the queen). Upon the king's death, Queen Alexandra succeeded to the rulership; and Simeon and his party, the Pharisees, obtained great influence. Together with his colleague, Judah ben Tabbai, Simeon began to supersede the Sadducean teachings and to re-establish the authority of the Pharisaic interpretation of the Torah. He is therefore called "the restorer of the Law," who "has given back to the crown of learning its former brightness". Simeon discarded the penal code which the Sadducees had introduced as a supplement to the biblical code; and almost all the teachings and principles introduced by him are aimed against the Sadducean interpretation of the Law. Of Simeon's enactments two were of especial importance. One consisted in the restriction of divorces, which were then of frequent occurrence. Simeon arranged that the husband might use the prescribed marriage gift ("ketubah") in his business, but that his entire fortune should be held liable for it. Inasmuch as a husband of small means could ill afford to withdraw a sum of money from his business, Simeon's ruling tended to check hasty divorces. The other important act referred to the instruction of the young. Founded popular schools Up to Simeon's time there were no schools in Judea, and the instruction of children was, according to biblical precepts, left to their fathers. Simeon ordered that yeshivot be established in the larger cities in which the young might receive instruction in the Holy Scriptures as well as in the traditional knowledge of the Law. Witch-hunt and his son's death In a significant case of an early witch-hunt, on a single day Simeon ben Shetach's court sentenced to death eighty women in Ashkelon who had been charged with sorcery. The relatives of these women, filled with a desire for revenge, brought false witnesses against Simeon's son, whom they accused of a crime which involved capital punishment; and as a result of this charge he was sentenced to death. While on the way to the place of execution, the witnesses recanted their testimony. Simeon ben Shetach sought to have the case reopened. Simeon's son protested that, according to the Law, a witness must not be believed when he withdraws a former statement, and he said to his father, "If you seek to bring about salvation, then consider me as a threshold [towards that goal]." The execution then proceeded. This event may have been the reason why Simeon issued a