HAI BAR RAV DAVID GAON

HAI BAR RAV DAVID GAON, head of the pumbedita academy from 890 to 898. Hai was dayyan in Baghdad for many years before he became gaon; he transferred the academy of Pumbedita to Baghdad (Sha'arei Simhah of R. Isaac ibn ghayyat , 1 (1861), 63–64). None of his responsa has been preserved, but some of those attributed to R. "Hai" without further definition, may be his. Harkavy attributes the Sefer ha-Shetarot ("Book of Documents") to him, but Wertheimer, L. Ginzberg, and Assaf hold more plausibly that the author of the Sefer ha-Shetarot was the famous hai b. sherira . Several early Karaite scholars attributed to Hai a book of polemics against the Karaites on the subject of the intercalation of the month and the arrangement of the calendar; many scholars believe that this was Hai b. David. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Mann, in: JQR, 11 (1920/21), 434–5; S. Assaf, Sefer ha-Shetarot de-Rav Hai Ga'on (1930), 7–8; Ibn Daud, Tradition, 52, 37, 129; Abramson, Merkazim, 911. (Mordecai Margaliot)