over from Herbert Hoover. One thing political territory' for a challenge from a Mediterranean. Neither militaiy compul- medioere presidents seem to do is to pre- Roosevelt-style Republican sueh as John sion nor the vicissitudes of capti\dty bad pare the ground for better presidents, and McCain. It also suggests to Democrats brought most of them to those places. To in some eases great ones. When it comes that they wdll need to address direetly, and state the point a liftle difierently: the to who wdll succeed George W. Bush, T wdth considerable passion, the war^^ing of Roman destruction of Jerusalem and its make no predictions. But there is reason priorities that occurs when government Temple in 70 C.E. did not cause the second to think that four or eight years of Repub- shifts so decisively in favor ofthe rich. diaspora. Many ancient Jews—probably lican largesse to big business, accompa- Neither task will be easy. For McCain, most aneient Jews—bad by that point nied by such extreme efforts to keep its it would mean, as it did for Theodore lived outside the land of Israel for een- generosity from public scrutiny, will pre- Roosevelt, a break with his own party— turies. Tbey did so, evidently, beeause pare the American public to appreciate not exactly the easiest path to the presi- they wanted to do so. why government is necessary and why its dency. For Democrats, it means finding a Why did these Jews leave their home- policies must, above all else, be fair. way to capitalize on the gains tbat Clin- land? What were they doing abroad? How The next chapter in tbe way our politics ton's centrism bequeathed to the part\' did they continue to live as Jews and, treats the rieh and the poor is unlikely to while breaking with his all-too-frequent thus, to think of themselves as Jews? And take the forms that it has taken in the past. subsei'vience to big business, a trick that how did their non-Jewdsh neighbors live If Kevin Phillips's book is any indication, no potential Democratic candidate for the with and think of them? Tbe answers to populism has run out of gas. No credible 2004 nomination has yet pulled off. But each of these questions are various and coalition ean be built on the basis of there is every reason to believe that there surprising. Various, because no blanket nationalistic anger in this age of global exists a hunger for leadership in America explanation (like that conjured by invok- eapitalism, lea\dng populists sputtering even though not much leadership is in ing the idea of aneient "anti-Semitism") wdth impotent rage. And if Michael Moore e\ddenee. Finding ways to do what seems can speak to so many different local situa- speaks for what passes for the American difficult if not impossible is a crucial tions. Suiprising, because this vast and left—he must be speaking for someone, as aspect of leadership. Any Republican or vigorous Mediterranean Jewdsh civiliza- bis book is a best-seller—no help can Denioerat eapable of overcoming those tion, a major force in the development of be expected from that quarter either. But odds would, if elected, be in a good posi- Westem culture, has been until recently this should be taken as a sign of hope tion to repair the damage done by the elee- almost invisible to the non-specialist. rather than a sign of despair. It opens tbe tion of 2000 and its aftermath. • HIS INVISIBILITY IS itself a signif- icant part of the story. Its reasons Tare linked to each other, and to the Bible. The two major religious traditions that descended from this period—Gentile Christianity and rabbinic and post- Everywhere at Home rabbinic Judaism—-have constructed their respective historieal identities and tbeir FREDRIKSEN respective scriptural canons in ways tliat caused these ancient Jews to disappear. Diaspora: Consider, for example, the double canon of the Christians, the Old and New Testa- Jews Amidst Greeks and Romans ments. These concentrate on events occur- by Erich S. Gruen ring in and around territoria! Israel. The trajectoiy of the Christian hiblical story (Harvard University Press, 386 pp., $39.95) stretches fr'omAda m to Abraham through Moses to David, then to the prophets, and XILE, DISPLACEMENT, wan- and re-found their commonwealth in then to Jesus of Nazareth. The narrative dering, loss: in Biblieal ti'a- their own land. In both