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, also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim, constitute a Jewish diaspora population that emerged in the Holy Roman Empire around the end of the first millennium CE. They traditionally spoke Yiddish 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.
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.
Jews and Judaism in China are predominantly composed of Sephardi Jews and their descendants. Other Jewish ethnic divisions are also represented, including Ashkenazi Jews, Mizrahi Jews and a number of converts.
The Jewish–Roman wars were a series of large-scale revolts by the Jews of Judaea and the Eastern Mediterranean against the Roman Empire between 66 and 135 CE. The First Jewish–Roman War and the Bar Kokhba revolt were nationalist rebellions, striving to restore an independent Judean state, while the Kitos War was more of an ethno-religious conflict, mostly fought outside the province of Judaea. As a result, there is variation in the use of the term "Jewish-Roman wars." Some sources exclusively apply it to the First Jewish-Roman War and the Bar Kokhba revolt, while others include the Kitos War as well.
The Sardis Synagogue is a synagogue located in Manisa Province, Turkey, the biggest one known from antiquity. Sardis was under numerous foreign rulers until its incorporation into the Roman Republic in 133 BCE. The city served then as the administrative center of the Roman province of Lydia. Sardis was reconstructed after the catastrophic 17 CE earthquake, and it enjoyed a long period of prosperity under Roman rule.
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.
Hellenistic Judaism was a form of Judaism in classical antiquity that combined Jewish religious tradition with elements of Hellenistic culture. Until the early Muslim conquests of the eastern Mediterranean, the main centers of Hellenistic Judaism were Alexandria in Egypt and Antioch in Turkey, the two main Greek urban settlements of the Middle East and North Africa, both founded in 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 a conflict between Hellenizers and traditionalists.
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 Calabria reaches back over two millennia. Calabria is at the very south of the Italian peninsula, to which it is connected by the Monte Pollino massif, while on the east, south and west it is surrounded by the Ionian and Tyrrhenian seas. Jews have had a presence in Calabria for at least 1600 years and possibly as much as 2300 years. Calabrian Jews have had notable influence on many areas of Jewish life and culture. The Jews of Calabria are virtually identical to the neighbouring Jews of Sicily but are considered separate. However, the Jews of Calabria and the Jews of Apulia are historically the same community, only today are considered separate. Occasionally, there is confusion with the southern Jewish community in Calabria and the northern Jewish community in Reggio Emilia. Both communities have always been entirely separate.
The Jews or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites of the ancient Near East, and whose traditional religion is Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, religion, and community are highly interrelated, as Judaism is an ethnic religion, although not all ethnic Jews practice it. Despite this, religious Jews regard individuals who have formally converted to Judaism as part of the community.
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.
Second Temple Judaism is the Jewish religion as it developed during the Second Temple period, which began with the construction of the Second Temple around 516 BCE and ended with the Roman siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE.
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.
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.
Rufina of Smyrna (3rd-century) was a wealthy Jewish woman who lived in Smyrna.
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.