Hoshaiah

Who was Hoshaiah?

Hoshaiah or Oshaya was a Jewish amora of the 3rd and 4th amoraic generations. It is supposed that his colleague Hanina was his brother. They were lineal descendants from Eli the priest, which circumstance they assigned as reason for Johanan's failure to ordain them. For a living they plied the shoemaker's trade.

Furthermore, the Talmud refers once to Hoshaiah and Ḥanina as rabbis in Sanh. 67b, when dealing with the laws differentiating magic as illusion and as wizardry. Hoshaiah and his colleague stand out as producing magic while studying Sefer Yetzirah, which is there considered neither illusion nor sorcery.

Hoshaiah and Ḥanina are also mentioned in connection with a certain bath-house, the ownership of which was contested by two persons, one of whom turned over the property as "heḳdesh", causing Hoshaiah, Ḥanina, and other rabbis to leave it. On the day Hoshaiah died, it is claimed, the largest date-palm in Tiberias was uprooted and fell.