Books: Monographs and Edited Volumes by Steven Fine
The Samaritans: A Biblical People celebrates the culture of the Israelite Samaritans, from biblic... more The Samaritans: A Biblical People celebrates the culture of the Israelite Samaritans, from biblical times to our own day. An international team of historians, folklorists, a documentary filmmaker and contemporary artists have come together to explore ways that Samaritans, Jews, Christians, and Muslims have interacted, often shunned and always interpreted one another across the expanse of western civilization.
Written for both the general reader and the scholar, The Samaritans: A Biblical People is a centerpiece of the Israelite Samaritans Project of the Yeshiva University Center for Israel Studies. This exquisitely illustrated volume celebrates a traveling exhibition produced jointly with the Museum of the Bible in Washington D.C.
The Arch of Titus: From Jerusalem to Rome—and Back explores the shifting meanings and significanc... more The Arch of Titus: From Jerusalem to Rome—and Back explores the shifting meanings and significance of the Arch of Titus from the Jewish War of 66–74 CE to the present—for Romans, Christians and especially for Jews. Built by triumphant Romans, this triumphal monument was preserved by medieval Christians, lauded by modern visitors and dictators and imitated around the world. The Arch of Titus has special significance for the once-defeated Jews. Its menorah is now the national symbol of modern Israel.
The Arch of Titus: From Jerusalem to Rome—and Back assembles an international array of scholars to explore the Arch in all of its complexity. This volume celebrates an exhibition mounted at Yeshiva University Museum and is the final statement of the Yeshiva University Arch of Titus Project.
https://brill.com/view/title/58841
Torah Aura, 1999
Explains the history and purpose of synagogues, especially three that were famous archaeological ... more Explains the history and purpose of synagogues, especially three that were famous archaeological finds at Masada and Beit Alpha Israel and Dura Europos in Syria. Published in conjunction with the exhibition -Sacred realm: the emergence of the synagogue in the ancient world-, Yeshiva University Museum, New York, February-December 1996.
Jewish Religious Architecture explores ways that Jews have expressed their tradition in brick and... more Jewish Religious Architecture explores ways that Jews have expressed their tradition in brick and mortar and wood, in stone and word and spirit. This volume stretches from the biblical Tabernacle to Roman Jerusalem, synagogues spanning two millenia and on to contemporary Judaism. Social historians, cultural historians, art historians and philologists have come together here to present this extraordinary architectural tradition. The multidisciplinary approach employed in Jewish Religious Architecture reveals deep continuities over time, together with the distinctly local— sometimes in surprising ways.
PLEASE VISIT THE LINKS ABOVE!
The menorah, the seven-branched candelabrum, has traversed millenn... more PLEASE VISIT THE LINKS ABOVE!
The menorah, the seven-branched candelabrum, has traversed millennia as a living symbol of Judaism and the Jewish people. Naturally, it did not pass through the ages unaltered. The Menorah explores the cultural and intellectual history of the Western world’s oldest continuously used religious symbol. This meticulously researched yet deeply personal history explains how the menorah illuminates the great changes and continuities in Jewish culture, from biblical times to modern Israel.
Though the golden seven-branched menorahs of Moses and of the Jerusalem Temple are artifacts lost to history, the best known menorah image survives on the Arch of Titus in Rome. Commemorating the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE, the arch reliefs depict the spoils of the Temple, the menorah chief among them as they appeared in Titus’ great triumphal parade in 71 CE. Steven Fine recounts how, in 2012, his team discovered the original yellow-ochre paint that colored the menorah—an event that inspired this search for the the history of this rich symbol from ancient Israel through classical history, the middle ages and on to our own tumultuous times.
Exploring artifacts and literary sources spanning three thousand years-- from the Torah and the ruins of Rome to yesterday’s news-- Fine presents the menorah as a source of fascination and illumination for Jews, Samaritans, Christians and even Freemasons. A symbol for the divine, for continuity, emancipation, national liberation and redemption, the menorah features prominently on Israel’s state seal, and continues to inspire and challenge in surprising ways.
PLEASE VISIT THE LINKS ABOVE!
"...a landmark book which both signals a fundamental transformation in its field and is at the sa... more "...a landmark book which both signals a fundamental transformation in its field and is at the same time the performer of a great element of the change. The study of Jewish art and archaeology in antiquity will not be the same after it...." -- Jaś Elsner, Oxford University
“Praiseworthy for its near encyclopedic coverage and its insights into the evolution of late antique material culture and theology, the book’s supreme virtues reside in its humane and refreshing methodology….Steven Fine’s Art and Judaism in the Greco-Roman World is both learned and lovable.” -- Kalman Bland, Duke University
Art and Judaism explores the Jewish experience with art during the Greco-Roman period - from the Hellenistic period through the rise of Islam. It starts with the premise that Jewish art in antiquity was a ‘minority’ or ‘ethnic’ art and surveys ways that Jews fully participated in, transformed, and at times rejected the art of their general environment. It focuses upon the politics of identity during the Greco-Roman period, even as it discusses ways that modern identity issues have sometimes distorted and at other times refined scholarly discussion of ancient Jewish material culture."
This new postscript traces my intellectual and educational path through -This Holy Place- to my l... more This new postscript traces my intellectual and educational path through -This Holy Place- to my later work, including my -The Menorah-, accountiing for my debt and reticence regarding Mircea Eliade and the "Chicago School."
"Though Fine has already made a name for himself, This Holy Place establishes his reputation as a leading scholar in synagogue Studies." -- Pieter W. van der Horst, University of Utrecht
"...an important contribution to the entire nature of late antique civilization, not just to Jewish studies." –- Peter Brown, Princeton University
Marshaling a wide variety of literary and archaeological sources dating to the Greco-Roman period, This Holy Place demonstrates how the synagogue came to be seen as sacred, rather than simply as houses of study. This volume argues that the biblical scrolls read, studied, and stored within its walls were the most important source of synagogue sanctity in the minds of the ancients, for the Scriptures offered the physical manifestation of the Divine within local congregations.
This Holy Place describes in detail the long and creative process by which holiness became ascribed to synagogues. It reaches back to the earliest history of the synagogue, over two thousand years ago, to explore the ideological development of the synagogue as well as important trends in the history of Judaism during the Greco-Roman period.
Transcending the specific genres of literature as well as geographic boundaries within the Roman and Persian empires, the author investigates numerous literary sources and dedicatory inscriptions in Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek and Latin from the Land of Israel and the Diaspora. This Holy Place brings together art and architecture from throughout the Mediterranean world with authors like Philo of Alexandria, Josephus, John Chrysostom and Yannai the synagogue poet as he traces the religious history of the ancient synagogue. Insights drawn from Rabbinic literature, Patristic literature, and Roman law read together with archaeological discoveries, support the conclusion that during late antiquity there existed a single but multi-faceted Judaism rather than the separate Judaisms some have posited."
The rich tradition and profound spirituality of Judaism has touched people the world over for tho... more The rich tradition and profound spirituality of Judaism has touched people the world over for thousands of years. With the arrival in the Near East of Alexander the Great and the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE, the synagogue came to represent a new era of this powerful religion, one which witnessed a greater emphasis on shared religious experience and prayer. In turn, the synagogue, derived from the Greek, meaning an "assembly," has come to mean the Jewish house of worship, evolving into a "sacred realm," in which the Torah came to play a central role linking the biblical past with the messianic future. Of course, the synagogue has been much more that a house of worship--it served the Jewish people as a place of learning, a community center, and often as the official seat of Jewish self-government. Indeed, it is the institution most closely associated with the development of post-biblical Judaism throughout the ages.
