David ben Hezekiah
DAVID BEN HEZEKIAH
DAVID BEN HEZEKIAH (d. before 1090), exilarch in Babylonia, son of the exilarch *Hezekiah b. David. David was in Jerusalem for a period during the gaonate of *Solomon b. Judah (1025–51). It seems that he wanted to be recognized as nasi in Ereẓ Israel, but did not succeed. Later, still during the lifetime of his father, he apparently visited Egypt. He then returned to Baghdad, and when his father died in 1058, succeeded him as exilarch. It is not known whether, like his father, he also acted as rosh yeshivah of Pumbedita. In 1090 his son Hezekiah is mentioned as exilarch. His grandson David b. Hezekiah was also exilarch and was followed in the first half of the 12th century by his son Ḥasdai.
bibliography:
S. Poznański, Babylonische Geonim (1914), 1–3; Mann, Egypt, 2 (1922), index; Mann, Texts, 1 (1931), 208; idem, in: Sefer Zikkaron … S.A. Poznański (1927), 22f.
[Abraham David]