About

Yaron Eliav is an Associate Professor of Rabbinic Literature and Jewish History of Late Antiquity at the University of Michigan. His research draws on talmudic, early Christian, and classical literatures, as well as archaeology, to study the multi-faceted cultural environment of the Roman Mediterranean with an emphasis on the encounter between Jews and Graeco-Roman culture. Eliav authored the book 'God's Mountain: The Temple Mount in Time, Space, and Memory,' which received the 2005 American Association of Publishers award for best scholarly book on religion and the 2006 Salo Baron prize for best first book in Judaic Studies. He has been involved in interdisciplinary research projects, including co-directing the Statuary Project, which involved undergraduate and graduate students and resulted in publications and an international conference. Eliav has contributed to major reference works on ancient Judaism and has secured significant grant funding for projects aimed at transforming the teaching of the ancient world. His recent publications include 'A Jew in the Roman Bathhouse: Cultural Interaction in the Ancient Mediterranean,' and he is working on a new project on the history of the Rabbis based on archaeological data. His teaching encompasses courses on Judaism, the history and archaeology of Israel/Palestine, Rabbinic Literature, Jerusalem, and Jewish history in the Roman world.

Research topics

• Art
• Ancient history
• Archaeology
• History
• Classics

Selected publications

• A Jew in the Roman Bathhouse

  2023

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Art

  A provocative account of Jewish encounters with the public baths of ancient Rome Public bathhouses embodied the Roman way of life, from food and fashion to sculpture and sports. The most popular institution of the ancient Mediterranean world, the baths drew people of all backgrounds. They were places suffused with nudity, sex, and magic. A Jew in the Roman Bathhouse reveals how Jews navigated this space with ease and confidence, engaging with Roman bath culture rather than avoiding it. In this landmark interdisciplinary work of cultural history, Yaron Eliav uses the Roman bathhouse as a social laboratory to reexamine how Jews interacted with Graeco-Roman culture. He reconstructs their thoughts, feelings, and beliefs about the baths and the activities that took place there, documenting their pleasures as well as their anxieties and concerns. Archaeologists have excavated hundreds of bathhouse facilities across the Mediterranean. Graeco-Roman writers mention the bathhouse frequently, and rabbinic literature contains hundreds of references to the baths. Eliav draws on the archaeological and literary record to offer fresh perspectives on the Jews of antiquity, developing a new model for the ways smaller and often weaker groups interact with large, dominant cultures. A compelling and richly evocative work of scholarship, A Jew in the Roman Bathhouse challenges us to rethink the relationship between Judaism and Graeco-Roman society, shedding new light on how cross-cultural engagement shaped Western civilization.

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• Judaea, the Palestinian Coast, the Galilee, Idumaea, and Samaria

  2021-12-21 · 1 citations

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• THE DEVELOPMENT OF ROMAN JERUSALEM - (S.) Weksler-Bdolah Aelia Capitolina – Jerusalem in the Roman Period. In Light of Archaeological Research. (<i>Mnemosyne</i> Supplements 432.) Pp. xxvi + 244, b/w &amp; colour ills, b/w &amp; colour maps. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2020. Cased, €106, US$128. ISBN: 978-90-04-40733-6.

  The Classical Review · 2020

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Ancient history
  • History
  • Art

  THE DEVELOPMENT OF ROMAN JERUSALEM - (S.) Weksler-Bdolah Aelia Capitolina – Jerusalem in the Roman Period. In Light of Archaeological Research. (Mnemosyne Supplements 432.) Pp. xxvi + 244, b/w &amp; colour ills, b/w &amp; colour maps. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2020. Cased, €106, US$128. ISBN: 978-90-04-40733-6. - Volume 71 Issue 1

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• Judaa—Syria Palastina. By Werner Eck

  Journal of the American Oriental Society · 2018-06-23

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  &#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; Judäa—Syria Palästina. By Werner Eck. Texts and Studies in Ancient Judaism, vol. 157. Tübingen:&#x0D; Mohr Siebeck, 2014. Pp. xiv + 307. €119.&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D;

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• Pesher Nahum: Texts and Studies in Jewish History from Antiquity through the Middle Ages Presented to Norman (Nahum) Golb. Edited by Joel L. Kraemer and Michael G. Wechsler

  Journal of the American Oriental Society · 2017-06-09

  article1st authorCorresponding

  &#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D; Pesher Naḥum: Texts and Studies in Jewish History from Antiquity through the Middle Ages Presented to Norman (Naḥum) Golb. Edited by Joel L. Kraemer and Michael G. Wechsler. Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization, vol. 66. Chicago: The Oriental Institute, 2012. Pp. xxiv + 359 + 55*, plates. $49.95 (paper). [Distributed by The David Brown Book Co., Oakville, CT.]&#x0D; &#x0D; &#x0D;

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• 8 The Material World of Babylonia as Seen from Roman Palestine: Some Preliminary Observations

  2015-01-01 · 3 citations

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• Samuel Krauss and the early study of the physical world of the rabbis in Roman Palestine

  Journal of Jewish Studies · 2014-04-01 · 3 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Samuel Krauss and his early-twentieth-century work Talmudische Archäologie gradually became the cornerstone of any research into the relationship between rabbinic texts and archaeology. Today, many consider him the founding father of the new field known as the Material Culture of Ancient Judaism. The current study investigates the development of Krauss’s scholarly life, clarifying the various factors that prompted his interest in bringing rabbinic texts into conversation with physical remains, as well as reconstructing the intellectual milieu that shaped his research and methodology. In the process it also aims to dispel some of the inaccuracies that have become associated with Krauss over the years.