equations, guilt is a time of the Old Testament stops some- dition and in later rabbinic constant: in the first instance, guilt about where in the mid-fifth century B.C.E., commentary, in the medieval "causing" the diaspora; in the second, guilt w-hen exiles returning iironi Babylon try to poems of Yehudab ha-Levi about choosing to live there. reconstitute their lives back in Jerusalem. Eand the modern politieal screeds of Few ideas ean give so mueh eoherenee (Some texts, sueh as Daniel and Esther, Theodor Herzl, the idea of diaspora has to so many centuries—twenty-five, to be were in fact written later, but they present dominated Jewish identity. In its religious exaet—of Jewish experience. Yet this con- themselves as much earlier.) The narrative mode, "diaspora," perceived as punitive, struct, as Erich S. Gruen points out, has a time of the New Testament begins with has served as a penitential devdce. The problem: it is historically false. Eloquent- the birth of Jesus—around 4 B.C.E. if people sin, and God uses foreign armies ly, learnedly, persuasively, Gruen invites you rely on Mafthew", around 6 C.E. ifyou (Babylonians for the first exile, Romans the reader of his new book to consider rely on Luke. The Greek-speaking Jews of for tbe second exile) as the instruments of familiar evidence from the .Jewdsh past the western diaspora simply vanish into bis WTath, to call the people to repentance. from a new—one might say a non- this four-century-long narrative lacuna In its secular mode, "diaspora" has served diaspora—perspeetive. His point is sim- between the Testaments. The loss is not as Zionism's foil. Modem Jews renounee ple, but its historieal implications are pro- without irony, for the Gospels and the let- their exile, take control of their history. found. As he observes, in the nearly four ters of Paul—the eore eanon ofthe Christ- hundred years that stretch between ian Testament—are the literaiy products PAULA FREDRIKSEN is ahistorian of Alexander the Great (d. 323 B.C.E.) and of this effaced community. ancient Christianity at Boston University. tbe emperor Nero (d. 6'8 C.E.), Jews could Jewdsh religious memory does no bet- Her new book, Augustine and the Jews, be found in large numbers, and in well- ter. Judaism, too, has a double canon. Tbe wdll be published by Doubleday. established communities, throughout the Tanakh—the biblical scriptures in Hebrew

THE NEW REPUBLIC : JtJLY 8 & 15, 2002 : 37 I comprising tbe five books of Moses One post-Alexandrian king moved {Torah), the prophets {Nevi'ini), and tvvo thousand Jewish families from sundry writings (Ketuvi'ifn)~iorms You Made Me Read You And Mesopotamia to garrison colonies in the older portion. .Jewish biblicjil nar- Asia Minor. They relocated voluntar- rative ends with the end of the Baby- I Didn't Want To Do It ily, with inducements, as supporters lonian exile, in the 530s B.C.E., of the regime. Aetive service in for- though other writings within the col- At first thc page was only a furnished room. eign militaries, as mereenaries or as lection take the story up to post-exile You were the one who furnished it. enlisted men. also aided Jewish re- .Jerusalem. The newer portion of the A red couch gaudy as a party mask. settlement. Opportunities in business Jewish canon is the Talmud, the vast Crooked shelving. and agriculture beckoned, and .Jews- antholog}' of rabbinical traditions like others—responded. And in Rome, in Hebrew or its linguistic cousin Ara- And then, after a bit, the Jewish population there by elioiee maic. The earliest Talmudic text, the weather cmne into the room. vvas incre^used when Jewish slaves, Mishnah, was redacted around 200 The douds "skittering," brouglit West in the w'ake of Koman C.E.; the Gemara (later commentaries you wrote, "like suds." vietories in Judea, were eventually on the Mishntih), redacted separately manumitted and took their plaee in in I'alestine and Babylon in the fifth And so we prouounced your novel the cit\- iis freedmen. 