The Economic Conditions of the Jews in Babylon in Talmudic Times compared with Palestine

Originally published in Journal of Semitic Studies, 2: 4 (1957), 349-59. A baraita [2] records that ‘ten measures of poverty descended into the world, nine of them were taken by Babylon’. There is the further statement of R. Asi [3] that the festivals are celebrated with great joy in Babylon as a compensation for the…