Rabbi Shmuel Barzani רבי שמואל ברזאני
the teacher of the Kurdish yeshivas who gave his learning to his daughter
Kurdistan learned Torah its own way: mountain communities, Aramaic as the living speech of the house, yeshivas held up not by a city's wealth but by a teacher's name. Barzani was such a name. He gathered students, wrote to communities, asked maintenance for the yeshivas—and the tradition of the house of Barzani says the yeshivas of all Kurdistan stand from him.
His chief deed, though, turned out to be domestic. There were no sons, and to his daughter he gave what daughters of his century were not given: the whole learning. In Asnat's marriage contract he stipulated that she do no housework—so that she might study. She became the tanna'it, head of the Mosul yeshiva after his death, and it is by her letters that we know her father too.
His years are conjectural: the Encyclopaedia Judaica prints them with question marks, and we set a window, not dates. He is buried at Amadiya—where his daughter lies too.
Places
Related
Sources
Documents of the period
- The letters and colophons of Asnat Barzani — on her father, his yeshivas, and the teaching of his daughter
Scholarship
- The standard reference works and encyclopedias — Encyclopaedia Judaica: the years are given with question marks
Basis: Talmud and midrash.