Sacred Realm: The Emergence of the Synagogue in the Ancient World offers the first comprehensive history of the architectural and archaeological development of the synagogue from the third century BCE to 700 CE. Telling the story of over one hundred ancient synagogues throughout the world and their place in the history of Judaism and of Western civilization, this book provides a fascinating representation of the cultural, intellectual, and artistic achievements of three thousand years of Jewish experience. Informative essays detail every aspect of the ancient synagogue, while beautiful illustrations and maps take the reader to the actual historic site.
Sacred Realm is an accompaniment to a monumental exhibition organized by the Yeshiva University Museum in New York. Borrowing from museums in North America, Europe, and Israel, the exhibition presents a unique collection of artifacts and manuscripts--including many pieces never before displayed in the United States--and will depict for the first time an in-depth history of the synagogue during the Greco-Roman period. From fourth-century Egyptian incense burners and inscribed bowl fragments to fifth-century Gaza mosaics decorated with Menorah and Shofar, Piyyut (liturgical poetry) manuscripts, and assorted textile, column, and pottery fragments, this collection is the most significant presentation of ancient Jewish religious life ever assembled in the United States.
Lavishly illustrated with both color and black and white photographs of the artifacts, manuscripts, maps, site diagrams, and reconstructions, Sacred Realm is not only a detailed record of this historic exhibit, but a guide to the evolution of Judaism's most sacred institution.
Talmuda de-Eretz Israel: Archaeology and the Rabbis in Late Antique Palestine — NOW OPEN ACCESS!, 2014
Talmuda de-Eretz Israel: Archaeology and the Rabbis in Late Antique Palestine is now available a... more Talmuda de-Eretz Israel: Archaeology and the Rabbis in Late Antique Palestine is now available as an open access volume!
https://archive.org/details/talmudadeeretzis0000unse/page/n5/mode/2up
"Talmuda de-Eretz Israel: Archaeology and the Rabbis in Late Antique Palestine brings together an international community of historians, literature scholars and archaeologists to explore how the integrated study of rabbinic texts and archaeology increases our understanding of both types of evidence, and of the complex culture which they together reflect. This volume reflects a growing consensus that rabbinic culture was an "embodied" culture, presenting a series of case studies that demonstrate the value of archaeology for the contextualization of rabbinic literature. It steers away from later twentieth-century trends, particularly in North America, that stressed disjunction between archaeology and rabbinic literature, and seeks a more holistic approach"--
Includes bibliographical references and index
Mishnah Baba Metsia 7:7 and the relationship of Mishnaic Hebrew to northern biblical Hebrew / Shawn Zelig Aster -- Mishnah Baba Batra 8:5 : the transformation of the firstborn son from family leader to family member / Jonathan S. Milgram -- Mishnah Avodah Zarah 4:5 : the faces of effacement : between textual and artistic evidence / Noa Yuval-Hacham -- Tosefta Ma'aser Sheni 1:4 : the rabbis and Roman civic coinage in late antique Palestine / Joshua Weistuch and Ben Zion Rosenfeld -- Tosefta Shabbat 1:14 : "Come and see the extent to which purity had spread" : an archaeological perspective on the historical background to a late Tannaitic passage / Yonatan Adler -- An illustrated Midrash of Mekilta de R. Ishmael, Vayeḥi Beshalaḥ, 1 : rabbis and the Jewish community revisited / Uzi Leibner -- Jerusalem Talmud Megillah 1 (71b-72a) : "Of the making of books" : rabbinic scribal arts in light of the Dead Sea Scrolls / Lawrence H. Schiffman -- Jerusalem Talmud Sanhedrin 2,6 (20c) : the demise of King Solomon and Roman imperial propaganda in late antiquity / Alexei Sivertsev -- Genesis Rabbah 1:1 : Mosaic Torah as the blueprint of the universe : insights from the Roman world / Burton L. Visotzky -- Genesis Rabbah 98:17 : "And why is it called Gennosar?" : recent discoveries at Magdala and Jewish life on the Plain of Gennosar in the early Roman period / R. Steven Notley -- Leviticus Rabbah 16:1 : "Odysseus and the sirens" in the Beit Leontis mosaic from Beit She'an / Galit Hasan-Rokem -- Babylonian Talmud, Sukkah 51b : coloring the temple : polychromy and the Jerusalem temple in late antiquity / Steven Fine -- Babylonian Talmud, Avodah Zarah 16a : Jews and pagan cults in third-century Sepphoris / Sacha Stern -- The Rehov inscriptions and rabbinic literature : matters of language / Steven D. Fraade -- "This is the Beit Midrash of Rabbi Eliezer ha-Qappar" (Dabbura Inscription) : Were epigraphical rabbis real sages, or nothing more than donors and honored deceased? / Stuart S. Miller -- The Piyyutim le-Hatan of Qallir and Amittai : Jewish marriage customs in early Byzantium / Laura S. Lieber -- The use of archaeology in understanding rabbinic materials : an archaeological perspective / Eric Meyers -- The use of archaeology in understanding rabbinic materials : a Talmudic perspective / Daniel Sperber
"Few collections boast such a tessellation of authorities as Fine's Jews, Christians and Polythei... more "Few collections boast such a tessellation of authorities as Fine's Jews, Christians and Polytheists in the Ancient Synagogue; and anyone who reads the book will see how necessary it was to write it." -- M.J. Edwards, The Classical Review
Jews, Christians and Polytheists in the Ancient Synagogue explores the ways in which divergent ethnic, national and religious communities interacted with one another within the synagogue in the Greco-Roman period. It also presents new perspectives regarding the development of the synagogue and its significance of this institution for understanding religion and society under the Roman Empire.
"
"The editors and the contributors to this book are successful in presenting a holistic approach t... more "The editors and the contributors to this book are successful in presenting a holistic approach to synagogue liturgy. Fascinating nonverbal liturgical aspects do indeed shed new light on Jewish liturgy. The work as a whole is a superb reflection of strong scholarship in the area of Jewish liturgy. From excellent analysis of evidence to comprehensive footnotes to the timely display of art, images, and tables, the work reflects the diversity of scholarship and deserves to be a strong contributor to the field."—Viktor Petrovich Roudkovski, Letourneau University in Review of Biblical Literature, September 2006
"The present volume exemplifies some of the new directions in the history of Jewish liturgical studies, exciting inasmuch as they challenge a generation of form-critical approaches and evidence openness to the possibility of discontinuity with the prerabbinic Jewish liturgical world. Presenting a diverse array of methodologies, classical and interdisciplinary, these eleven richly annotated essays span the entire history of rabbinic prayer, allowing the volume to function as a primary resource for graduate level courses and seminars on the history of Jewish liturgy."—Gregory Glazov, Seton Hall University in Review of Biblical Literature, September 2006
"The purpose of this collection is to showcase the diverse approaches to studying the history of rabbinic liturgy. Traditionally, such studies have aimed at discerning the origins of prayers. In recent decades scholars have paid greater attention to the innovative nature of rabbinic prayer. There is now greater awareness that ritual aspects apart from the text are crucial to understanding the nature of liturgy. These include a variety of anthropological matters: architecture of places of worship, music, clothing, body language. The book here reviewed contains essays which, taken together, employ all of these as evidence in their various arguments. . . . There is much to recommend this stimulating collection which spans the entire history of rabbinic prayer and demonstrates the diverse approaches that can be taken to studying it." --Daniel Davies, Journal of Jewish Studies, Vol. LIX, no. 1 (2008), Clare Hall College, Cambridge
Table of Contents
Words of Celebration
Richard M. Joel, Yeshiva University
1. The Inauguration ... more Table of Contents
Words of Celebration
Richard M. Joel, Yeshiva University
1. The Inauguration of the Tabernacle Service at Sinai
Gary A. Anderson, University of Notre Dame
2. God as Refuge and Temple as Refuge in the Psalms
Shalom Holtz, Yeshiva University
3. “See, I Have Called by the Renowned Name of Bezalel, Son of Uri…”:
Josephus on the Biblical “Architect.”