1 Maccabees, a and sixth centuries C.E., completes akiu to au ancient Irave! guide Jewish text eoniposcd in the late .sec- the collection. To close the gap of the with its fussy certainty about fares, ond century B.C.E., mentions sub- slx-pluH centuries between 2 Chroni- iidequate hotels, loeal cisterns. stantial western Jewish populations cles (the bust book of the Tanakb) and in Egypt, Syria, the eities and thc the Misbnah (the oldest part of thc H(iw can't the book principalities of Asia Minor (roughly, Talmud), the rabbis invoked ora! tra- be shy hefore onr eyes? modern Turkey), the Aegean islands. dition. Thc torah ("teaching") that It's our fault, nut the book's. Cireeee jiroper, Crete, Cyprus. C\'ronc. Moses did not write down he s]3oke to It was so embarviissed for us. The Aets of thc Apostles, a late tirst- Joshua, who in turn passed it to thc eentury C.K. text in the New Testa- ciders, who gave it to the prophets, Lee Upton ment, claims that Jews eame on who then gave it to the sages. 'I'he pilgrimage to .Jerusalem from all cor- terminus of tliis oral Torah, said thc ners of the world: "I'arthians, Medes, rabbis, was themselves. Tanakh had become the Septuagint. Thus Elamites ... men of Cappadoeia, of POTI- As now, so then: most Jews were not the idiosyncratic revelations of the Jews— tus and Asia, of Phrygia. and Pamphylia." rabbinic Jews. But unlike their kinsmen in of a God who ereated the entire universe; Strabo, the ancient historian and geogra- other Jewish subcultures, thc rabbis artic- who refused to be worshiped through pher and the elder contemporary of Jesus ulated their social and religious vision images; who linked social ethics, religious of Nazareth, noted that "this people has through a huge, compelling, and coordi- ritual, jurisprudence, sexital and alimen- made its way into every city, and it is not nated body of writing that became a vita! tary prescriptions, tinic-keepiiig, torts, easy to Itnd any plaee in tbe habitable literary legacy. Eventually the movement and taxes in his commandments; who world which has not reeeived [them]." formed academies whose students dis- chose Israel and who promised redemp- Ancient cities were religious institu- seminated rabbinic learning and practice tion to his people and indeed to the whole tions. The workiugs of government, tbe widely. By the High Middle Ages, rabbinie world—eame to he bi'oadcast in the in- process of education, the public experi- Judaism was Judaism tout court. Thc pat- ternational linguistic frequency. The God enee of art and eulture in various Llieatri- rimony of Hellenistic Judaism, in the rab- of Israel, through the Septuagint, con- I'al, nuisieal, and athletic curnpetiti{)ns: al! binie view, had been hijacked by the quered tbe West. No Greek-speaking these activities, whieh we think of ii-s secu- Gcnti!es, now embodied in the hostile diaspora, no Septuagint. No Septuagint, lar and thus religious!y neutra!, were in church, who had based their Old Testa- no Christianity. No Christianity, no West- fact embedded in traditional worship. The ment on the Septuagint. (A late tradition ern civilization. This Hellenistic Jewish gods looked after the city; and tlie citizens, in the Ta!mud recounts that on thc day community has been invisible to all but to ensure the eitj's well-being, looked a.fter thc Bible was translated into Greek the historical cognoscenti in part as a conse- the gods. Processions, hymns, libations, angels wept: heaven had foreseen this dis- quence of its cultural success. blood sacrifices, eommunat drinking and aster.) The medium of "authentic" tradi- eating: a!! these were thought to eontrib- tion, then, was Hebrew. Thus the rabbinic o WE RETURN to our question: who ute direetiy to the well-being of the com- Jewish commxmity, which might most were these people? And what were monwealth. (In our terms, these aetivities naturally !iave been expeeted to presence Sthey doing so far from home? were authorized in the defense budget.) something of the social and religious Ancient wartare, as Gruen points out, These forms of worship expressed and legacy of its Greek-speaking sibling, for all regularly involved deportati(jn and dis- ereated tlie bonds that bound citizens practical purposes erased it. location. Conquered peoples eould suffer together, and established the necessary The third reason for the virtual invisi- forced resettlement elsewhere; slave trad- relations with powertul patri:)ns both bility of the Jews of t!ie ancient western ers routinely aeeompanied armies; war celestial and imperial, sinee rulers, too, diaspora is the overwhelming impact produced refugees. Jews, like other peo- were