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Alexandrians in Jerusalem

The 1901 Jewish Encyclopedia

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In consequence of the active relations of the Alexandrian Jews with Palestine, many of them made their permanent home in Jerusalem. But since they had been accustomed to hearing the synagogue services in Greek, and had brought with them many other peculiar customs, they formed a separate community in Jerusalem, and built a synagogue of their own. There exists double proof of this. According to Acts, 6:9, there arose against the young Christian congregation "certain of the synagogue which is called the synagogue of the Libertines, andCyrenians, and Alexandrians, and of them of Cilicia and of Asia." Rabbinical sources relate that Rabbi Eleazar, son of Zadok, bought a synagogue of the Alexandrians in Jerusalem (Tosef., Meg. [] 6; Yer. Meg. 3:73d). Bab. Meg. 26a mentions a "Synagogue of the " which modern scholars explain as "Synagogue of the Men of Tarsus or of Cilicia" (Derenbourg, "Essai sur l'Histoire de la Palestine," p. 263; Neubauer, "G. T." pp. 293, 315). The older explanation is, "Synagogue of the Coppersmiths." At all events, the reading of Tosefta and the Jerusalem Talmud is to be preferred to that of the Babylonian.