exilarch

[eg-zuh-lahrk, ek-suh-]

noun

1. one of a line of hereditary rulers of the Jewish community in Babylonia from about the 2nd century a.d. to the beginning of the 11th century.

Word History and Origins

Origin of exilarch¹

First recorded in 1890–95; exile + -arch

Example Sentences

There is nothing in the condition or thought of the Jews which would render the existence today of an exilarch distasteful to them; indeed, the thought would be very comfortable.

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That there should be a Sanhedrin of the Jews, a world body of the leading men of all countries; that there should even be an exilarch, a visible and recognized head of the Sanhedrin, mystically foreshadowing the autocrat to come; that there should even be a world program, just as every government has its foreign policy, are not strange, uncanny suppositions.

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Whether the office was discontinued with the last publicly known exilarch or merely disappeared from the surface of history, whether today it is entirely abandoned or exists in another form, are questions which must wait.

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After the destruction of the Jewish state by the Romans, the Jews maintained a center in the Patriarch; and after the dispersion of the Jews out of Palestine this center of nationality was preserved in the Prince of the Exile, or Exilarch, an office which is believed to persist to the present time, and which some believe to be held now by an American Jew.

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A brilliant account has come down of the ceremonies at the installation of a new exilarch.

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