דניאל בן עזריה

Daniel ben Azariah (דניאל בן עזריה) was Gaon of Eretz Yisrael and rosh yeshiva of the Yeshivat Geon Yaakov in Yerushalayim from 1051 until his passing in Elul 4822 (1062). He came from the family of the Reish Galuta of Bavel and so traced his line to the house of David, and on that standing he was chosen to head the yeshiva in Yerushalayim.

His appointment was contested. The family of the previous gaon, Shlomo ben Yosef HaKohen, wanted the post for one of his two sons, Yosef or Eliyahu, and their supporters opposed Rabbi Daniel’s election. Rabbi Evyatar Gaon, Eliyahu’s son, later set the dispute down in his Megillat Evyatar, and according to his account Rabbi Daniel persecuted the two brothers and informed on them to the Fatimid authorities, who imprisoned them.

In his lifetime the synagogue of the Eretz Yisrael community in Fostat, the Ben Ezra synagogue, was called by his name: the synagogue of our master Daniel, the light of Israel, the great nasi and head of the Yeshivat Geon Yaakov.

Toward the end of his life Rabbi Daniel fell gravely ill, and Rabbi Evyatar writes that he took the illness as a punishment for what he had done to his predecessor’s family. He was niftar in Elul 1062, and the paytan Eli ben Amram, leader of the Jews of Egypt, composed a kinah on his passing. His son David ben Daniel was too young to succeed him, and Eliyahu ben Shlomo ben Yosef HaKohen, who had served as av beit din, became gaon without opposition and held the office until his own passing in 1083; David ben Daniel later took part in a dispute over the succession to the gaonate. A letter of the Reish Galuta Daniel ben Chisdai states that it is known and plain that semicha in Eretz Yisrael came to an end with the passing of Rabbi Daniel ben Azariah.

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