Tedef also known as Tedef al-Yahud (Tedef of the Jews), is a town about 20 miles east of Aleppo

Aleppo

Aleppo is the largest city in Syria and the capital of Aleppo Governorate, the most populous Syrian governorate. With an official population of 2,301,570 , expanding to over 2.5 million in the metropolitan area, it is also one of the largest cities in the Levant...

, Syria

Syria

Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....

. The town, which is the site of a shrine to the Hebrew prophet Ezra

Ezra

Ezra , also called Ezra the Scribe and Ezra the Priest in the Book of Ezra. According to the Hebrew Bible he returned from the Babylonian exile and reintroduced the Torah in Jerusalem...

 (c. 400 BCE), was a popular summer resort for the Jews of Aleppo.

History

The village was inhabited during the 19th-century by Arabs belonging to the Aneyzeh tribe. During the late 1800s, the village came under repeated attack by nomadic Arab tribes who wished to steal sheep and cattle from the surrounding plains. Casualties were reported as the villagers were able to muster over 400 armed men to defend their flocks and herds. At the time, about 20 Jewish families lived in the village, which was described as a “Jewish town”. Before the festival of Shavuot

Shavuot

The festival of is a Jewish holiday that occurs on the sixth day of the Hebrew month of Sivan ....

, Jews from Aleppo made an annual pilgrimage to the village.

In 1931, there were 15 Jewish families living in the town.

Association with Ezra the Scribe

Local tradition maintains that Ezra the Scribe (c. 400 BCE) paused in the town on his way from Babylon to Jerusalem and built the synagogue which still stands today. In 1899, Max Freiherr von Oppenheim discovered 14th-century Hebrew inscriptions at the synagogue. There is a spring near the town called Ein el-Uzir, where it is said Ezra regularly immersed himself during his sojourn there. A tomb ascribed to Ezra is also located in the townand has been intact for many centuries. On a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1414, Issac Elfarra of Malaga was informed:

At a distance of two miles from [Aleppo] is the tomb of Ezra the Scribe. There Ezra recorded the Torah... This village is called Taduf [and contains] a synagogue... They [also] say that every night year round a cloud ascends from the tomb of Ezra never departing.

There is also another tomb attributed to Ezra

Ezra's Tomb

Ezra's Tomb or the Tomb of Ezra is a location in Iraq on the western shore of the Tigris that was popularly believed to be the burial place of the biblical figure Ezra. Al-ʻUzair is the present name of the settlement that has grown up around the tomb....

 near Basra

Basra

Basra is the capital of Basra Governorate, in southern Iraq near Kuwait and Iran. It had an estimated population of two million as of 2009...

, Iraq

Iraq

Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....

.