Steven Fine, Yeshiva University
4. The Temple Scroll: A Utopian Temple Plan from Second Temple Times
Lawrence H. Schiffman, New York University
5. From Toleration to Destruction: Roman Policy and the Jewish Temple
Miriam Pucci Ben Zeev, Ben Gurion University
6. Notes on the Virtual Reconstruction of the Herodian Period Temple and Courtyards
Joshua Schwartz and Yehoshua Peleg, Bar Ilan University
7. Envisioning the Sanctuaries of Israel —The Academic and Creative Process of Archaeological Model Making
Leen Ritmeyer, Trinity Southwest University
8. Construction, Destruction and Reconstruction: The Temple in Pesiqta Rabbati
Rivka Ulmer, Bucknell University
9. The Mosaic Tabernacle as the Only Legitimate Sanctuary: The Biblical Tabernacle in Samaritanism
Reinhardt Pummer, University of Ottawa
10. Why Is There No Zoroastrian Central Temple?: A Thought Experiment
Yaakov Elman, Yeshiva University
11. Rival Claims: Christians, Muslims and the Jerusalem Holy Places
Frank E. Peters, New York University
12. Imagining the Temple in Late Medieval Spanish Altarpieces
Vivian B. Mann, Jewish Theological Seminary of America
13. Images of the Temple in Sefer ha-Bahir
Jonathan Dauber, Yeshiva University
14. Interpreting “the Resting of the Shekhinah”: Exegetical Implications of the Theological Debate among Maimonides, Nahmanides and Sefer ha-Hinnukh
Mordechai Z. Cohen, Yeshiva University
15. Remembering the Temple: Commemoration and Catastrophe in Ashkenazi Culture
Jacob J. Schacter, Yeshiva University
16. The Temple of Jerusalem from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment
Matt Goldish, Ohio State University
17. “Jerusalem Rebuilt”: The Temple in the Fin-de-siècle Zionist Imagination
Jess Olson, Yeshiva University
18. Avi Yonah’s Model of Second Temple Jerusalem and the Development of Israeli Visual Culture
Maya Balakirsky Katz, Touro College
19. Jerusalem during the First and Second Temple Periods: Recent Excavations and Discoveries On and Near the Temple Mount
Ann Killebrew, Pennsylvania State University
20. Digging the Temple Mount: Archaeology and the Arab-Israeli Conflict from the British Mandate to the Present
Robert O. Freedman, Johns Hopkins University
Prof. Stephen S. Kayser (1900-1988) was a guiding force in the formation of Jewish art in America... more Prof. Stephen S. Kayser (1900-1988) was a guiding force in the formation of Jewish art in America at mid-century. As founding director and curator of New York’s renowned Jewish Museum, this Heidelberg-trained German expatriate scholar set the foundations for Jewish museumship and art scholarship in America. Steven Fine was Professor Kayser’s last student, having written his MA in Art History under Kayser’s direction. A Crown For A King brings together scholars from Israel, the U.S. and Europe writing on a wide range of Professor Kayser's interests: from archaeology to ceremonial art, from the medieval period to the 20th century.
Uploads
Books: Monographs and Edited Volumes by Steven Fine
Written for both the general reader and the scholar, The Samaritans: A Biblical People is a centerpiece of the Israelite Samaritans Project of the Yeshiva University Center for Israel Studies. This exquisitely illustrated volume celebrates a traveling exhibition produced jointly with the Museum of the Bible in Washington D.C.
The Arch of Titus: From Jerusalem to Rome—and Back assembles an international array of scholars to explore the Arch in all of its complexity. This volume celebrates an exhibition mounted at Yeshiva University Museum and is the final statement of the Yeshiva University Arch of Titus Project.
https://brill.com/view/title/58841
The menorah, the seven-branched candelabrum, has traversed millennia as a living symbol of Judaism and the Jewish people. Naturally, it did not pass through the ages unaltered. The Menorah explores the cultural and intellectual history of the Western world’s oldest continuously used religious symbol. This meticulously researched yet deeply personal history explains how the menorah illuminates the great changes and continuities in Jewish culture, from biblical times to modern Israel.
Though the golden seven-branched menorahs of Moses and of the Jerusalem Temple are artifacts lost to history, the best known menorah image survives on the Arch of Titus in Rome. Commemorating the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE, the arch reliefs depict the spoils of the Temple, the menorah chief among them as they appeared in Titus’ great triumphal parade in 71 CE. Steven Fine recounts how, in 2012, his team discovered the original yellow-ochre paint that colored the menorah—an event that inspired this search for the the history of this rich symbol from ancient Israel through classical history, the middle ages and on to our own tumultuous times.
Exploring artifacts and literary sources spanning three thousand years-- from the Torah and the ruins of Rome to yesterday’s news-- Fine presents the menorah as a source of fascination and illumination for Jews, Samaritans, Christians and even Freemasons. A symbol for the divine, for continuity, emancipation, national liberation and redemption, the menorah features prominently on Israel’s state seal, and continues to inspire and challenge in surprising ways.
PLEASE VISIT THE LINKS ABOVE!
“Praiseworthy for its near encyclopedic coverage and its insights into the evolution of late antique material culture and theology, the book’s supreme virtues reside in its humane and refreshing methodology….Steven Fine’s Art and Judaism in the Greco-Roman World is both learned and lovable.” -- Kalman Bland, Duke University
Art and Judaism explores the Jewish experience with art during the Greco-Roman period - from the Hellenistic period through the rise of Islam. It starts with the premise that Jewish art in antiquity was a ‘minority’ or ‘ethnic’ art and surveys ways that Jews fully participated in, transformed, and at times rejected the art of their general environment. It focuses upon the politics of identity during the Greco-Roman period, even as it discusses ways that modern identity issues have sometimes distorted and at other times refined scholarly discussion of ancient Jewish material culture."
"Though Fine has already made a name for himself, This Holy Place establishes his reputation as a leading scholar in synagogue Studies." -- Pieter W. van der Horst, University of Utrecht
"...an important contribution to the entire nature of late antique civilization, not just to Jewish studies." –- Peter Brown, Princeton University
Marshaling a wide variety of literary and archaeological sources dating to the Greco-Roman period, This Holy Place demonstrates how the synagogue came to be seen as sacred, rather than simply as houses of study. This volume argues that the biblical scrolls read, studied, and stored within its walls were the most important source of synagogue sanctity in the minds of the ancients, for the Scriptures offered the physical manifestation of the Divine within local congregations.
This Holy Place describes in detail the long and creative process by which holiness became ascribed to synagogues. It reaches back to the earliest history of the synagogue, over two thousand years ago, to explore the ideological development of the synagogue as well as important trends in the history of Judaism during the Greco-Roman period.
Transcending the specific genres of literature as well as geographic boundaries within the Roman and Persian empires, the author investigates numerous literary sources and dedicatory inscriptions in Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek and Latin from the Land of Israel and the Diaspora. This Holy Place brings together art and architecture from throughout the Mediterranean world with authors like Philo of Alexandria, Josephus, John Chrysostom and Yannai the synagogue poet as he traces the religious history of the ancient synagogue. Insights drawn from Rabbinic literature, Patristic literature, and Roman law read together with archaeological discoveries, support the conclusion that during late antiquity there existed a single but multi-faceted Judaism rather than the separate Judaisms some have posited."
