The Talmudic academies in Syria Palaestina were yeshivot that served as centers for Jewish scholarship and the development of Jewish law in Syria Palaestina (under the Romans), and later Palaestina Prima and Palaestina Secunda. The academies had a major influence on Judaism through the development of the Jerusalem Talmud, or Palestinian Talmud, which was compiled into book form in around 350–400 CE.
Council of Jamnia
The Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE put as abrupt an end to the disputes of the schools as it did to the contests between political parties. It was then that a disciple of Hillel the Elder, Johanan ben Zakai, founded a new home for Jewish Law in Yavne (Jamnia). The seat of the Sanhedrin at Yavne, which at once constituted itself the successor of the Great Sanhedrin of Jerusalem by putting into practice the ordinances of that body as far as was necessary and practicable, attracted all those who had escaped the national catastrophe and who had become prominent by their character and their learning.
Moreover, it reared a new generation of similarly gifted men, whose task it became to overcome the results of the Bar Kokhba revolt. During the interval between these two disasters (56-117), or, more accurately, until the Kitos War under Trajan, the school at Yavne was the recognized tribunal that gathered the traditions of the past and confirmed them; that ruled and regulated existing conditions; and that sowed the seeds for future development. Next to its founder, it owed its splendor and its undisputed supremacy especially to Gamaliel II, a great-grandson of Hillel. To him flocked the pupils of Johanan ben Zakkai and other masters and students of the Law and of Talmudical hermeneutics. Although some of them taught and labored in other places – Eliezer ben Hurcanus in Lod; Joshua ben Hananiah in Peki'in; Rabbi Ishmael in Kfar Aziz, Rabbi Akiva in Bnei Brak; Haninah ben Teradion in Siknin – Yavne remained the center; and in "the vineyard" of Yavne, as they called their place of meeting, they used to assemble for joint action.
Levantine Judaism restored
In the fertile ground of the Yavne Academy the roots of the literature of tradition — Midrash and Mishnah, Talmud and Aggadah — were nourished and strengthened. There, too, the way was paved for a systematic treatment of Halakhah and exegesis. In Yavne were held the decisive debates upon the canonicity of certain Biblical books; there the Jewish liturgy received its permanent form; and there, probably, was edited the Targum on the Pentateuch, which became the foundation for the later Targum named after Onkelos. It was Yavne that inspired and sanctioned the new Greek language version of the Bible — that of Akylas (Aquila of Sinope). The events that preceded and followed the great civil revolution under Bar Kokhba (from the year 117 to about 140) resulted in the decay and death of the school at Yavne. According to tradition, the Sanhedrin was removed from Yavne to Usha, from Usha back to Yavne, and a second time from Yavne to Usha. This final settlement in Usha indicates the ultimate spiritual supremacy of Galilee over Judea, the latter having become depopulated by the war of Hadrian. Usha remained for a long time the seat of the academy; its importance being due to the pupils of Akiba, one of whom, Judah bar Ilai, had his home in Usha. Here was undertaken the great work of the restoration of Levantine Judaism after its disintegration under Hadrian. The study of the Law flourished anew; and Simeon ben Gamliel II, was invested with the rank that had been his father's in Yavne. With him the rank of nasi or patriarch became hereditary in the house of Hillel, and the seat of the academy was made identical with that of the patriarch.
