Jerusalem Talmud in the context of Cairo Geniza

Masekhet Megillah (Hebrew: מסכת מגילה, lit. 'Tractate Scroll') is a tractate in Seder Moed of the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds. It deals with laws and stories relating to Purim, a Jewish holiday originating from the Book of Esther. Megillah continues to dictate how Purim is celebrated in Jewish communities worldwide to this day.

Safed (/ˈsɑːfɛd/ SAH-fed; Arabic: صَفَد, romanized: Ṣafad), also known as Tzfat and officially as Zefat (Hebrew: צְפַת, romanized: Ṣəp̄aṯ), is a city in the Northern District of Israel. Located at an elevation of up to 937 m (3,074 ft), Safed is the highest city in the Galilee and in Israel. In 2022, 93.2% of the population was Jewish and 6.8% was counted as other.

Safed has been identified with Sepph (Σέπφ), a fortified town in the Upper Galilee mentioned in the writings of the Roman Jewish historian Josephus. The Jerusalem Talmud mentions Safed as one of five elevated spots where fires were lit to announce the New Moon and festivals during the Second Temple period. Safed attained local prominence under the Crusaders, who built a large fortress there in 1168. It was conquered by Saladin 20 years later, and demolished by his grandnephew al-Mu'azzam Isa in 1219. After reverting to the Crusaders in a treaty in 1240, a larger fortress was erected, which was expanded and reinforced in 1268 by the Mamluk sultan Baybars, who developed Safed into a major town and the capital of a new province spanning the Galilee. After a century of general decline, the stability brought by the Ottoman conquest in 1517 ushered in nearly a century of growth and prosperity in Safed, during which time Jewish immigrants from across Europe developed the city into a center for wool and textile production and the mystical Kabbalah movement. It became known as one of the Four Holy Cities of Judaism. As the capital of the Safad Sanjak, it was the main population center of the Galilee, with large Muslim and Jewish communities. Besides during the fortunate governorship of Fakhr al-Din II in the early 17th century, the city underwent a general decline and by the mid-18th century was eclipsed by Acre. Its Jewish residents were targeted in Druze and local Muslim raids in the 1830s, and many perished in an earthquake in that same decade – through the philanthropy of Moses Montefiore, its Jewish synagogues and homes were rebuilt.

The av beit din (Hebrew: אָב בֵּית דִּין, romanized: ʾāḇ bēṯ din, lit. 'chief of the court, chief justice'), abbreviated abd (אב״ד avad), was the second-highest-ranking member of the Sanhedrin during the Second Temple period and served as an assistant to the nasi. The av beit din was known as the "Master of the Court;" he was considered the most learned and important of these seventy members.

Menahem the Essene served as av beit din in the 1st century BC before abdicating to "serve the King" in 20 BC. The House of Shammai attained complete ascendency over the Sanhedrin from 9 CE until Gamaliel became nasi in 30 CE. The post of av beit din was eventually filled since the Babylonian Talmud states that Joshua ben Hananiah was the av beit din in Baba Kamma 74b and Nathan the Babylonian was av beit din in Horayot 13b in the Babylonian Talmud. The Jerusalem Talmud tells the story of how Gamaliel II was deposed and Eleazar ben Azariah replaced him as Nasi. After Gamaliel was reinstated, Eleazar ben Azariah was made av beit din. The parallel story in the Babylonian Talmud has Eleazar ben Azariah remaining as a co-nasi with Gamaliel.

Tiberias (/taɪˈbɪəriəs/ ty-BEER-ee-əs; Hebrew: טבריה, Ṭəveryā; Arabic: طبريا, romanized: Ṭabariyyā) is a city on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee in northern Israel. A major Jewish center during Late Antiquity, it has been considered since the 16th century one of Judaism's Four Holy Cities, along with Jerusalem, Hebron, and Safed. In 2023 it had a population of 51,476.

