Editing Geonim (section)

==Role in Jewish life==
The Geonim officiated, in the last place, as directors of the [[Talmudic Academies in Babylonia|academies]], continuing as such the educational activity of the [[Amoraim]] and [[Saboraim]]. For while the Amoraim, through their interpretation of the [[Mishnah]], gave rise to the [[Talmud]], and while the Saboraim definitively edited it, the Geonim's task was to interpret it; for them it became the subject of study and instruction, and they gave religio-legal decisions in agreement with its teachings.

During the geonic period the Babylonian schools were the chief centers of Jewish learning; the Geonim, the heads of these schools, were recognized as the highest authorities in [[Halakha|Jewish law]]. Despite the difficulties which hampered the irregular communications of the period, Jews who lived even in most distant countries sent their inquiries concerning religion and law to these officials in Babylonia.

In the latter centuries of the geonic period, from the middle of the tenth to the middle of the eleventh, their supremacy lessened, as the study of the Talmud received care in other lands. The inhabitants of these regions gradually began to submit their questions to the heads of the schools in their own countries. Eventually they virtually ceased sending their questions to Babylonian Geonim.