BENJAMIN GINZAKAYAH (of Ginzaḳ = Gazaka in Media Atropatene):

A Babylonian scholar of the third century, contemporary of Mar Samuel. All that is known of him is that death overtook him when he was on the point of deciding a ritual question in accordance with the views of Rab, as opposed to those of Samuel. Hearing of this circumstance, Samuel thanked God, who had prevented the promulgation of an erroneous decision; and to the prime mover thereof, his friend Rab, he applied the Scriptural saying (Prov. xii. 21), "There shall no mischief happen to the just" (Yer. Ber. ii. 5b). In Babli (Niddah 65a) the name appears as "Minyamin Sakasnaah" (of Sacassana, a province of Armenia).

J. Sr. S. M.
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