With Jose bar Zevida, his early schoolmate and lifelong colleague and business partner, he studied under Ze'era I and Rav Ela.
[5] According to the halakhic requirement he gave away the tithe of his income, but to those who studied halachah, not to priests or Levites, deriving his authority from II Chronicles 31:4.
"I understand," he would say to him, "that you have fallen heir to an estate" or "that your debtors will soon pay you; borrow some money of me, which you may repay when you come into possession of your fortune."
[8] He was included among those styled ("the mighty ones of the land of Israel"), because, the Rabbis explained, of the efficacy of his prayers in times of drought.
[9] As rectors of the academy at Tiberias, Jonah and Jose had many disciples, some of whom became leaders in the next generation, and spread and perpetuated their master's doctrines.