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Dr. Isaiah Gafni | |
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| Born | 1944 |
| Employer | Hebrew University |
| Title | Professor of Jewish History |
Isaiah Gafni (born 1944) is a historian of Judaism in the Second Temple and Talmudic periods. He is the Sol Rosenbloom Chair of Jewish History at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and president (since 2016) of Shalem College in Jerusalem.
Isaiah Gafni was born in New York. He immigrated to Israel in 1958. [1] He has a Ph.D in Jewish History, Hebrew University of Jerusalem (1978), under the direction of Menahem Stern and Shmuel Safrai; MA, Hebrew University (1969); BA, Hebrew University (1966).
Gafni is interested in the attitudes of the Jews of the Second Temple towards the Land of Israel. His research focuses on how Judaism was reshaped during the years the Jews after the Temple's destruction. He has authored numerous academic articles, three books, and he edited over fifteen books regarding a wide range of topics in Jewish History.
Gafni's focus is research on political, social and religious Jewish life during the Second Temple Period (516 BCE – 70 CE). His book The Jews of Talmudic Babylonia: A Social and Cultural History was honored with the 1992 Holon Municipality Prize for Jewish studies. Additionally he has written more than 100 entries in the Encyclopaedia Judaica. Gafni's most recent book, titled, Land, Center and Diaspora: Jewish Constructs in Late Antiquity was originally delivered in a series of lectures in Oxford called the Third Jacobs Lectures in Rabbinic Thought in January 1994. In the book he seeks to "shed some light on what the Jews of the period (post destruction of the Second Temple), in Judea, as well as in diaspora, might have thought about their particular situation as a scattered people, and how these thoughts translated into concrete policies and subsequent measures that shaped and defined relationships among the various Jewish communities of Late Antiquity."
The most recent works published by Gafni are The Jewish Family – Metaphor and Memory, explaining the institution of Jewish marriage in Rabbinic times, and Irano-Judaica II which articulates the expressions and types of “local-patriotism” among the Jews of Sasanian Babylonia.
Gafni has been a professor in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem for over 40 years and a visiting professor at Yale University and Brown University. He has offered courses entitled “The Beginnings of Judaism”, “The Great World Religions”, and has lectured in institutions throughout Israel and North America.
Books
The Mishnah or the Mishna is the first major written collection of the Jewish oral traditions that are known as the Oral Torah. It is also the first major work of rabbinic literature. The Mishnah was redacted by Judah ha-Nasi probably in Beit Shearim or Sepphoris at the beginning of the 3rd century CE in a time when, according to the Talmud, the persecution of Jews and the passage of time raised the possibility that the details of the oral traditions of the Pharisees from the Second Temple period would be forgotten. Most of the Mishnah is written in Mishnaic Hebrew, but some parts are in Aramaic.
The Talmud is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law (halakha) and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the centerpiece of Jewish cultural life and was foundational to "all Jewish thought and aspirations", serving also as "the guide for the daily life" of Jews.
The Babylonian captivity or Babylonian exile is the period in Jewish history during which a large number of Judeans from the ancient Kingdom of Judah were captives in Babylon, the capital city of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, following their defeat in the Jewish–Babylonian War and the destruction of Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem. The event is described in the Hebrew Bible, and its historicity is supported by archaeological and extra-biblical evidence.
The Pharisees were a Jewish social movement and a school of thought in the Levant during the time of Second Temple Judaism. After the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, Pharisaic beliefs became the foundational, liturgical, and ritualistic basis for Rabbinic Judaism.
Jewish history is the history of the Jews, and their nation, religion, and culture, as it developed and interacted with other peoples, religions, and cultures.
The Jewish diaspora or exile is the dispersion of Israelites or Jews out of their ancient ancestral homeland and their subsequent settlement in other parts of the globe.
According to Rabbinic Judaism, the Oral Torah or Oral Law are statutes and legal interpretations that were not recorded in the Five Books of Moses, the Written Torah, and which are regarded by Orthodox Jews as prescriptive and given at the same time. This holistic Jewish code of conduct encompasses a wide swathe of rituals, worship practices, God–man and interpersonal relationships, from dietary laws to Sabbath and festival observance to marital relations, agricultural practices, and civil claims and damages.
The Bar Kokhba revolt, also known as the Third Jewish Revolt or the 'Jewish Expedition' as the Romans named it, was a rebellion by the Jews of the Roman province of Judea, led by Simon bar Kokhba, against the Roman Empire. The last of the three Jewish-Roman Wars, it was fought c. 132–136 CE.
Berakhot is the first tractate of Seder Zeraim of the Mishnah and of the Talmud. The tractate discusses the rules of prayers, particularly the Shema and the Amidah, and blessings for various circumstances.
