A. Susa called
"Lamal}.at min ta'rikh Yahiid al-'Iraq al-qadim wa ~ilatihi bi-Yahiid
ash-sharq," Majalla markaz ad-dirasat al-filasttniyya 2 (1975): 34-
77.