The Hidden Heritage of Diaspora Judaism (review)

In this book a series of essays that were published between 1990 and 1997 are printed, some with slight, others with considerable additions. The introduction and Chapter 5 on the Diaspora synagogue are new. The advantage of this collection rests on its simultaneous reflection and connecting of archaeological, historical, epigraphic, literary, and religio-historical findings, which nevertheless cannot conceal their “own dynamic.” The following review focuses on archaeology.

With the question “Did the Jews feel at home in the Diaspora?” the author artic ulates a central concern that he discusses in various aspects. The starting point is a thesis of Th. A. Kraabel, who among other things concluded, based on archaeological findings at the synagogue of Sardis, that “at least some Jewish communities of the Roman Diaspora were self-confident long after the Christianization of the Empire started to take on more tangible forms” and that “Jews not only lived in the Diaspora, but that they also participated in the contemporary non-Jewish society intellectually, culturally, socially and economically (and perhaps to a very limited extent, even religiously)” (p. 20). This leads the author first to the question of the value and meaning of synagogue topography (p. 22) that, in my opinion, is liable to the same difficulties as the question of the interpretation of church topography. Whether a synagogue (or a church) lay in the city center or at the edge of the city is a question that can be interpreted neither by social history nor intellectual history without knowledge of the respective topographical context. Synagogues in the city center, so the author thinks, are not really the expression of an acquired status as much as the expression of a requirement for status. The fact that in recent decades numerous synagogues have become familiar within an urban context does not provide the basis for speaking of a ghettoization and isolation of the Jews in the late Antique city (p. 24). In this connection, the prime example is the synagogue of Sardis, which remained functional until the year 616; the (late) presence of synagogues should, therefore, not be interpreted without further evidence as indication for the integration of the Jews in civic life, just as one can also not derive any conclusions from the topography of the churches for the integration of Christians in civic life. Behind these observations is hidden a tendency of Judaistikto view Jewish history uncoupled from the general history of religion and cult. The same phenomenon has occurred during this time in Christian archaeology and is still cultivated in certain circles today. The misunderstandings resemble the misunderstandings of Judaistik,partly consciously. Rutgers works with the wise statement that “we can hardly determine the quality of the contacts between Jews and others. . . .” (p. 41).

The second chapter is devoted to the question of the dating of the Jewish catacombs of Rome. Research here has followed a similar course as in the area of the Christian catacombs. The early dating (first and second century) does not withstand more recent historical criticism. Rutgers allows individual arguments to pass in review. Since half of the brick stamps found in Jewish catacombs originate from the time of Severus, one should perceive here rather a terminus post quem(p. 53), although the majority of brick stamps are not found in situand are therefore not datable (p. 54). In the entrance area of the Torlonia catacombs there are, however, bricks of the late second and early third centuries established in situ,so that one should perceive here a glimpse of its place in time. Since mural painting with Jewish motifs is closely related stylistically and technically to that with Christian motifs, one is tempted to assume a parallel development of Jewish and Christian art at least since the early third century. About what this means, that is to say how this alleged parallelism came about (p. 71), the author unfortunately offers no reflections. Should...