Sacred Realm: The Emergence of the Synagogue in the Ancient World offers the first comprehensive history of the architectural and archaeological development of the synagogue from the third century BCE to 700 CE. Telling the story of over one hundred ancient synagogues throughout the world and their place in the history of Judaism and of Western civilization, this book provides a fascinating representation of the cultural, intellectual, and artistic achievements of three thousand years of Jewish experience. Informative essays detail every aspect of the ancient synagogue, while beautiful illustrations and maps take the reader to the actual historic site.
Sacred Realm is an accompaniment to a monumental exhibition organized by the Yeshiva University Museum in New York. Borrowing from museums in North America, Europe, and Israel, the exhibition presents a unique collection of artifacts and manuscripts--including many pieces never before displayed in the United States--and will depict for the first time an in-depth history of the synagogue during the Greco-Roman period. From fourth-century Egyptian incense burners and inscribed bowl fragments to fifth-century Gaza mosaics decorated with Menorah and Shofar, Piyyut (liturgical poetry) manuscripts, and assorted textile, column, and pottery fragments, this collection is the most significant presentation of ancient Jewish religious life ever assembled in the United States.
Lavishly illustrated with both color and black and white photographs of the artifacts, manuscripts, maps, site diagrams, and reconstructions, Sacred Realm is not only a detailed record of this historic exhibit, but a guide to the evolution of Judaism's most sacred institution.
https://archive.org/details/talmudadeeretzis0000unse/page/n5/mode/2up
"Talmuda de-Eretz Israel: Archaeology and the Rabbis in Late Antique Palestine brings together an international community of historians, literature scholars and archaeologists to explore how the integrated study of rabbinic texts and archaeology increases our understanding of both types of evidence, and of the complex culture which they together reflect. This volume reflects a growing consensus that rabbinic culture was an "embodied" culture, presenting a series of case studies that demonstrate the value of archaeology for the contextualization of rabbinic literature. It steers away from later twentieth-century trends, particularly in North America, that stressed disjunction between archaeology and rabbinic literature, and seeks a more holistic approach"--
Includes bibliographical references and index
Mishnah Baba Metsia 7:7 and the relationship of Mishnaic Hebrew to northern biblical Hebrew / Shawn Zelig Aster -- Mishnah Baba Batra 8:5 : the transformation of the firstborn son from family leader to family member / Jonathan S. Milgram -- Mishnah Avodah Zarah 4:5 : the faces of effacement : between textual and artistic evidence / Noa Yuval-Hacham -- Tosefta Ma'aser Sheni 1:4 : the rabbis and Roman civic coinage in late antique Palestine / Joshua Weistuch and Ben Zion Rosenfeld -- Tosefta Shabbat 1:14 : "Come and see the extent to which purity had spread" : an archaeological perspective on the historical background to a late Tannaitic passage / Yonatan Adler -- An illustrated Midrash of Mekilta de R. Ishmael, Vayeḥi Beshalaḥ, 1 : rabbis and the Jewish community revisited / Uzi Leibner -- Jerusalem Talmud Megillah 1 (71b-72a) : "Of the making of books" : rabbinic scribal arts in light of the Dead Sea Scrolls / Lawrence H. Schiffman -- Jerusalem Talmud Sanhedrin 2,6 (20c) : the demise of King Solomon and Roman imperial propaganda in late antiquity / Alexei Sivertsev -- Genesis Rabbah 1:1 : Mosaic Torah as the blueprint of the universe : insights from the Roman world / Burton L. Visotzky -- Genesis Rabbah 98:17 : "And why is it called Gennosar?" : recent discoveries at Magdala and Jewish life on the Plain of Gennosar in the early Roman period / R. Steven Notley -- Leviticus Rabbah 16:1 : "Odysseus and the sirens" in the Beit Leontis mosaic from Beit She'an / Galit Hasan-Rokem -- Babylonian Talmud, Sukkah 51b : coloring the temple : polychromy and the Jerusalem temple in late antiquity / Steven Fine -- Babylonian Talmud, Avodah Zarah 16a : Jews and pagan cults in third-century Sepphoris / Sacha Stern -- The Rehov inscriptions and rabbinic literature : matters of language / Steven D. Fraade -- "This is the Beit Midrash of Rabbi Eliezer ha-Qappar" (Dabbura Inscription) : Were epigraphical rabbis real sages, or nothing more than donors and honored deceased? / Stuart S. Miller -- The Piyyutim le-Hatan of Qallir and Amittai : Jewish marriage customs in early Byzantium / Laura S. Lieber -- The use of archaeology in understanding rabbinic materials : an archaeological perspective / Eric Meyers -- The use of archaeology in understanding rabbinic materials : a Talmudic perspective / Daniel Sperber
Jews, Christians and Polytheists in the Ancient Synagogue explores the ways in which divergent ethnic, national and religious communities interacted with one another within the synagogue in the Greco-Roman period. It also presents new perspectives regarding the development of the synagogue and its significance of this institution for understanding religion and society under the Roman Empire.
"
"The present volume exemplifies some of the new directions in the history of Jewish liturgical studies, exciting inasmuch as they challenge a generation of form-critical approaches and evidence openness to the possibility of discontinuity with the prerabbinic Jewish liturgical world. Presenting a diverse array of methodologies, classical and interdisciplinary, these eleven richly annotated essays span the entire history of rabbinic prayer, allowing the volume to function as a primary resource for graduate level courses and seminars on the history of Jewish liturgy."—Gregory Glazov, Seton Hall University in Review of Biblical Literature, September 2006
"The purpose of this collection is to showcase the diverse approaches to studying the history of rabbinic liturgy. Traditionally, such studies have aimed at discerning the origins of prayers. In recent decades scholars have paid greater attention to the innovative nature of rabbinic prayer. There is now greater awareness that ritual aspects apart from the text are crucial to understanding the nature of liturgy. These include a variety of anthropological matters: architecture of places of worship, music, clothing, body language. The book here reviewed contains essays which, taken together, employ all of these as evidence in their various arguments. . . . There is much to recommend this stimulating collection which spans the entire history of rabbinic prayer and demonstrates the diverse approaches that can be taken to studying it." --Daniel Davies, Journal of Jewish Studies, Vol. LIX, no. 1 (2008), Clare Hall College, Cambridge
Words of Celebration
Richard M. Joel, Yeshiva University
1. The Inauguration of the Tabernacle Service at Sinai
Gary A. Anderson, University of Notre Dame
2. God as Refuge and Temple as Refuge in the Psalms
Shalom Holtz, Yeshiva University
3. “See, I Have Called by the Renowned Name of Bezalel, Son of Uri…”:
Josephus on the Biblical “Architect.”
