רבי יעקב החזן במערת המכפלה

In 2015 during refurbishment activities in the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, two inscriptions engraved in an inner wall of the cave were revealed. The first one consists of the personal name Tanḥum. The second, published here fully for the first time, reads: רביעקב חזנה ואחוי “Rabb(i)Yaʿaqov the ḥazzān and his brother/s.” The inscription was executed in two stages. First, “Rabb(i)Yaʿaqov the ḥazzān” was engraved using well stylized letters, in line with the Jewish script on papyrus and parchment during the Byzantine period; subsequently, “and his brother/s” was added using a simpler style. The language of the inscription is clearly Jewish Palestinian Aramaic, the tongue of the majority of the Jews in the Land of Israel during the Roman and Byzantine periods. “Rabb(i)Yaʿaqov” was written as a single word, omitting one yod. אחוי can be interpreted as “his brother” or “his brothers.” The ḥazzān in the Byzantine period was the individual in charge of the proper functioning of the synagogue in all aspects, including ceremonial reading of the Torah and its explanation and translation for the public, and child education. The service of multifunctional rabbis was common in small communities.