deities. Pub!ie picLy was the index that they had on all of subsequent Eur- ples in an age of empire, migrated because of patriotism. opean culture. What impact, and bow? they were eoin]:)e!led to migrate, because Living in foreign eities thus put Jews Since they were Jews, they had the Bible. they were deported. But, again like other in a potentially awkward position. T.ike When Lhey migrated West, and their ver- peoples, Jews aiso migrated because they everyone else, Jews had their own anees- wanted to migrate. They were enticed by nacular shitted to Greek, their scriptures tral god; but unlike anyone else, Jews the wider horizons and the increased were in principle restricted to worshiping shifted with them. By about the year 200 opportunities ibr tnide that, empire also B.C.K., Jews in Alexandria had completed brought. (inly that god. Some pagan obsei-v'ers the trtuislation uf their sacred texts: the eommented irritably on this tact, eom-

38 : -lUl.Y H & 15, 2002 plaining of Jewish disloyalty, or at least of tion was the synagogue. In a particularly to record the manumission of slaves. They Jewish discourtesy. But ancient religious- rich chapter, Gruen surveys the varied housed schoo!s, political assemblies, and ness was much more flexible than its mod- evidence—literary, epigraphical, archaeo- tribunals. They had officers (women as ern avatars. Respect for ancestral tradi- logical—attesting to the ubiquit}' and the well as men), administrators, and steering tion was the bedrock of Mediterranean vitality of this peculiarly Jewish organiza- committees. They sponsored fimd drives, religious, politieal, and legal culture, both tion. Remnants of these foundations have and they honored conspicuous philan- pagan and Jewish. Thus ancient pagans been recovered in settlements stretching thropy with public inscriptions. were prepared to respect Jewish religious from Italy to Syria, from the Black Sea to An intriguing number of these big difference, and even to make social and North Africa. donors were not Jews at all. They were legal allowances ibr it, precisely because Synagoge might designate the assem- pagans. Given the capacious character of of Judaism's antiquity and ethnicity. And bly of the local Jewish community itself, the ancient Mediterranean society, this ancient Jews, though they were as con- while another term, proseuehe ("prayer makes sense. The ethnic and religious dis- vinced as the next ethnic group of the house"), specifically implies a building. tinctiveness of the synagogue entailed no intrinsic superiority of their own customs Synagogues shunned standardization, as social isolation, and the religious tem- and rites, respected pagan religious differ- Gruen obsei-ves: no uniform pattern of perament and practice of majority culture ence, too. Contact—even fairly intimate organization ean be teased from the his- were famously eatholie. Interested pagans contact, such as worshiping and eating torical record sueh as it is. Yet eertain involved themselves in synagogue activi- together—did not lead to missionary eommon activities seem clearly attested. ties, including listening to the stories efforts to convert the heathen, who were, Synagogues served as a 1ype of ethnic and the psalms of Jewish tradition, which after all, the vast majority of humankind. reading-house, where Jews could assem- were, after all, delivered in Greek. While ble one day out of seven to hear instruction Jews might have scruples about worship- ow DID JEWS and pagans "wor- in their ancestral laws. Rulers granted to ing pagan gods, no such scruples inhibited ship'" together? Participation in svTiagogLies the status of serving as places Gentile worship of Israel's God. Loeal pol- H civic culture was itself a kind of of asylum. Synagogues sponsored commu- itics—as well as the presumptions native worship—though, as Gruen illuminatingly nal fasts, feasts, and celebrations, and they to this culture in its pagan and its Jewish points out, .lews had many choices be- served as an archive for community' rec- modes, namely, that gods traveled in the tween the extremes of isolationist purity or ords and as collecting points for funds to blood, and so eaeh people naturally had outright apostasy. Individual Jews became be sent to the Temple in Jerusalem. They its own gods—explains why diaspora