To remove him from their influence his uncle advised him to leave the country, which he did, emigrating to Babylonia, where he opened a school that eventually acquired great fame.
[6] After the failure of the Bar Kokhba revolt, and the death of Rabbi Akiva and R. Judah ben Baba, Haninah survived to remain the greatest scholar sage of the generation ("Gadol") in the Land of Israel.
[citation needed] But following the persecution that accompanied the Bar Kochba rebellion, he again emigrated to Babylonia, settling at Nehar Pekod.
[7] Hananiah's arrival in Babylonia threatened to produce a schism with far-reaching consequences: it created a movement toward the secession of the Babylonian congregations from the central authority of the Palestinian Sanhedrin.
Believing that Roman tyranny had permanently suppressed the religious institutions which had previously united the Jewish people despite its dispersion, Hananiah attempted to establish an authoritative body in his new home.
In March, 139 or 140, a message arrived from Rome announcing the repeal of the Hadrianic decrees;[8] soon thereafter the surviving rabbis, especially the disciples of Akiva, convened at Usha, and reorganized the Sanhedrin with Simeon ben Gamliel II as president.
He appealed to Judah ben Bathyra, then in Nisibis, for support; but the latter not only refused to participate in the secession movement, but convinced Hananiah to submit to the orders emanating from the Judean Sanhedrin.
[12] Although Hananiah was a prominent figure in his day, rivaling for a time the patriarch in Judea, his name is connected with only few halakhot, either original[13] or transmitted,[14] and with still fewer halakhic midrashim.