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• The Aroma of Righteousness: Scent and Seduction in Rabbinic Life and Literature by Deborah A. Green (review)

  Shofar · 2013-03-01

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Reviewed by: The Aroma of Righteousness: Scent and Seduction in Rabbinic Life and Literature by Deborah A. Green Yaron Z. Eliav The Aroma of Righteousness: Scent and Seduction in Rabbinic Life and Literature Deborah A. Green. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2011. 286 pp. The current trend in historical scholarship to include the five senses as worthy research categories, ones that may shed light on the human experience of far away civilizations, has not passed over Judaic Studies. During the last century, interest has gradually shifted from political and military events on one hand, and textually based investigations on the other, to the social and cultural dimensions of people’s life; the lower strata as well as peripheral social groups, together with the full spectrum of human emotions, mundane daily activities, and the interactions of people with the physical landscape that engulfed them, all have proved worthy of inspection and capable of enriching our understanding of the ancient world. Then came the senses, first with a series of studies unpacking the processes involved in viewing, and more recently studies about smelling (one can only extrapolate that the future may bring about works on hearing and listening habits, and perhaps even touching and tasting). Deborah Green strides into these still uncharted territories with elegance and confidence. Her book exhibits wide learning in rabbinics, especially midrash, and biblical studies, as well as sharp eye for those details minute yet significant, which creep up in our sources and tend to be overlooked by those who study them. She sets out to tell us the story of fragrance as it is depicted and perceived by the rabbis. The book consists of five chapters and a short concluding statement. In her first, introductory chapter, Green surveys the theoretical and methodological issues involved in her research. She correctly points out the contribution of psychology to this area of study since much of the impact of smell registers in the intangible realms of human experience, in the mind and in the imagination. Good and bad odors are very much a matter of psyche; consider, for example the horrible, disgusting stench encountered by visitors to the Jerusalem Temple precinct—the blood, the meat rotting in the Mediterranean heat with no refrigerators, the flies—a reality well portrayed by Green (69). But Jews inhaled such smells with the greatest joy, as it symbolized for them the open communication lines with their God, who accepted their animal offerings. They called the place the Mountain of God’s perfume (har ha-moriah). [End Page 185] Green’s assertion, on the other hand, that scholarly work on scent developed with the rise of women and feminism in the academy (13) seems puzzling (perhaps requiring psychology as well), especially in Judaic Studies where the early inquiries into the intricate world of perfumes and smelling date back to the first decade of the twentieth century, a time when, as far as our records show, there was not even one woman in this discipline in the academy. Samuel Krauss devoted an entire section in his magisterial book— Talmudische Archäologie—to kosmetik (vol. 1, 233–52), dissecting “feminist” topics such as ointments, perfumes, and the ideal of beauty (Schönheitsideal). Krauss’s book is not used even once in Green’s work (other than a general reference in ch. 1n36), one of very few glaring lacunas. The next four chapters are divided thematically. Chapter 2 deals with the physical environment, discussing the entities that made perfumes available to people (merchants, markets), the various places that consumed them (such as bathhouses with their wide expenditure of oil, used as both soap and ointment), and some tools that were used in the consumption of these products. The next chapter studies scent in biblical language. It goes back in time to the biblical world, that is, the Iron Age, a chronological leap of some 750 years that may irritate some historically oriented readers, especially since the rich Jewish literature of the Second Temple is completely ignored (other than a short reference to the Book of Enoch on 119), but which Green justifies due to the ontological fusion of the rabbis with the imagery and terminology of the...

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• Bathhouses As Places of Social and Cultural Interaction

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2010-08-19 · 3 citations

  book1st authorCorresponding

  This article discusses Roman public bathhouses, which provided a wide range of services that included swimming pools, saunas, and meeting rooms. It looks at the technology and cultural facets that were present in the bathhouses. It then describes the facilities, the social encounters that occurred, and the statues that were displayed there. The article also studies the supposed hostility of the Jews toward the bathhouses, the issue of nudity, the potential hazards, and the wide dissemination of Roman baths.

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• The sculptural environment of the Roman Near East : reflections on culture, ideology, and power

  Peeters eBooks · 2008-01-01 · 80 citations

  book1st authorCorresponding

  Public sculptures were the mass media of the Roman world. They populated urban centers throughout the empire, serving as a plastic language that communicated political, religious, and social messages. This book brings together twenty-eight experts who otherwise rarely convene: text-based scholars of the Greco-Roman, Jewish, and Christian realms from the fields of classics, history, and religion and specialists in the artistic traditions of Greece and Rome as well as art historians and archaeologists. Utilizing the full spectrum of ancient sources, the book examines the multiple, at times even contradictory, meanings and functions that statues served within the complex world of the Roman Near East. Moreover, it situates the discussion of sculpture in the broader context of antiquity in order to reevaluate long-held scholarly consensuses on such ideas as the essence of Hellenism (the culture that emerged from the encounter of Greco-Romans with the Near East) and the everlasting conflict among paganism, Christianity, and Judaism.

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Frequent coauthors

• Elise A. Friedland

  2 shared

• Peter Schäfer

  2 shared

• Catherine Hézser

  1 shared

• Clayton Miles Lehmann

  1 shared

• Sharon Herbert

  1 shared

• Kenneth G. Holum

  1 shared

• Ralph Williams

  1 shared

• Antoinette Clarke Wire

  1 shared

Labs

• Roman Statuary in the Near East: An Interdisciplinary Project in Material CulturePI

Awards & honors

• 2005 American Association of Publishers (AAP) award for best…
• 2006 Salo Baron prize for best first book in Judaic Studies…