Menahem Stern was an internationally acclaimed Israeli historian of the Second Temple period. He was murdered in Jerusalem by Palestinians during the First Intifada.
Hellenistic Judaism was a form of Judaism in classical antiquity that combined Jewish religious tradition with elements of Greek culture. Until the early Muslim conquests of the eastern Mediterranean, the main centers of Hellenistic Judaism were Alexandria in Egypt and Antioch in Syria, the two main Greek urban settlements of the Middle East and North Africa region, both founded at the end of the fourth century BCE in the wake of the conquests of Alexander the Great. Hellenistic Judaism also existed in Jerusalem during the Second Temple Period, where there was conflict between Hellenizers and traditionalists.
The Second Temple period or Post-Exilic period in Jewish history lasted approximately 600 years, during which the Second Temple existed. It started with the return to Zion and the construction of the Second Temple, while it ended with the First Jewish–Roman War and the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE.
Shalem College is a private liberal arts college in Jerusalem, Israel providing undergraduate education and founded with the aim of producing "broadly educated citizens for lives of influence and service." It is the only Israeli institution of higher education to offer a broad-based Core Curriculum as the basis for a first degree, as opposed to the general practice in Israeli universities and colleges of restricting a student's courses to a single department or field.
The history of the Jews in the Roman Empire traces the interaction of Jews and Romans during the period of the Roman Empire. A Jewish diaspora had migrated to Rome and to the territories of Roman Europe from the land of Israel, Anatolia, Babylon and Alexandria in response to economic hardship and incessant warfare over the land of Israel between the Ptolemaic and Seleucid empires from the 4th to the 1st centuries BCE. In Rome, Jewish communities thrived economically. Jews became a significant part of the Roman Empire's population in the first century CE, with some estimates as high as 7 million people; however, this estimation has been questioned.
Tal Ilan is an Israeli-born historian, notably of women's history in Judaism, and lexicographer. She is known for her work in rabbinic literature, the history of ancient Judaism, the Dead Sea Scrolls, ancient Jewish historiography, Jewish epigraphy, archaeology and papyrology, onomastics, and ancient Jewish magic. She is the initiator and director of The Feminist Commentary on the Babylonian Talmud (FCBT). She received her education from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She is currently professor of Jewish Studies at the Free University of Berlin.
Palestinian rabbis encompasses all rabbis who lived in the region known as Palestine up until modern times, but most significantly refers to the early Jewish sages who dwelled in the ancient Holy Land and compiled the Mishna and its later commentary, the Jerusalem Talmud. These rabbis lived between 150 BCE and 400 CE and during the Talmudic and later Geonic period, they exerted influence over Syria and Egypt, while the authorities in Babylonia had held sway over the Jews of Iraq and Iran. While the Jerusalem Talmud was not to become authoritative against the Babylonian, the liturgy developed by Palestinian rabbis was later destined to form the foundation of the minhag of nearly all the Ashkenazic communities across Europe.
Yom tov sheni shel galuyot, also called in short yom tov sheni, means "the second festival day in the Diaspora", and is an important concept in halakha. The concept refers to the observance of an extra day of Jewish holidays outside of the Land of Israel.
Sicaricon, literally "usurping occupant; possessor of confiscated property; the law concerning the purchase of confiscated property", refers in Jewish law to a former act and counter-measure meant to deal effectively with religious persecution against Jews in which the Roman government had permitted its own citizens to seize the property of Jewish landowners who were either absent or killed in war, or taken captive, or else where Roman citizens had received property that had been confiscated by the state in the laws prescribed under ager publicus, and to which the original Jewish owners of such property had not incurred any legal debt or fine, but had simply been the victims of war and the illegal, governmental expropriation of such lands from their rightful owners or heirs. The original Jewish law, made at some time after the First Jewish-Roman War with Vespasian and his son Titus, saw additional amendments by later rabbinic courts, all of which were meant to safe-guard against depriving the original landowners and their heirs of any land that belonged to them, and to ensure their ability to redeem such property in the future.
Gerasa (Judaea) was an ancient Jewish town mentioned by the historian Josephus (The Jewish War, 4.9.1) as being sacked by the Imperial Roman army under Lucius Annius during the First Jewish-Roman War.
Pirqoi ben Baboi, also written Pirqoi ben Babui, was a Babylonian scholar of the Talmud who lived sometime in the 8th–9th century. He is chiefly remembered for a polemical letter he wrote, addressed to all places in Afriqiya and Sfarad, but thought to be directed in particular to the Qeirwān Jewish community in Tunisia concerning the traditions of Eretz Israel. His writings have been called 'one of the most intriguing Babylonian Jewish texts to have survived the vicissitudes of history'.
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