MEʾIR (second century CE), Palestinian tanna. According to legend, Meʾir was descended from a family of proselytes that traced its line back to the Roman emperor Nero. He allegedly studied with both ʿAqivaʾ ben Yosef and Yishmaʿeʾl. Meʾir was one of the five rabbis secretly ordained by Yehudah ben Bavaʾ during the Hadrianic persecutions that followed the collapse of the Bar Kokhba Revolt (c. 132–135 CE), and he was one of the seven disciples of ʿAqivaʾ who issued a famous edict concerning the intercalation of the year that was crucial to the maintenance of the Jewish festivals.

Meʾir is associated with Elishaʿ ben Avuyah, a heretic also known as Aḥer, "the Other." Some rabbinic sources depict Meʾir as a sometime student of Elishaʿ (B.T., Ḥag. 15a).

The tomb of the legendary Meʾir Ba...