Steven Fine, Yeshiva University
4. The Temple Scroll: A Utopian Temple Plan from Second Temple Times
Lawrence H. Schiffman, New York University
5. From Toleration to Destruction: Roman Policy and the Jewish Temple
Miriam Pucci Ben Zeev, Ben Gurion University
6. Notes on the Virtual Reconstruction of the Herodian Period Temple and Courtyards
Joshua Schwartz and Yehoshua Peleg, Bar Ilan University
7. Envisioning the Sanctuaries of Israel —The Academic and Creative Process of Archaeological Model Making
Leen Ritmeyer, Trinity Southwest University
8. Construction, Destruction and Reconstruction: The Temple in Pesiqta Rabbati
Rivka Ulmer, Bucknell University
9. The Mosaic Tabernacle as the Only Legitimate Sanctuary: The Biblical Tabernacle in Samaritanism
Reinhardt Pummer, University of Ottawa
10. Why Is There No Zoroastrian Central Temple?: A Thought Experiment
Yaakov Elman, Yeshiva University
11. Rival Claims: Christians, Muslims and the Jerusalem Holy Places
Frank E. Peters, New York University
12. Imagining the Temple in Late Medieval Spanish Altarpieces
Vivian B. Mann, Jewish Theological Seminary of America
13. Images of the Temple in Sefer ha-Bahir
Jonathan Dauber, Yeshiva University
14. Interpreting “the Resting of the Shekhinah”: Exegetical Implications of the Theological Debate among Maimonides, Nahmanides and Sefer ha-Hinnukh
Mordechai Z. Cohen, Yeshiva University
15. Remembering the Temple: Commemoration and Catastrophe in Ashkenazi Culture
Jacob J. Schacter, Yeshiva University
16. The Temple of Jerusalem from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment
Matt Goldish, Ohio State University
17. “Jerusalem Rebuilt”: The Temple in the Fin-de-siècle Zionist Imagination
Jess Olson, Yeshiva University
18. Avi Yonah’s Model of Second Temple Jerusalem and the Development of Israeli Visual Culture
Maya Balakirsky Katz, Touro College
19. Jerusalem during the First and Second Temple Periods: Recent Excavations and Discoveries On and Near the Temple Mount
Ann Killebrew, Pennsylvania State University
20. Digging the Temple Mount: Archaeology and the Arab-Israeli Conflict from the British Mandate to the Present
Robert O. Freedman, Johns Hopkins University
Written for both the general reader and the scholar, The Samaritans: A Biblical People is a centerpiece of the Israelite Samaritans Project of the Yeshiva University Center for Israel Studies. This exquisitely illustrated volume celebrates a traveling exhibition produced jointly with the Museum of the Bible in Washington D.C.
The Arch of Titus: From Jerusalem to Rome—and Back assembles an international array of scholars to explore the Arch in all of its complexity. This volume celebrates an exhibition mounted at Yeshiva University Museum and is the final statement of the Yeshiva University Arch of Titus Project.
https://brill.com/view/title/58841
The menorah, the seven-branched candelabrum, has traversed millennia as a living symbol of Judaism and the Jewish people. Naturally, it did not pass through the ages unaltered. The Menorah explores the cultural and intellectual history of the Western world’s oldest continuously used religious symbol. This meticulously researched yet deeply personal history explains how the menorah illuminates the great changes and continuities in Jewish culture, from biblical times to modern Israel.
Though the golden seven-branched menorahs of Moses and of the Jerusalem Temple are artifacts lost to history, the best known menorah image survives on the Arch of Titus in Rome. Commemorating the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE, the arch reliefs depict the spoils of the Temple, the menorah chief among them as they appeared in Titus’ great triumphal parade in 71 CE. Steven Fine recounts how, in 2012, his team discovered the original yellow-ochre paint that colored the menorah—an event that inspired this search for the the history of this rich symbol from ancient Israel through classical history, the middle ages and on to our own tumultuous times.
Exploring artifacts and literary sources spanning three thousand years-- from the Torah and the ruins of Rome to yesterday’s news-- Fine presents the menorah as a source of fascination and illumination for Jews, Samaritans, Christians and even Freemasons. A symbol for the divine, for continuity, emancipation, national liberation and redemption, the menorah features prominently on Israel’s state seal, and continues to inspire and challenge in surprising ways.
PLEASE VISIT THE LINKS ABOVE!
“Praiseworthy for its near encyclopedic coverage and its insights into the evolution of late antique material culture and theology, the book’s supreme virtues reside in its humane and refreshing methodology….Steven Fine’s Art and Judaism in the Greco-Roman World is both learned and lovable.” -- Kalman Bland, Duke University
Art and Judaism explores the Jewish experience with art during the Greco-Roman period - from the Hellenistic period through the rise of Islam. It starts with the premise that Jewish art in antiquity was a ‘minority’ or ‘ethnic’ art and surveys ways that Jews fully participated in, transformed, and at times rejected the art of their general environment. It focuses upon the politics of identity during the Greco-Roman period, even as it discusses ways that modern identity issues have sometimes distorted and at other times refined scholarly discussion of ancient Jewish material culture."
"Though Fine has already made a name for himself, This Holy Place establishes his reputation as a leading scholar in synagogue Studies." -- Pieter W. van der Horst, University of Utrecht
"...an important contribution to the entire nature of late antique civilization, not just to Jewish studies." –- Peter Brown, Princeton University
Marshaling a wide variety of literary and archaeological sources dating to the Greco-Roman period, This Holy Place demonstrates how the synagogue came to be seen as sacred, rather than simply as houses of study. This volume argues that the biblical scrolls read, studied, and stored within its walls were the most important source of synagogue sanctity in the minds of the ancients, for the Scriptures offered the physical manifestation of the Divine within local congregations.
This Holy Place describes in detail the long and creative process by which holiness became ascribed to synagogues. It reaches back to the earliest history of the synagogue, over two thousand years ago, to explore the ideological development of the synagogue as well as important trends in the history of Judaism during the Greco-Roman period.
Transcending the specific genres of literature as well as geographic boundaries within the Roman and Persian empires, the author investigates numerous literary sources and dedicatory inscriptions in Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek and Latin from the Land of Israel and the Diaspora. This Holy Place brings together art and architecture from throughout the Mediterranean world with authors like Philo of Alexandria, Josephus, John Chrysostom and Yannai the synagogue poet as he traces the religious history of the ancient synagogue. Insights drawn from Rabbinic literature, Patristic literature, and Roman law read together with archaeological discoveries, support the conclusion that during late antiquity there existed a single but multi-faceted Judaism rather than the separate Judaisms some have posited."
Sacred Realm: The Emergence of the Synagogue in the Ancient World offers the first comprehensive history of the architectural and archaeological development of the synagogue from the third century BCE to 700 CE. Telling the story of over one hundred ancient synagogues throughout the world and their place in the history of Judaism and of Western civilization, this book provides a fascinating representation of the cultural, intellectual, and artistic achievements of three thousand years of Jewish experience. Informative essays detail every aspect of the ancient synagogue, while beautiful illustrations and maps take the reader to the actual historic site.
Sacred Realm is an accompaniment to a monumental exhibition organized by the Yeshiva University Museum in New York. Borrowing from museums in North America, Europe, and Israel, the exhibition presents a unique collection of artifacts and manuscripts--including many pieces never before displayed in the United States--and will depict for the first time an in-depth history of the synagogue during the Greco-Roman period. From fourth-century Egyptian incense burners and inscribed bowl fragments to fifth-century Gaza mosaics decorated with Menorah and Shofar, Piyyut (liturgical poetry) manuscripts, and assorted textile, column, and pottery fragments, this collection is the most significant presentation of ancient Jewish religious life ever assembled in the United States.
