A Jew in the Roman Bathhouse: Cultural Interaction in the Ancient Mediterranean

by Yaron Eliav

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691243450
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	08/05/2025
Pages:	392
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

Yaron Z. Eliav is associate professor of rabbinic literature and Jewish history of late antiquity at the University of Michigan. He is the author of God’s Mountain: The Temple Mount in Time, Place, and Memory and the producer of the documentary Paul in Athens.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“A profound meditation on what it meant to be a Jewish body in a Roman world of bodies. By taking seriously both Roman Jewishness and Jewish Romanness, Eliav casts new light on what life, in all its mundaneness and intimacy and temptation, was like as a Roman Jew. Eliav makes a powerful argument for the integration of rabbinics and classics around the steamy space of the public bath.”—Kimberly D. Bowes, University of Pennsylvania

“Yaron Eliav is a rare specimen of a scholar who knows Graeco-Roman literature and has been trained in both archaeology and rabbinic Judaism. Most modern scholars agree that these fields need to be combined, but there are still very few who can claim that they have a thorough knowledge of all the relevant sources and appropriate methodologies of these disparate fields. Eliav is indeed a trailblazer of this integrative approach, which appears throughout the pages of A Jew in the Roman Bathhouse.”—Peter Schäfer, professor emeritus of religion and Jewish studies, Princeton University

“A convincing and accessible examination of the embeddedness of Jews in bath culture and the broader Graeco-Roman environment.”—Nicole Belayche, École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris

“An impressive work of scholarship that brings a rich and unique perspective to the topic. The scope of Eliav’s research is impressive, and his acute argument markedly advances our understanding of Jewish participation in the bathing culture of the Roman world.”—Erich S. Gruen, author of The Construct of Identity in Hellenistic Judaism

Editorial Reviews

"Writing entertainingly and informatively on both archaeology and the Talmud is a rare gift, and the author brings enthusiasm and erudition to his explanations of Roman engineering feats."—-Sara Jo Ben Zvi, Segula

"Eliav’s engaging account of cultural interaction between Jews and non-Jews in the rabbinic era will help readers to better imagine the interactions between Jews and Gentiles in the New Testament."—-Zen Hess, The Christian Century

"Immensely rich and multi-layered. . . . [A Jew in the Roman Bathhouse] is a very important book that reminds us of the benefits inherent in breaking away from our disciplinary restrictions. Eliav not only manages to introduce a fresh perspective to the study of the Roman bathhouse, he also revises and enhances our understanding of Jewish attitudes towards this institution and contributes to the general discussion about cultural interactions in the ancient Mediterranean. That is quite the achievement."—-Dennis Mizzi, Phoenix

"[A Jew in the Roman Bathhouse] collects and expands arguments that Eliav has been making about ancient Jewish bathing for three decades. The culmination of these scholarly labors is of enormous value to the fields of both ancient history and Judaic studies."—-Michael J. Taylor, Jewish History

"Yaron Eliav’s book, A Jew in the Roman Bathhouse, demonstrates beyond reasonable doubt that Jews and rabbis themselves did use the bathhouse. . . . It will prove to some a provocative conclusion. It need not. Eliav is familiar with both the rabbinical and the classical sources. . . . recognizing how few classicists know the Hebrew and Aramaic material and how few rabbinical scholars know Greek and Latin well."—-Simon Goldhill, Times Literary Supplement

"A detailed, granular account of the culture and tensions in which Christianity emerged – as such it fills out our cultural picture as few studies have done. . . . [A Jew in the Roman Bathhouse] challenges the too often made assumption that Judaism and Christianity defined themselves by segregation from the larger society."—-Thomas O’Loughlin, The Pastoral Review

"A Jew in the Roman Bathhouse offers some fascinating ideas about the development of rabbinic Judaism and some challenging ones about rabbinic Judaism’s relationship to ancient Rome. . . . Readers may find themselves rethinking their views of Jewish life during ancient times and pondering how Judaism was, and is, able to adjust to different cultural experiences."—-Rabbi Rachel Esserman, The Reporter

"Enlightening."—-Thomas O’Loughlin, The Irish Catholic

From the Publisher