Tiberias was founded around 20 CE by Herod Antipas and was named after Roman emperor Tiberius. It became a major political and religious hub of the Jews in the Land of Israel after the destruction of Jerusalem and the desolation of Judea during the Jewish–Roman wars. From the time of the second through the tenth centuries CE, Tiberias was the largest Jewish city in Galilee, and much of the Mishna and the Jerusalem Talmud were compiled there. Tiberias flourished during the Early Muslim period, when it served as the capital of Jund al-Urdunn and became a multi-cultural trading center. The city declined in importance over time due to earthquake damage and foreign incursions. After the Galilee earthquake of 1837 the city was rebuilt and grew steadily following the First Jewish Aliyah in the 1880s.

Daniel Bomberg (c. 1483 – c. 1549) was one of the most important early printers of Hebrew books. A Christian Hebraist who employed rabbis, scholars and apostates in his Venice publishing house, Bomberg printed the first Mikraot Gdolot (Rabbinic Bible) and the first complete Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds, based on the layout pioneered by the Soncino family printers, with the commentaries of Rashi, and of the Tosfot in the margins. The editions set standards that are still in use today, in particular the pagination of the Babylonian Talmud. His publishing house printed about 200 Hebrew books, including Siddurim, responsa, codes of law, works of philosophy and ethics and commentaries. He was the first Hebrew printer in Venice and the first non-Jewish printer of Hebrew books.

The Gemara (also transliterated Gemarah, or in Yiddish Gemore) comprises a collection of rabbinical analyses and commentaries on the Mishnah and presented in 63 books. The term is derived from the Aramaic word גמרא‎ and rooted in the Semitic word ג-מ-ר (gamar), which means "to finish" or "complete". Initially, the Gemara was transmitted orally and not permitted to be written down. However, after Judah the Prince compiled the Mishnah around 200 CE, rabbis from Babylonia and the Land of Israel extensively studied the work. Their discussions were eventually documented in a series of books, which would come to be known as the Gemara. There are two versions of the Talmud: the Babylonian Talmud (Talmud Bavli) and the Jerusalem Talmud (Talmud Yerushalmi). The Mishnah is virtually the same in two Talmuds; the Gemara is what differentiates the Babylonian Talmud from its Jerusalem counterpart.

The Babylonian Talmud, compiled by scholars in Babylonia around 500 CE and primarily from the academies of Sura, Pumbedita, and Nehardea, is the more commonly cited version when referring to the "Gemara" or "Talmud"; redaction of the Jerusalem Talmud was interrupted in the mid-fourth century when the Romans suppressed Jewish scholarship in Israel and most Talmudists fled to Babylon. As a result, the Bavli was more intensively edited, studied, and commented on. The main compilers of the Babylonian Talmud were Ravina and Rav Ashi. The Jerusalem Talmud was compiled by Jewish scholars in the Land of Israel, primarily from the academies of Tiberias and Caesarea, around 350–400 CE.

Betar (Hebrew: בֵּיתַּר, romanized: Bēttar) was an ancient Jewish town in the Judaean Mountains, continuously inhabited since the Iron Age and up until the 2nd century CE. It is most famously known as the final stronghold of the Bar Kokhba revolt. It was besieged and destroyed by the Romans in 135 CE.

Betar appears in various ancient sources, including the Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmuds, as well as in midrashic literature and Patristic writings. These accounts depict the siege as a prolonged and devastating campaign, culminating in the large-scale massacre of its inhabitants. According to Jewish tradition, tens of thousands were killed, and their bodies were left unburied until the reign of Emperor Antoninus Pius, when burial was finally permitted. The fall of Betar is observed on the fast day of Tisha B'Av, alongside other national calamities such as the destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem.

