History of the Jews and Judaism in the Land of Israel almost a decade after the arrival of two of his pupils, R. Hayim of Vilna and R. Israel ben Samuel of Shklov. In all there were three groups of the Gaon's students which emigrated to the land of Israel. They formed the basis of the Ashkenazi communities of Jerusalem and Safed, setting up what was known as the Kollel Perushim. Their arrival encouraged an Ashkenazi revival in Jerusalem, whose Jewish community until this time was mostly Sephardi. Many of the descendants of the disciples became leading figures in modern Israeli society. The Gaon himself also set forth with his pupils
Ashkenazi Hebrew from Spain in 1492 (or before) the Sephardic pronunciation of the vowels became standard in all these countries, ironing out any differences that previously existed. This makes it harder to adjudicate between the different theories on the relationship between today's pronunciation systems and those of ancient times. Leopold Zunz believed that the Ashkenazi pronunciation was derived from that of Palestine in Geonic times (7th–11th centuries CE), while the Sephardi pronunciation was derived from that of Babylonia. This theory was supported by the fact that, in some respects, Ashkenazi Hebrew resembles the western dialect of Syriac while Sephardi Hebrew resembles the