Served as High Priest and leader of the Great Assembly, preserving Jewish law and practice during the early Hellenistic period.

Sefer Yetzirah

Peri Etz Hadar

Served as president of the Sanhedrin and enacted major takkanot regarding marriage contracts and women's property rights.

Became president (nasi) of the Sanhedrin and established rabbinic school that dominated Jewish law for centuries.

Active in late-Hasmonean Judea; murdered during the 65 BCE Hasmonean civil war according to Josephus.

Active in the late-Hasmonean / early-Herodian Sanhedrin in Jerusalem.

Served as av beit din alongside Hillel, establishing the stringent House of Shammai as a major halakhic authority.

Active in the late Second Temple Jerusalem rabbinic circle.

Served as Nasi (president) of the Sanhedrin and led the Jewish community during the Second Temple's final decades.

Long-lived Tanna bridging the late Second-Temple period and the Yavneh generation.

Led the Pharisaic academy and served as Nasi before the Temple's destruction in 70 CE.

Established the academy after the Temple's destruction, becoming the center of Jewish learning and rabbinic authority.

Convert traditionally credited with the Aramaic Targum Onkelos.

Established his academy and trained thousands of students, making Bnei Brak a major center of Torah study.

Studied under Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Joshua at the academy, becoming a leading sage of the Yavneh school.

Presided over the academy at Yavneh and led the Sanhedrin's reconstitution after the Temple's destruction.

Established an academy that became a major center of Torah learning in the Diaspora during the second century.

Teacher of R. Akiva in the Yavneh-era circle. His derashic methodology shaped Akivan exegesis.

Served as head of the academy and led the Sanhedrin during its reconstruction after the Temple's destruction.

Active in the Yavneh-era circle before his apostasy. R. Meir continued to learn from him after his break with the rabbinic community.

Active in the Yavneh-era Tannaitic circle.

Lived and taught in the Galilee; killed near Usha-Shfar'am while ordaining the next generation of Tannaim.

Active in the Yavneh-era Akivan circle. Died c. 135 during or shortly after the Bar Kochba period.

Yavneh-era Akivan circle; died during or shortly after the Bar Kochba period.

Heikhalot Rabbati

Reconvened the Sanhedrin after the Bar Kokhba War and served as Nasi during the early Severan period.

Established his academy and became a leading authority in the Mishnaic period after the Bar Kokhba revolt.

Taught and lived in Tzippori (Sepphoris) in the Lower Galilee. His five sons continued his beit midrash.

Relocated the patriarchal seat here and compiled the Mishnah during the final decades of his life.

Ancient port city on the northern coast of the Land of Israel. The
Ramchal moved here at the end of his short life; he and his family
died there in a plague.


Center of Sephardic learning and printing in the 17th-18th centuries.
Where the Ramchal relocated under the agreement that ended the
Sabbatean controversy over his kabbalistic writings.


Barcelona's Jewish community flourished from the 11c. through the late 14c. Major figures: Rashba, Ra'ah of Barcelona, Bahya ben Asher. Site of the 1263 Disputation with Pablo Christiani.

Bnei Brak became the post-WWII center of Lithuanian-style Orthodoxy in Israel, under R. Avraham Yeshayahu Karelitz (Chazon Ish, 1933-1953).