Jerusalem Talmud

The Jerusalem Talmud (Hebrew: תַּלְמוּד יְרוּשַׁלְמִי, romanized: Talmud Yerushalmi, often Yerushalmi for short), also known as the Talmud of the Land of Israel or Palestinian Talmud, is a collection of rabbinic commentary on the Mishnah, a codification of Jewish oral traditions ("Oral Torah") believed to have been revealed by Moses alongside the Written Torah. Since this Talmud originated in Galilee, in the Byzantine province Palaestina Secunda, rather than in Jerusalem (where Jews were prohibited from living since the time of Hadrian), many prefer calling it the Palestinian Talmud.

The Jerusalem Talmud predates its counterpart, the Babylonian Talmud (known in Hebrew as the Talmud Bavli), by about a century. It was written primarily in Galilean Aramaic. It was compiled between the late fourth century to the first half of the fifth century. Both versions of the Talmud have two parts, the Mishnah (of which there is only one version), which was finalized by Judah the Prince around the year 200 CE, and the respective commentary tradition on the Mishnah from each region, known as a Gemara. The Gemara is what differentiates the Jerusalem Talmud from its Babylonian counterpart. The Jerusalem Gemara contains the written discussions of generations of rabbis of the Talmudic academies in Syria Palaestina at Tiberias and Caesarea.

Name

This Talmud is commonly known as the Jerusalem Talmud or the Palestinian Talmud. Academics prefer to speak of the "Palestinian Talmud" because of the texts origins mainly from the Galilee region of Palestine (or the Land of Israel) in the Byzantine province, Palaestina Secunda, rather than from Jerusalem.