members of the cit}' councils where they settled issues of community' interest- Jews would weleome such participation, lived, despite the protocols of pagan wor- announcing the calendar of festivals, nego- and why they would impose no demand of ship that were attached to such service: tiating access to appropriate foodstuffs, exclusive worship (given to them alone by they negotiated exemptions and found adjudicating disputes—and served, as did their God) on interested Gentiles. ways to serve both their eity and the tradi- loca! pagan temples, as places to enact and Pagan benefactions to the Jewish tions oitheh- phylos (tribe) or genos (race, nation). Eventually, once Rome oversaw the entire Mediterranean, sueh exemp- This course may lead i/ou to a great future... tions were written into imperial law. 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It costs $39.95 and includes a Workbook with all of the exhibits and a 3-Cassette Super Bowl or to Carnegie Ha!! than to Audio-Tape Set for studying at leisure while you drive, ft is highly recommended. High Mass.) Wealthy Jews sponsored Even if you do not plan to go into the mail-order business, you will benefit games, such as the Olympics, that were greatly by the insights and revelations on advertising, marketing, merchan- dedicated to Greek gods. Jews sei-ved Gen- dising, consumer motivation, customer service, business planning, pricing tile rulers as advisers and generals. And strategies, financial projections, financial analysis and ratios, and so much while Jews did not join actively in the more. It vvill prove to be invaluable to you in almost whatever activity you ruler cults native to Hellenistic and, later, ultimately decide to engage in. The course is a virtual college education. Roman political eulture, they dedicated To order Volume I, please give order a

THE NEW REPUBLIC : JULY 8 & 15, 2002 : 39 I community met with gratefal public empty innermost sanctum was given over citizens, was stable and secure. acknowledgment. One especially striking to the people's God; and next, for his ser- In Alexandria, a particularly toxic con- inscription, from Acmonia in Phrygia, vice, stood the altar in the court of bis figuration of Greek anti-Roman resent- recalls the earlier generosity of a first- priests. Circumscribing the priests was ment and Egyptian nativist agitation tar- century Roman noblewoman named Julia the court for Jewisb males; and just out- geted Jewish residents when the political Severa. Tbis distinguisbed lady, a bigh side tbat, the women's court. But the fortunes of the Roman governor fluctu- priestesy of tbe imperial cult (thus publicly whole was surrounded by the vast and ated wildly in tbe transfer of power from responsible for the worship accorded the beautifial stone tundra of the Gentiles' Tiberius to Caligula. All hell broke loose. Julian emperors), had evidently erected Court, or Court of the Nations. Order was restored only eventually, under the synagogue building itself. Wlien later As in diaspora synagogues, so in tbe Claudius, and only after some beads (in- Jewish benefactors restored the building, Temple in Jerusalem: pagans as pagans cluding the governor's) bad rolled. 'ITie vio- tbey were bonored in tbeir turn in good had a place to worship Israel's God—in lence was unprecedented, but its sources Greek fashion witb a decree and a gilded Jerusalem, in the largest court of all. The were over-determined. Some pagan Alex- shield. As Gnicn notes, "the conventions priests meanwhile made offerings at God's andrians complained, reasonably enough, were Greco-Roman; the objectives were altar on behalf of the imperial family and that Jewisb Alexandrians tailed to worship Jewish." tbe Empire. TVaditional piety, national Alexandria's gods and therefore were not The institution distant from these dias- pride, intemational politics, tourism, pub- entitled to full citizenship. Claudius evi- pora communities—which nonetheless lic pomp: it all came together in Herod's dently concurred, re-affirniing the Jews' served to focus local Jewish identity and to extraordinary building. Tbe synagogue, established rights and urging them not to inspire the atlmiration and tbe participa- then, was neither a substitute for nor a push for more. Gruen's scrupulous review tion of interested Gentiles—was the