Lavishly illustrated with both color and black and white photographs of the artifacts, manuscripts, maps, site diagrams, and reconstructions, Sacred Realm is not only a detailed record of this historic exhibit, but a guide to the evolution of Judaism's most sacred institution.
https://archive.org/details/talmudadeeretzis0000unse/page/n5/mode/2up
"Talmuda de-Eretz Israel: Archaeology and the Rabbis in Late Antique Palestine brings together an international community of historians, literature scholars and archaeologists to explore how the integrated study of rabbinic texts and archaeology increases our understanding of both types of evidence, and of the complex culture which they together reflect. This volume reflects a growing consensus that rabbinic culture was an "embodied" culture, presenting a series of case studies that demonstrate the value of archaeology for the contextualization of rabbinic literature. It steers away from later twentieth-century trends, particularly in North America, that stressed disjunction between archaeology and rabbinic literature, and seeks a more holistic approach"--
Includes bibliographical references and index
Mishnah Baba Metsia 7:7 and the relationship of Mishnaic Hebrew to northern biblical Hebrew / Shawn Zelig Aster -- Mishnah Baba Batra 8:5 : the transformation of the firstborn son from family leader to family member / Jonathan S. Milgram -- Mishnah Avodah Zarah 4:5 : the faces of effacement : between textual and artistic evidence / Noa Yuval-Hacham -- Tosefta Ma'aser Sheni 1:4 : the rabbis and Roman civic coinage in late antique Palestine / Joshua Weistuch and Ben Zion Rosenfeld -- Tosefta Shabbat 1:14 : "Come and see the extent to which purity had spread" : an archaeological perspective on the historical background to a late Tannaitic passage / Yonatan Adler -- An illustrated Midrash of Mekilta de R. Ishmael, Vayeḥi Beshalaḥ, 1 : rabbis and the Jewish community revisited / Uzi Leibner -- Jerusalem Talmud Megillah 1 (71b-72a) : "Of the making of books" : rabbinic scribal arts in light of the Dead Sea Scrolls / Lawrence H. Schiffman -- Jerusalem Talmud Sanhedrin 2,6 (20c) : the demise of King Solomon and Roman imperial propaganda in late antiquity / Alexei Sivertsev -- Genesis Rabbah 1:1 : Mosaic Torah as the blueprint of the universe : insights from the Roman world / Burton L. Visotzky -- Genesis Rabbah 98:17 : "And why is it called Gennosar?" : recent discoveries at Magdala and Jewish life on the Plain of Gennosar in the early Roman period / R. Steven Notley -- Leviticus Rabbah 16:1 : "Odysseus and the sirens" in the Beit Leontis mosaic from Beit She'an / Galit Hasan-Rokem -- Babylonian Talmud, Sukkah 51b : coloring the temple : polychromy and the Jerusalem temple in late antiquity / Steven Fine -- Babylonian Talmud, Avodah Zarah 16a : Jews and pagan cults in third-century Sepphoris / Sacha Stern -- The Rehov inscriptions and rabbinic literature : matters of language / Steven D. Fraade -- "This is the Beit Midrash of Rabbi Eliezer ha-Qappar" (Dabbura Inscription) : Were epigraphical rabbis real sages, or nothing more than donors and honored deceased? / Stuart S. Miller -- The Piyyutim le-Hatan of Qallir and Amittai : Jewish marriage customs in early Byzantium / Laura S. Lieber -- The use of archaeology in understanding rabbinic materials : an archaeological perspective / Eric Meyers -- The use of archaeology in understanding rabbinic materials : a Talmudic perspective / Daniel Sperber
Jews, Christians and Polytheists in the Ancient Synagogue explores the ways in which divergent ethnic, national and religious communities interacted with one another within the synagogue in the Greco-Roman period. It also presents new perspectives regarding the development of the synagogue and its significance of this institution for understanding religion and society under the Roman Empire.
"
"The present volume exemplifies some of the new directions in the history of Jewish liturgical studies, exciting inasmuch as they challenge a generation of form-critical approaches and evidence openness to the possibility of discontinuity with the prerabbinic Jewish liturgical world. Presenting a diverse array of methodologies, classical and interdisciplinary, these eleven richly annotated essays span the entire history of rabbinic prayer, allowing the volume to function as a primary resource for graduate level courses and seminars on the history of Jewish liturgy."—Gregory Glazov, Seton Hall University in Review of Biblical Literature, September 2006
"The purpose of this collection is to showcase the diverse approaches to studying the history of rabbinic liturgy. Traditionally, such studies have aimed at discerning the origins of prayers. In recent decades scholars have paid greater attention to the innovative nature of rabbinic prayer. There is now greater awareness that ritual aspects apart from the text are crucial to understanding the nature of liturgy. These include a variety of anthropological matters: architecture of places of worship, music, clothing, body language. The book here reviewed contains essays which, taken together, employ all of these as evidence in their various arguments. . . . There is much to recommend this stimulating collection which spans the entire history of rabbinic prayer and demonstrates the diverse approaches that can be taken to studying it." --Daniel Davies, Journal of Jewish Studies, Vol. LIX, no. 1 (2008), Clare Hall College, Cambridge
Words of Celebration
Richard M. Joel, Yeshiva University
1. The Inauguration of the Tabernacle Service at Sinai
Gary A. Anderson, University of Notre Dame
2. God as Refuge and Temple as Refuge in the Psalms
Shalom Holtz, Yeshiva University
3. “See, I Have Called by the Renowned Name of Bezalel, Son of Uri…”:
Josephus on the Biblical “Architect.”
Steven Fine, Yeshiva University
4. The Temple Scroll: A Utopian Temple Plan from Second Temple Times
Lawrence H. Schiffman, New York University
5. From Toleration to Destruction: Roman Policy and the Jewish Temple
Miriam Pucci Ben Zeev, Ben Gurion University
6. Notes on the Virtual Reconstruction of the Herodian Period Temple and Courtyards
Joshua Schwartz and Yehoshua Peleg, Bar Ilan University
7. Envisioning the Sanctuaries of Israel —The Academic and Creative Process of Archaeological Model Making
Leen Ritmeyer, Trinity Southwest University
8. Construction, Destruction and Reconstruction: The Temple in Pesiqta Rabbati
Rivka Ulmer, Bucknell University
9. The Mosaic Tabernacle as the Only Legitimate Sanctuary: The Biblical Tabernacle in Samaritanism
Reinhardt Pummer, University of Ottawa
10. Why Is There No Zoroastrian Central Temple?: A Thought Experiment
Yaakov Elman, Yeshiva University
11. Rival Claims: Christians, Muslims and the Jerusalem Holy Places
Frank E. Peters, New York University
12. Imagining the Temple in Late Medieval Spanish Altarpieces
Vivian B. Mann, Jewish Theological Seminary of America
13. Images of the Temple in Sefer ha-Bahir
Jonathan Dauber, Yeshiva University
14. Interpreting “the Resting of the Shekhinah”: Exegetical Implications of the Theological Debate among Maimonides, Nahmanides and Sefer ha-Hinnukh
Mordechai Z. Cohen, Yeshiva University
15. Remembering the Temple: Commemoration and Catastrophe in Ashkenazi Culture
Jacob J. Schacter, Yeshiva University
16. The Temple of Jerusalem from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment
Matt Goldish, Ohio State University
17. “Jerusalem Rebuilt”: The Temple in the Fin-de-siècle Zionist Imagination
Jess Olson, Yeshiva University
18. Avi Yonah’s Model of Second Temple Jerusalem and the Development of Israeli Visual Culture
Maya Balakirsky Katz, Touro College
19. Jerusalem during the First and Second Temple Periods: Recent Excavations and Discoveries On and Near the Temple Mount
Ann Killebrew, Pennsylvania State University
20. Digging the Temple Mount: Archaeology and the Arab-Israeli Conflict from the British Mandate to the Present
Robert O. Freedman, Johns Hopkins University
Talks by:
David Frankfurter
Pamela Eisenbaum
Felicity Harley-McGowan
Responses by:
Robin Jensen
Steven Fine
https://www.ancientjewreview.com/articles/2019/6/28/sbl-panel-response-from-steven-fine
Best to read on the newspaper link, ,עדיף לקרוא בליינק של העיתון
https://www.israelhayom.co.il/article/572869
מאמר על פרויקט המנורה שלי ב-ישראל היום״.
