Rabbi Yehuda Nesiah, also known as Judah II, was the son and disciple of Rabban Gamliel, son of Rabbi, and the grandson of Rabbi Yehuda HaNasi, the redactor of the Mishnah. The Aramaic epithet "Nesiah", meaning "the Nasi", distinguishes him from his grandfather, with whom he is often confused. He studied with his father and with Rabbi Chiya, and belongs to the first generation of the Amoraim of the Land of Israel.

He presided over the Sanhedrin in the third century, succeeding his father as leader of the people. He was close to Rabbi Oshaya Rabbah, to whom, according to the Talmud, he sent mishloach manot on Purim. Rabbi Simlai was his attendant, Reish Lakish transmitted many teachings in his name, and Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi learned from him. His relations with Rabbi Yochanan were friendly, while Reish Lakish did not hesitate to urge him toward selflessness.

His court became known as "the court that permitted the oil": it lifted the ban on oil prepared by non-Jews, ruling that the public could not abide by it. It also enacted a ruling on conditional divorce. When Rabbi Simlai asked him to permit the bread of non-Jews as well, he refused, so that his court would not be called "the permissive court".

The Talmud describes him as humble. Once, during a drought, he decreed a fast and no rain fell; he humbled himself, comparing his generation to that of the prophet Samuel, and the rain came. He is the source of the teaching that the world endures only by the breath of schoolchildren studying Torah. His son, Rabban Gamliel IV, succeeded him.

The Jerusalem Talmud relates that his coffin was placed in a synagogue in Tzippori. His burial place is uncertain: a popular tradition recorded around the end of the fourteenth century places it at Yavnit, on the northern slope of Mount Canaan, and another, from the fifteenth century, in Tzippori.