Names of Rabbis in Pirkei Avot

Compiled by Yehoshua ben Haim haYerushalmi (MKA Zachary Kessin)

© 2002-2003 Zachary Kessin

Pirkei Avot is one of 64 chpaters of the Mishna, the compilation of the Jewish Oral Law. Pirkei Avot was compiled the second century and in many Jewish communities is read on Sabbath afternoons in the spring and summer. Avot contains the saying on ethics of approximately sixty Rabbis who lived from just before the common era to about the second century.
These names represent a mix of classical Hebrew and Aramaic names as well as some Greek names like Antigonus. Some of these names did enter the cannon of classical Jewish names like Hillel and other like Yehudah are directly out of the Bible.

Sources

Zlotwitz, Rabbi Meir , "Perkei Avot. Ethics of the Fathers/ A New Translation with a Concise Commentary Anthologized from the Classical Rabibinic Sources",(New York, Artscroll Mesorah Publications , 1984).