— The biblical lampstand in Christian contexts was not a Jewish »menorah« as some today would call it, but the lampstand of Christ Jesus. It is a mistake, then, to refer to the Christian lampstand as
a menorah, as I myself did in The Menorah: From the Bible to Modern Israel. This use of Jewish terminology, drawn from the Hebrew Scriptures for Christian lampstands, wipes away what is distinctly Christian in these lamps and what is distinctly Jewish about the menorah. While such elision may be comforting in our own world,
it takes away from the history of both communities, asserting
false closeness between the majority and the minority in medieval (and modern) Europe. When adopted by contemporary Christians
– Evangelicals and sometimes Catholics and mainline Protestants –
it is for their own theological and cultural purposes in their own search for a »usable history«.19 In Germany it is all the more complex, a facet of the regrettably not-yet-complete postwar rapprochement between Christians and Jews. My sense is that the next steps require us to reassert and celebrate the distinctive in each community, even as we continue to seek out all that Jews and Christians share(d).
https://www.facebook.com/100004106949595/posts/1029012937245595/
20 שנה מתחקה הרב בורשטיין אחר כלי המקדש והמחקרים סביבם. מעיראק ופרס ועד רומא והוותיקן, מהר נבו עד הר הבית. הראיון המרתק בפניכם.
Please follow the LINK
This page assembles the WSJ article, the student letter, responses by believers to our findings and other relevant materials that have come my way. Happily, recordings of individuals claiming to have seen-- or known someone who saw-- the Temple vessels at the Vatican have surfaced, and I will post them as I receive permission to do so.
I will post and link here all that comes my way, for the sake of complete transparency, as a matter of respect for my informants.
A copy of this letter is downloadable below, as well as my original Biblical Archaeology Review article of 2005-- which has been enhanced by recent developments, but whose conclusions stand. More readings may be found in the folder to your left called "Menorah/Arch of Titus Digital Restoration Project."
PLEASE let me know if you come across other sources with which I am not familiar-- and have fun!
Many thanks, Steve
8/22/2014
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjoFEJsHJDw and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUPprlM4WbU
See also the facebook page for "The International Forum for the Return of the Temple Vessels," https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Temple-Fund/744741518904782
This article is forthcoming.
Hughes is a scholar of religion, and not of the literatures and periods that Neusner held dear. He writes this authorized biography based mainly upon Neusner’s archive, printed materials, and conversations with the aging Neusner and his community of scholars. His perspective projects from Neusner outwards, not from interaction with Neusner as commentator, nor through intense interaction with his interlocutors. Hughes valorizes Neusner’s role in integrating Jewish text study into the study of “religion” by speaking the “language” of an ideally “secular” religious studies. As most of Neusner’s critics emphasized, and Neusner was loathe to confront, his own control of rabbinic sources was sometimes less fluent than expected of scholars of rabbinic literature, even of American-born scholars of his generation. His unique contribution was in bringing together the philology of the Talmudist—most prominently and symbolically, Saul Lieberman and Hebrew University luminary E.E. Urbach—with methods developed by scholars of religion. Included among these is Neusner’s Columbia dissertation advisor, the equally brilliant Morton Smith (lapsed Episcopalian priest, religious contrarian, bearer of a doctorate from the Hebrew University and member of the famed Eranos group), who introduced young Rabbi Neusner to the world of the mid-century Religionsgeschichte—the lessons of which Neusner applied to rabbinic sources.
Both the rabbinics of Lieberman and the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) of the 1960s, and the “religious studies” of Smith and his growing cohort of JTS and Yeshiva University trained doctoral students at Columbia was one tough neighborhood. Neither the Lithuanian-Germanic-Israeli culture of Talmudic scholarship that Lieberman epitomized, nor the history of religions that Smith nurtured, suffered fools. Neusner temperamentally fit well within that culture. Beyond that, the study of ancient Judaism was a battlefield, palimpsest, and surrogate for the process of Americanization that was tearing apart American Jewry at the time; nowhere more than within the bellwether “umbrella” centrist movement called Conservative Judaism and its flagship seminary. In the end, that harsh moment, so well documented by Hughes, turned against Neusner. Angry and often publicly insulted Talmudists, together with Smith himself (anxious, I think, to maintain his standing within the Jewish studies community) publicly and theatrically turned on Neusner. The drama that Neusner provoked is legendary, and Hughes hides none of this.
At the same time, scholars of ancient Judaism who “knew not Jacob” are now reading and rereading his really important work with the real appreciation that comes with critical distance, from his dual studies of Yohanan ben Zakkai and other early figures to his important work on Babylonian Jewry, the Mishnah, and his many literary and later theological studies. Even when wrong, Neusner was often ahead of his moment. I, for one, benefited from his kindness and early interest in what we now call Jewish visual culture. A one volume evaluation of Neusner’s real and lasting contributions to the study of Judaism in Roman, Sasanianand Byzantine antiquity is a desideratum. Hughes’s book is a partial start in that direction.
For Hughes, ironically the holder of a community-funded chair named for legendary Rochester reform rabbi Philip S. Bernstein at the University of Rochester, Neusner’s lasting contribution is the integration of a presumably “ghettoized” Jewish studies into the “secular academy” and its separation from communal concerns. This is a good that Hughes takes as natural, and here he (a sometimes provocateur himself, both within Islamic and Jewish studies) clearly finds a home.
My own sense is that the integration of which Neusner was a part was inevitable, as somewhat privileged and very self-assured third generation American Jews like him found and created their place in the vibrant culture of elite universities at mid-century. The sparks provoked by Neusner and his fellow travelers represent a Jewish subset of larger trends within American academic and religious culture. In recent years, the almost messianic drive to bring Jewish studies to the “secular” academy has slowed. The real value of Jewish institutions and more collegial approaches to creating Jewish knowledge without always responding to majoritarian (colonizing) impulses (and tenure decisions) have begun slowly to reemerge. Thanks in no small part to Hughes, when the larger history of Jewish studies in America is written, Neusner, whose rhetoric so many would happily forget, will undoubtedly be a prominent piece of the mosaic.
Beyond its work as biography, this volume is a marvelous glimpse into the ways that America’s best educated, wealthiest, and most “secularized” ethnic/religious community Americanized at a pivotal moment, and rewrote its story within and through the American academy. It is a case study of a fascinating senior scholar, created by a younger scholar who has taken up a piece of Neusner’s mantle. This volume reflects a remarkable process of acculturation and the importance of “counter-history” in that process. As he might surely have hoped, Neusner’s story has broad implications well beyond Jewish studies…though perhaps not in ways that he might have imagined. The life of Jacob Neusner, retold by Aaron Hughes, is an example and a warning to other up-and-coming Americanizing communities to anticipate the kinds of sparks that entering elite academic culture is prone to release.
http://readingreligion.org/books/jacob-neusner
תתניח נפשה דסארה ברת
פינחס דמיתת בחדסר יומין
בירח אדר תנאנה דשתה
תלתיאה דשאבועה שנת
תלת מה ושת[י]ן שנין לחרבן
בית מקדשה תאנוח על
משכבה שאלום
Rest the soul of Sarah, daughter of
Pinhas, who died on the eleventh day,
in the month of Adar II; year
three of the sabbatical (cycle), the year,
three hundred and sixty years of the destruction of the Temple. May she rest in her grave. Shalom.
More than four decades ago, while studying in a Jerusalem yeshiva, I got special permission to participate in a seminar on medieval haggadot with Prof. Bezalel Narkiss, weekly. I became enamoured with images of ritual, especially matzah baking, which brought together my yeshiva and university studies very nicely, and Narkiss was encouraging.
When I told Prof Dov Noy of my fascination with matzah, he smiled and said only “have you been to the bakeries in Meah She’arim?”. Beginning my MA at USC, my then mentor Prof. Stephen S. Kayser (founding director of the Jewish Museum) thought matzah baking a grand idea for my MA thesis, though it took some convincing at USC, where food craft was not yet “art.” (and for some, Jews had no art anyway, but that is a different story). Naturally, my teacher of Indian Art, Prof. Pratapaditya Pal was all in, as was my ever experimental beloved teacher Prof. Selma Holo.