Tem- competitor to the Temple. Both institu- of the imperfect evidence enhances his ple in Jerusalem. The Jewish military tions served to strengthen, coordinate, conclusion: "Anti-Semitism [was] not the colony in Elephantine in Egypt had had a inculcate, and express Jewish identity" in issue here." temple there, perhaps as far back as tbe all its multiplicity, and in its unanimity. So, too, with the situation in communi- sixth century B.C.E.; four centuries later, ties in Asia Minor. Set within the larger Jerusalem priests disaffected from the RUEN PRESENTS HIS trc.nchant context of political relations between the Maccabean enterprise founded another analysis of four centuries of dias- capital city and tbe provinces—especially temple, modeled on Solomon's, also in G pora Jewisb experience in two in periods when Roman strongmen bat- Egypt, in Leontopolis. And Josepbus, tbe cycles. The first, "Jewish Life in the Dias- tled each other for power in the seesaw Jewish historian contemporary witb tbe pora," sur\'eys discrete communities— of civil war—what has been presented as evangelists, alludes to perhaps another Jews in Rome, in Alexandria, and in Asia ancient pagan anti-Semitism seems more extraterritorial temple in Transjordan. No Minor—concluding witb a chapter ana- plausibly construed as local happen- matter. Jerusalem was tbe holy place that lyzing civic and sacral institutions, and stance. "The Jews of Asia rarely required commanded the loyalty and thc pride of how Jews participated in or maintained defense against the Greeks," Gruen ob- the far-flung nation. It was to Jerusalem these. His storytelling is as gripping as his ser\'es. 'And the Romans had bigger flsh that Jews journeyed to celebrate tbe pil- interpretation. Jewish life in each of these to fr>'." In bis summary chapter on civic grimage holidays, and it was to Jerusalem locales was hardly untroubled. In Rome, and sacral institutions in the diaspora— that communities everywhere voluntarily elusive evidence indicates various expul- gjTimasia and synagogues, town councils paid an annual contribution to defray the sions and actions against the community and temples, baths, ephebates, amphitbe- operating costs of tbe Temple. in the period between 139 B.C.E. and 49 aters—Gruen concludes with an overview The sheer volume of different types of C.E. In Alexandria, anti-.Iewish violence of" social life, and of the ways .Tews and evidence concerning this tax and the convulsed the cily in 38 C.E. and again, pagans interacted, intimately and ireni- enormous amounts of money (through some tbiitj' years later, in the wake of tbe cally, not always but mostly, in thc cities individually tiny donations) that it annu- revolt against Rome. Cities in Asm Minor whose life they shared. ally raised is perhaps tbe best index of the occasionally impounded Jewish funds or widespread loyalty to the Temple. Jews suspended or abridged privileges that HE SECOND CYCLE of Grucn's throughout the Mediterranean sought their Jewish residents bad long ago nego- study explores ".Jewish Constructs legal protection to guarantee their right to tiated. The universe was not friction-free. Tof Diaspora Life," tbat is, the ways collect and to send this donation: tbeir But Gruen puts these incidents into their that Greek-speaking Jews used thc con- cities of residence, tempted by the quan- overarching Greco-Roman context, and so ventions of Hellenistic culturc to describe tities of casb thus collected, occasionally he understands them in ways that contrast that culture and their place in it. His attempted to appropriate tbe fiinds for sharply with earlier traditions of academic re\iew begins with an investigation of more local use. But pagan rulers honored wTiting {jn Jewish life in this period. Jewisb humor in two modes: historical Jewish ancestral custom, and tis a result Where other writers have seen vaguely fictions (Esther, Tobit, Judith, Susanna, 2 of these voluntaiy donations, Jerusalem systemic, readily identifiable ancient Maccabees) and biblical recreations (Tes- ran in tbe black for as long as tbe Temple "anti-Semitism," Gruen sees various local tament of Abraham, Testament of Job, stood. sporadic episodes, variously motivated. works by Artapanus). Eew things kill a joke as fast as analyzing it; and the re- Under Herod, wbo was king of