A Ga’on

Ga’on (lit. “pride”; pl. geonim) was the title of the official who presided over the rabbinic academies of Sura and Pumbedita. These were located on the Euphrates, near Fallujah in what is now Iraq, until the end of the ninth century, when first the academy of Pumbedita (ca. 892) and then that of Sura (early tenth century) moved to Baghdad, the largest and most important city in the Middle East. Correspondence, letters of investiture, and rulings issued by the academy’s courts went out under the gaon’s name. While the title of gaon did not automatically transfer from father to son, geonim were often chosen from among the members of a few select families.