Salome Alexandra (Shlomtzion) שלומציון המלכה
queen for nine years; in her days the sages returned and, by tradition, the land bore double
She took the throne after Yannai and at once brought the Pharisees back to power; her brother Shimon ben Shetach headed the Sanhedrin. Her elder son Hyrcanus II became High Priest and the younger, Aristobulus, got the army—a split that would explode the moment she died.
Her nine years stayed in memory as a time of blessing. The Talmud says: "In the days of Shimon ben Shetach the rains fell on the nights after the Sabbath, so that grains of wheat grew like kidneys, of barley like olive pits, of lentils like golden dinars; and the sages gathered them and left them for coming generations, to show that sin holds back the good."
In her days too, according to the Jerusalem Talmud, Shimon ben Shetach ruled that children should go to school—the first system of compulsory elementary education anywhere. She died in AM 3694, leaving her sons a country they lost within four years.
On the timeline
Places
Sources
Chazal: Mishnah, Talmud, midrash, Zohar
- Taanit 23a — the rains after the Sabbath and the grains like kidneys
- Sifra, Bechukotai 1 — the blessing of the land in her days
- Yerushalmi Ketubot 8:11 — Shimon ben Shetach's decree on schools for children
Documents of the period
- Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 13:405–432 — her reign, the return of the Pharisees and the split between her sons
Basis: documents and evidence.