No. 345 (Feb., 2007), pp. 88- 90
Be sure to follow the link to this article.
https://tlv1.fm/the-tel-aviv-review/2023/01/09/the-samaritans-then-and-now/?fbclid=IwAR0vknAg
Good Samaritan laws protect do-gooders and Good Samaritan hospitals heal us. Samaritans appear in our holy texts-in the Bible, the Talmud, and across Jewish literature. The Samaritan people today number 850 souls, down from perhaps a million in the first century. They are split between Israelis and Palestinians. The Samaritans may soon go extinct, a tragedy that would end their 3500 year history-but not if the Samaritans can help it! Five years of fieldwork have resulted in this intimate and compelling insider's view of the Samaritan struggle against the odds, of their heart wrenching choices, their joys and sorrows. This documentary, a centerpiece of the YU Israelite Samaritans Project, dives deep into the cultural world of the Samaritans as they strive to maintain their 3500 year old tradition. It was filmed in Holon, Nablus, Ukraine and at Yeshiva University in New York.
Contemporary scholarship on Jewish art and visual culture intersects with concerns of the wider academy; a lively interchange among scholars has ensued. The field has now achieved the breadth and maturity to sustain an international journal that represents the interests of this interdisciplinary community of scholars. IMAGES invites scholarly articles on Jewish art and visual culture, ranging in time from Greco-Roman antiquity to the present day. Articles may concentrate on any geographical area in which Jewish participation had an impact, and any discipline, including architecture, painting, sculpture, treasury arts, book arts, graphics, textiles, photography and film, and other areas of the visual environment. In addition, IMAGES welcomes articles on historiography and theory, as well as textual studies that reflect on the themes of the journal.
Each edition of IMAGES will include 4-5 articles; reviews of books and exhibitions; and notices of scholarly conferences or symposia on Jewish Art.
Hebrew with extensive English summary.
From the conclusion:
In this short essay, I have argued that reading Jewish history “backward” from a definitionally-unique and self-congratulatory modernist perspective serves to reinforce the uniqueness of the present, and hence the foreignness of previous epics. When history is read in the other direction, however, from antiquity “forward” toward the present, the picture becomes more nuanced. Continuities over time become more evident— and the “new” somehow doesn’t appear quite so new. Reading Zionism this way, the stark discontinuities identified by its malcontents become far less discontinuous.
…Yes, the conflict between Jewish nationalism and Palestinian nationalism is intractable. To the surprise of all, the Jews won the wars. The Hamas pogrom of October 7, 2023 and the Israeli response are the most recent manifestation of the conflict, and at this moment, color all discussions. The publication of this deeply controversial— and often one sided—volume of Shofar just as the attack was happening certainly sharpened the sting— and occasioned my own response. That said, without a workable arrangement that allows dignity for all-- without tunnels, programmatic rape, apocalyptic nihilism, and calls for the end of Israel as the Jewish nation-state-- the future looks grim. As I said nearly three decades ago, and still believe, “I don’t want your children dead, and I don’t want our children dead. So, until the end of days when this gets sorted out, you take Hebron, and we will take Tel Aviv-- and let’s live together in peace.” Am I naive? Perhaps, but so was Herzl.
Footnotes and images are not included in this version,
The school’s refusal to accept a club for LGBTQ students highlights the complexities of being both modern and orthodox.
“ With God’s help — and with wise leadership and empathy on all sides — our current communal crisis will soon be healed and an amicable balance restored.”
“Dear Mr. Copage:
Christian communities have struggled with the image of Jesus from the beginning— whether he was wholly God, or wholly man were at the top of the agenda. Imagining his physical being, each community in each place made Jesus their own— as you and your community do to this day.
I am not a Christian, and so the question of Jesus’s divine continence doesn’t speak to my religious quest. I can tell you for sure, though, that Jesus—Yeshua in the Hebrew that he read and in the Jewish Aramaic that he spoke— was a youngish Jewish man born (according to the Gospels) in the Judaean town of Bethlehem and raised in the Galilean village of Nazareth.
Historically, Jesus “looked like” other Jews of his place and time.
I recognize that this assertion may be theologically less than satisfying, as you are looking for the face of God, and all I can offer is a man of his moment who was killed by the Romans on the charge of treason— for claiming to be “King of the Jews.”
Truthfully, acceptance of Jesus’s Jewishness was quite rare for Christians until quite recently. Most
Churches preferred to imagine Jesus as “a gentile born in a Jewish body.” Only in recent decades, and particularly after the murder of so many of Jesus’ Jewish relatives in Europe, has the Jewishness of Jesus been widely accepted by many sectors of the Christian world.
Happy Passover, and Happy Easter to us all!
Churgin Professor of Jewish History,
Yeshiva University”
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/19/reader-center/jesus-images.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share
Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Aug. 30, 2017
Participation is free of charge, though registration is required: Register online at https://philistine.bpt.me/ or by calling 800-838-3006.
“Philistines!” is made possible by the Leon Charney Legacy Fund of the Center for Israel Studies.
The conference program is as follows:
9:30 Registration
9:45 Welcome: Steven Fine, Director, YU Center for Israel Studies
SESSION 1
10:00 -12:00
Chair: Ed Bleiberg, Brooklyn Museum of Art
--Aren Maeir, Bar-Ilan University, You've Come a Long Way, Baby: Changing Perspectives on the Philistines
--Louise Hitchcock, University of Melbourne, An Architectural Biography of the "Melbourne Megaron" in Area A
--Ann Killebrew, Pennsylvania State University, Philistines in Philistia: Interactions Between the Pentapolis Settlements and its Hinterland During the Iron I Period
12:00-1:00 Lunch Break
SESSION 2
1:00-3:00
Chair: David Danzig, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University
--David Ben Shlomo, Ariel University, Philistine Society as Revealed by its Art, Iconography, and Cultic Artifacts
--Sue Frumin, Bar-Ilan University, Cereals and Fruits of the Philistines—Signs of Identity and Involvement
--Jill Katz, Yeshiva University, Dynamics of Philistine Group Identity: From Barbarism to Civilization
3:00-3:15 Coffee Break
SESSION 3
3:15-5:30
Chair: David Moster, Institute for Biblical Culture
--Aaron Koller, Yeshiva University, Language, Script, and Philistine “Assimilation” in the Iron I and Iron II Levant
--Jeff Chadwick, Brigham Young University, When Gath of the Philistines Became Gath of Judah
--Shalom Holtz, Yeshiva University, Jeremiah’s Prophecy to the Philistines (Jer. 47) as Literature and History
--Jill Katz, Concluding Remarks
Who Were the Maccabees, Really?
Hanukkah, the Hasmoneans and Jewish Memory
A Conversation with
Prof. Joseph Angel and Prof. Steven Fine
Tuesday, December 15, 11:00 am EST
Participate at URL: yu.edu/yuvoices
YU Voices is a project of the Yeshiva University Center for Israel Studies
The Rabbi Arthur Schneier Program for International Affairs
The Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies
Judaic Studies @ YU
Who Were the Maccabees, Really?
Hanukkah, the Hasmoneans and Jewish Memory
A Conversation with Prof. Joseph Angel and Prof. Steven Fine
Tuesday, December 15, 11:00 am EST
Participate at URL: yu.edu/yuvoices
YU Voices is a project of the Yeshiva University Center for Israel Studies
The Rabbi Arthur Schneier Program for International Affairs
The Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies
Judaic Studies @ YU