Judea Much of the Roman evidence, regarded creation of tone from a written text, as from 37 to 4 B.C.E., the Temple reached from the angle of senatorial politics, seems all readers of e-mail know, can be a tricky its acme of splendor. He expanded the more like posturing for reasons of state business. Yet the parade of characters area aroimd the sanctuary- to some thirty- than concerted and spcciflcally anti- populating these tales—stimningly beau- five acres, enclosed by a magnificent wall Jewish activit}'. The Roman govemment, tiful Jewish alpha females, overworked running nine-tenths of a mile along tbe be concludes, engaged in no systematic angels, deeply stupid Gentile potentates, perimeter. The internal organization of persecution ot" Jews—nor indeed any per- deeply stupid Gentile generals, htscivious sacred space—concentric courtyards of secution at all; and Roman salon culturc .Jewish elders, smart young Jewish various sizes—articulated tbe social reali- was not so much anti-Jewish but anti- lawyers, herds of drunken elephants (no ties of Mediterranean public worship. Tbe "foreign." Life in Rome, for Rome's Jewish

40 : JULY 8 & 15, 2002 kidding)—eventually make Gruen's point Semitism, or religious tolerance or intol- synagogue, read their sacred text, the Sep- for him. Nor is this the "smiling through erance, provide the plumbline of histori- tuagint, in increasingly anti-Jewish ways. tears" genre of humor: Jewish foibles cal interpretation. Current events seemed to confirm their are held up to scorn as often as Gentile One fundamental aspect of ancient re- view: why would God have let Rome abuses of power are mocked, and as often ligion, for example, is its tie to ethnicity. destroy the Temple (in 70 C.E.) or Jeru- as desperate circumstances are dramati- All ancient peoples had their own gods. salem itself (in 135) unless he, too, con- cally and often comically overcome. "The These gods dwelled in various locales- demned the Jews? And why did he con- authors felt free to expose the blemishes of Olympus, Jerusalem, Delos—on earth and demn the Jews, if not for their refusal the Jewish leaders and populace" Gruen in heaven; and they were passed within to beeome, in effect. Gentile Christians? writes, "while lampooning the flaws of ethnic groups from one generation to the Rome, they said, as Babylon earlier, had their enemies." The implication of Gruen's next. For this reason, to translate ioudaios been the agent of God's will: Israel was analysis is that insecure people would as "Jew" already risks distortion. "Judean" now in exile forever for having refused have laughed at themselves less. might work better. Their aniconism and Christ. The rabbis, meanwhile, also had to Gruen's discussion of Jewish constructs their exclusiveness of worship set Jews make sense of a world where Hadrian's of Greeks and Hellenism, the chapter that apart; but their allegiance to particular pagan Aelia sat on top of what had once follows, could have been titled simply dietary and ritual traditions, to revealed heen Jerusalem. They, too, turned to their "Chutzpah." How did Greek Jews regard calendars, to their God's Temple and his religious tradition for answers. And they, pagan Greek culture? The theme emerges holy city—all designated, with brain- too, saw in the central biblical event of again and again: what the Greeks got right numbing tone-deafriess, as "nationalism" the Babylonian Captivity a spiritual model (mainly philosophy), they got from the by many students of the New Testament- for present reality. Israel's sin had driven Jews. How so? Here other fictions prolif- just makes them ancient people. God, once again, to punish Israel: once erate. Plato, the Jews believed, studied If individual peoples had their particu- again—until he sent a redeemer, the mes- Torah under Jeremiah in Egypt. From lar gods, moreover, then successful em- siah, to gather them up—God had driven what text? A lost Greek translation of the pire meant that many gods by definition his people into exile. The world became Bible made prior to the Septuagint. One existed within a single political boundary. captivity, galut. Jewish writer has Abraham as the bring- Ancient culture, in other words, did not Hellenistic Jews, as Gruen importantly er of culture to the Egyptians—another practice "religious