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THE SUDRA IN EXILE

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Sudra (Jewish Babylonian Aramaic: סודרא‎, romanized: suḏārā, Hebrew: סוּדָר, romanized: sudār) is a rectangular piece of cloth sometimes worn as a scarf or headdress as part of ancient Jewish tradition. Over time it held many different functions and today is sometimes understood to be of great cultural or religious significance to Jews.

The sudra is mentioned in various ancient and medieval Aramaic and Koine texts written in or about the Near East, among them the Gospel of Luke from around 80–110 CE, the Targum Neofiti from around the first-fourth century, the Peshitta from the fifth century, the Babylonian Talmud, which was completed around 500 – this text makes numerous mentions of the sudra and is an important source for its role in Jewish life at the time – and the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, dated between the fourth and the fourteenth century.

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