Prof. Steven Fine
About
professor.steven.fine@gmail.com
Prof. Steven Fine is the Churgin Professor of Jewish History at Yeshiva University and Director of the YU Center for Israel Studies.
A renowned cultural historian of ancient Judaism, his research explores the intersection of Jewish art, architecture, and history.
Fine has authored numerous award-winning books on the history of the synagogue, the Arch of Titus, and the symbolism of the Menorah.
His multidisciplinary approach, which he terms "The New Jewish Archaeology," integrates material culture with literary sources to illuminate the lived experiences of Jews in the Greco-Roman world and their interactions with neighboring cultures.
Lecture Abstract:
Cultural connections between the Indian Ocean region and the Jews of late antique Palestine are exemplified in a small group of sources, literary as well as archaeological. These reflect both cultural knowledge and outright communication. In fact, one late antique rabbi is called “the Indian,” Rabbi Yehuda Hindua. This talk builds upon a fifth-century funerary inscription from Zoar, Ghor al-Safi on the southeastern shore of the Dead Sea in modern Jordan. It reads in part: “Yosa son of Upi, who died in the town of Tafar in the land of the Himyarites and went out to the land of Israel and was buried…” This inscription is evidence of real communication between the Indian Ocean region and the Land of Israel. In this lecture I will suggest that the transfer from Himyar, modern Yemen, of Yosa son of Upi’s body for burial in the Holy Land reflects ongoing interaction between the Indian Ocean region and the Land of Israel. It is evidence of the larger network of communication between these regions in Roman antiquity.