Moed (Hebrew: מועד, 'Festivals') is the second Order of the Mishnah, the first written recording of the Oral Torah of the Jewish people (also the Tosefta and Talmud). Of the six orders of the Mishna, Moed is the third shortest. The order of Moed consists of 12 tractates:

1. Shabbat or Shabbath (שבת‎) ("Sabbath") deals with the 39 prohibitions of "work" on the Shabbat. 24 chapters.
2. Eruvin (ערובין) ("Mixtures") deals with the Eruv or Sabbath-bound - a category of constructions/delineations that alter the domains of the Sabbath for carrying and travel. 10 chapters.
3. Pesahim (פסחים) ("Passover Festivals") deals with the prescriptions regarding the Passover and the paschal sacrifice. 10 chapters.
4. Shekalim (שקלים) ("Shekels") deals with the collection of the half-Shekel as well as the expenses and expenditure of the Temple. 8 chapters
5. Yoma (יומא) ("The Day")—also called "Kippurim" or "Yom ha-Kippurim" ("Day of Atonement")—deals with the prescriptions Yom Kippur, especially the ceremony by the Kohen Gadol. 8 chapters.
6. Sukkah (סוכה) ("Booth") deals with the festival of Sukkot (the Feast of Tabernacles) and the Sukkah itself. Also deals with the Four Species (Lulav, Etrog, Hadass, Aravah — Palm branch, Citron, Myrtle, Willow) which are waved on Sukkot. 5 chapters.
7. Beitza (ביצה) ("Egg")—now named after its first word, but originally called Yom Tov ("Holidays")—deals chiefly with the rules to be observed on Yom Tov. 5 chapters.
8. Rosh Hashanah (ראש השנה) ("New Year") deals chiefly with the regulation of the calendar by the new moon, and with the services of the festival of Rosh Hashanah. 4 chapters.
9. Ta'anit (תענית) ("Fasting") deals chiefly with the special fast-days in times of drought or other untoward occurrences. 4 chapters
10. Megillah (מגילה) ("Scroll") contains chiefly regulations and prescriptions regarding the reading of the scroll of Esther at Purim, and the reading of other passages from the Torah and Neviim in the synagogue. 4 chapters.
11. Mo'ed Katan (מועד קטן) ("Little Festival") deals with Chol HaMoed, the intermediate festival days of Pesach and Sukkot. 3 chapters.
12. Hagigah (חגיגה) ("Festival Offering") deals with the Three Pilgrimage Festivals (Passover, Shavuot, Sukkot) and the pilgrimage offering that men were supposed to bring in Jerusalem. 3 chapters.

The Jerusalem Talmud has a Gemara on each of the tractates, while in the Babylonian, only that on Shekalim is missing. However, in most printed editions of the Babylonian Talmud (as well as the Daf Yomi cycle), the Jerusalem Gemara to Shekalim is included.

Jewish Aramaic was a Western Aramaic language spoken by the Jews during the Classic Era in Judea and the Levant, specifically in Hasmonean, Herodian and Roman Judaea and adjacent lands in the late first millennium BCE, and later in Syria Palaestina and Palaestina Secunda in the early first millennium CE. This language is sometimes called Galilean Aramaic, although that term more specifically refers to its Galilean dialect.

The most notable text in the Jewish Western Aramaic corpus is the Jerusalem Talmud, which is still studied in Jewish religious schools and academically, although not as widely as the Babylonian Talmud, most of which is written in Jewish Babylonian Aramaic. There are some older texts in Jewish Western Aramaic, notably the Megillat Taanit: the Babylonian Talmud contains occasional quotations from these. Dead Sea Scroll 4Q246, found in Qumran, is written in this language as well.

Horayot (Hebrew: הוֹרָיוֹת; "Decisions") is a tractate in Seder Nezikin in the Talmud.

In the Mishnah, this is the tenth and last tractate in Nezikin, the ninth tractate in the Babylonian Talmud, and the eighth in the Jerusalem Talmud. It consists of three chapters in the Mishnah and two in the Tosefta. The tractate mainly discusses laws pertaining to erroneous rulings by a Jewish court, as well as unwitting actions performed by leading authorities of the Jewish people, and the sacrificial offerings (Hebrew korban, plural korbanot) that might be brought as a consequence of these actions. The conclusion of the tractate (12a-13b) deals with the prioritization of korbanot in the temple and explores the question of how to quantify human life in emergencies.