The title alluf, which in the Bible designates tribal chieftains (e.g., Gen. 36:15 ff.), was given new significance in the gaonic period along with other biblical titles, such as nagid . It was granted by the Babylonian yeshivot to those who sat in the first row of the yeshiva, those destined to be candidates for the gaonate, and later also to their supporters who headed congregations (Heb. qehalim) in other Babylonian communities and served as intermediaries for a Babylonian yeshiva (see Yeshivot in Babylonia/Iraq). In a tenth-century account often called “The Report of Nathan the …