tolerance." It presup- argues, would not have recognized their argument for superior antiquity', in a cul- posed religious difference. To see violence own existence from these later descrip- ture where older was better. Hellenistic between ethnic groups as outbreaks of tions. Rather, they thrived in the centuries Jews forged pagan prophecies, wherein religious "intolerance" is to misdescribe that preceded these events—and they ancient sybils hymned the superiority of the phenomenon, to bring it tenden- thrived for centuries afterward, until tar- Jewish culture in proper Homeric hex- tiously into line with modern phenom- geted by the late Roman imperial church. ameters. Others presented "histories" ena. It obscures the novelty and the For these Jews, the difference between according to which the Septuagint was anomaly of principled religious persecu- their ancestral homeland and their cur- translated at Ptolemy's request: he wanted tion when it does come, long centuries rent homeland was neither a dichotomy this renovvTied book of Jewish wisdom to after this period. nor a contradiction. It was a fact of their grace his library in Alexandria. In one Finally, the focus on Jewish resettle- existence that they embraced. • account, the young Moses receives in- ment as displacement masks the prior struction from the wisest teachers among migration that caused it and indeed made both the Egyptians and the Greeks, but of it possible: the Greek diaspora that Fellowships course outstrips them all; in another brought the Jeviish one in tow. Alexander account, Moses teaches music to Orpheus. the Great's conquests contributed to the The Radcliffe institute for Advanced Brazenly, ingeniously, Jews turned out wholesale resettlements of Greek veter- Study at Harvard University awards 40 Judaizing verses ascribed to Aeschylus, ans, merchants, and travelers in his new fully funded residential fellowships each Sophocles, Euripides, and other heroes of territories. Like a magnet, they drew the classical curriculum; and centuries new immigrants with them, among year designed to support post-doctoral later these show up, piously repeated, them ancient Jews. For these Jews, Greek scholars, scientists, writers, and artists of in the writings of the church fathers. In culture became their own, despite those exceptional promise and demonstrated brief, Jews neither rejected not adopted aspects of it that, in their view, the pagans accomplishment. Visit www.radcliffe.edu Hellenism. Rather, they appropriated had gotten wrong. Loyalty to the home- what they thought was best in Greek cul- land, devotion to the ancestral temple— for more information. Applications must ture, and made it Jewish. these commitments were normal among be postmarked by October 1,2002. all immigrant groups—co-existed with RUEN CONCLUDES HIS loyalty to their cities of residence. Jeru- Radc'i'^e Applicatiori Office • 54 Concotd Avenue with a lucid and powerful consid- salem, said the first-century Jewish •Cambridge, MA 07138.61 M95-I3?drel -6:7- G eration of the place occupied by philosopher Philo, was the Jews' metropo- lis; but Alexandria, for him and his imme- the idea of diaspora both in Jewish con- RADCLIFFI- INSTiTU IE TOR ADVANCtl) SI IIDY sciousness and in scholarly treatments of diate community, was their patris, their HARVARD L"NIVi-KS!'iY Jewish history. The persistent images of "patrimony" and home. insecurity, marginality, and powerless- The concept of diaspora as an insecure, ness that haunt Jewish history and set the doleftil, and punitive mode of existence tone of the lachrymose tradition simply was the creation of a later time, and of two You deserve the best in love, too. distort our understanding of the Hel- later religious cultures: second-eentury To find the best—for life-iong romance, lenistie and early Roman period. We lose Gentile Christianity and late second- mixed doubles or just fun and excitement- sight of the real lives of Greeks, Romans, century rabbinic Judaism. Some Gentile visit www.TheSquare.conw the largest and Jews when anachronistic explana- exclusive database of students and Christians, defining themselves and their graduates of the world's 23 top schools. tions of .Jewish experience, such as anti- new communities over and against the

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