BAʿQŪBA

BAʿQŪBA, town c. 25 mi. (40 km.) north of Baghdad. Under the Abbasid caliphate, Baʿqūba was a district center, with a prosperous Jewish community. At the end of the eighth century, Manasseh b. R. Joseph of Baʿqūba, was head of the academy of pumbedita . Even later, many Jews lived in the town. In the early 12th century, a self-styled herald of the messiah, Ibn Shadad, appeared in Baʿqūba and began a movement which was suppressed by the Muslim authorities. The community existed into the 19th century. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: J. Obermeyer, Landschaft Babylonien (1929), 144f.; Goitein, in: JJS, 4 (1953), 79; Mann, in: REJ, 71 (1920), 90f.; A. Ben-Jacob, Yehudei Bavel (1965), 13f., 222. (Eliyahu Ashtor)