Veturia Paulla [1] (also given as Beturia Paulla, Beturia Paulina, Paulina Beturia, etc.; known after her conversion as Sara) [2] [3] (date unknown, possibly within 200 CE - 600 CE) [4] [3] was a Roman convert to Judaism. [5] [6] According to a Latin epitaph, found on a fragment of her sarcophagus within the Jewish catacombs of Rome, she was eighty-six years and six months old at the time of her death. [7] [2] For the last sixteen years of her life she was a Jew, and was honoured as mother of the synagogues ("mater synagogarum") of the Campesian and Volumnian communities in Rome. [8] [4]
A synagogue, also called a shul or a temple, is a place of worship for Jews and Samaritans. It has a place for prayer where Jews attend religious services or special ceremonies such as weddings, bar and bat mitzvahs, choir performances, and children's plays. They also have rooms for study, social halls, administrative and charitable offices, classrooms for religious and Hebrew studies, and many places to sit and congregate. They often display commemorative, historic, or modern artwork alongside items of Jewish historical significance or history about the synagogue itself.
Ashkenazi Jews constitute a Jewish diaspora population that emerged in the Holy Roman Empire around the end of the first millennium CE. They traditionally speak Yiddish, a language that originated in the 9th century, and largely migrated towards northern and eastern Europe during the late Middle Ages due to persecution. Hebrew was primarily used as a literary and sacred language until its 20th-century revival as a common language in Israel.
Jewish history is the history of the Jews, their nation, religion, and culture, as it developed and interacted with other peoples, religions, and cultures.
The Jewish diaspora, dispersion 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.
The Jewish–Roman wars were a series of large-scale revolts by the Jews of Judaea against the Roman Empire between 66 and 135 CE. The conflict primarily encompasses two major uprisings: the First Jewish–Roman War and the Bar Kokhba revolt, both driven by Jewish aspirations to restore the political independence lost when Rome conquered the Hasmonean kingdom. Some historians also include the Diaspora Revolt, when Jewish communities across the Eastern Mediterranean rose up against Roman rule.
The siege of Jerusalem of 70 CE was the decisive event of the First Jewish–Roman War, in which the Roman army led by future emperor Titus besieged Jerusalem, the center of Jewish rebel resistance in the Roman province of Judaea. Following a five-month siege, the Romans destroyed the city, including the Second Temple.
The Sardis Synagogue is a former ancient Jewish synagogue, that was discovered in the modern-day town of Sardis, in the Manisa Province, in the Aegean Region of western Turkey. The former synagogue building is now an archaeological site and Jewish museum. The archaeological site is the largest Jewish site known from antiquity.
The Hebron Hills, also known as Mount Hebron, are a mountain ridge, geographic region, and geologic formation, constituting the southern part of the Judean Mountains. The Hebron Hills are located in the southern West Bank.
Beit She'arim Necropolis is an extensive rock-cut necropolis located near the ancient Jewish town of Beit She'arim, 20 km east of Haifa in the southern foothills of the Lower Galilee. Part of Beit She'arim National Park, the site includes the necropolis and remains of the town. Used from the first to fourth centuries CE, its peak occurred in the late second century when the Sanhedrin, led by Patriarch Judah I, relocated to Beit She'arim, and his family was interred there. In 2015, the necropolis was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Hellenistic Judaism was a form of Judaism in classical antiquity that combined Jewish religious tradition with elements of Hellenistic culture and religion. 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, both founded in the end of the 4th 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 a conflict between Hellenizers and traditionalists.
Jewish military history focuses on the military aspect of history of the Jewish people from ancient times until the modern age.
God-fearers or God-worshippers were a numerous class of Gentile sympathizers to Hellenistic Judaism that existed in the Greco-Roman world, which observed certain Jewish religious rites and traditions without becoming full converts to Judaism. The concept has precedents in the proselytes of the Hebrew Bible.
The Second Temple period or post-exilic period in Jewish history denotes the approximately 600 years during which the Second Temple stood in the city of Jerusalem. It began with the return to Zion and subsequent reconstruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, and ended with the First Jewish–Roman War and the Roman siege of Jerusalem.
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 BC. In Rome, Jewish communities thrived economically. Jews became a significant part of the Roman Empire's population in the first century AD, with some estimates as high as 7 million people; however, this estimation has been questioned.
Carthage was a city in North Africa located on the eastern side of the Lake of Tunis across from the center of what is now Tunis in Tunisia.
The Jewish Catacombs of Venosa are a set of catacombs located near the Italian city of Venosa, Province of Potenza, on Maddelena Hill.
Judaism has been practiced as a religion in the Arabian Peninsula since at least the first century BCE. It is also the first monotheistic religion of Arabia. Arabian Jews were linguistically diverse and would have varied in their practice of the religion. The presence of Jews is best attested in Northwestern and Southern Arabia. Judaism would briefly become politically relevant in the fourth century, when the rulers of the Kingdom of Himyar converted to Judaism.
The history of the Jews in Alexandria dates back to the founding of the city by Alexander the Great in 332 BCE. Jews in Alexandria played a crucial role in the political, economic, cultural and religious life of Hellenistic and Roman Alexandria, with Jews comprising about 35% of the city's population during the Roman era.
Rufina of Smyrna is a wealthy Jewish woman of antiquity known only from a single funerary inscription on a tomb.
Ancient Jewish art, is art created by Jews in both the Land of Israel and in the Diaspora prior to the Middle Ages. It features symbolic or figurative motifs often influenced by biblical themes, religious symbols, and the dominant cultures of the time, including Egyptian, Hellenistic, and Roman art.