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Artifacts


On Faith and Forgeries On Faith and Forgeries
Wednesday, May 4, 2011 by Alex Joffe | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Remnants of the biblical world continue to surface like uncharted reefs along the shore, looming up and weirdly fascinating our nominally secular minds. One such set of objects, recently emerged, is a series of lead plates that appear to be embossed with writings and images and bound into books or "codices." What are they, how have they been received, and what does their reception tell us about our willingness to believe?
Sifting the Cairo Genizah Sifting the Cairo Genizah
Friday, April 1, 2011 by Lawrence Grossman | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Everyone knows about the Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered over 60 years ago, and about the new light they shed on the sectarian Judaism of late antiquity, the beginnings of rabbinic Judaism, and possibly the prehistory of Christianity. Fifty years before that, the Cairo Genizah similarly revolutionized the picture of the Jewish Middle Ages.
Seeking Solomon Seeking Solomon
Tuesday, March 29, 2011 by Eve Levavi Feinstein | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

For traditionalists, the biography of King Solomon is enshrined in the Bible, in the narrative accounts in the books of Kings and Chronicles. The son of King David, who spent his career battling Israel's enemies, Solomon is depicted as ushering in an era of peace and prosperity. Yet the Bible also relates that Solomon took numerous foreign wives and concubines—one thousand in total—who led him to worship foreign gods and build shrines for their service.
Cyrus, Ahmadinejad, and the Politics of Purim Cyrus, Ahmadinejad, and the Politics of Purim
Tuesday, February 1, 2011 by Alex Joffe | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Anyone who deplores the politicization of the past should have been apoplectic in September 2010 at the sight of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad receiving the loan of the "Cyrus Cylinder" from officials of the British Museum.
The Iraqi Jewish Archive The Iraqi Jewish Archive
Monday, January 24, 2011 by Alex Joffe | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

To whom do antiquities belong?  For Jews, the question took on flesh in 2003 in the flooded basement of a building belonging to the Iraqi secret police.
Cemetery Politics Cemetery Politics
Wednesday, September 1, 2010 by Allan Nadler | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Among the many bones its various enemies pick with the Jewish state, one has been much in the news lately: bones, very dry bones, residing in cemeteries both real and imagined all across the country.  
Digging King Herod Digging King Herod
Friday, August 20, 2010 by Aryeh Tepper | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

King Herod was a Jew of doubtful origin who ruled Israel in the years 40-4 B.C.E. During this same period, the Roman republic was being replaced by the Roman Empire with its vast expansionist aims. Relying on Roman support for his power, Herod was, in effect, Israel's little Roman emperor. And he played the part, bringing administrative order and economic prosperity to the country and creating hugely ambitious architectural projects. In the Roman way, he was also cruel, paranoid, and thorough, killing his wife, three sons, and an assortment of other relatives and confidants.
The New Israel Museum The New Israel Museum
Friday, August 13, 2010 by Aryeh Tepper | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

An expanded and revamped Israel Museum re-opened to the public in late July after three years of renovations. While the modest architecture remains as it was, the modernist cubes rolling with the Jerusalem landscape, the jumble of buildings has been streamlined: 25,000 square feet of exhibition space have been added, but the number of items on display has been reduced by a third. Overall, the design is significantly more user-friendly, with a spacious new entrance hall leading to the museum's remarkable collections, including its three most significant wings: archeology, Jewish art and life, and fine art.
A Dead Issue? A Dead Issue?
Monday, February 15, 2010 by Elli Fischer | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features

Since the electrifying discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran in the late 1940's, the scholarly consensus has been that they were produced by the Essenes, a small Second Temple-era Jewish sect known to us from Josephus. Last year, a book by Rachel Elior, Memory and Oblivion: The Secret of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Hebrew), upended this seemingly settled issue by contending that, in fact, the Essenes never existed. Elior's revolutionary thesis, argued with force and stridency, has been discussed in major mainstream publications from Israeli newspapers to Time magazine. But the controversy, and clashing assessments of her achievement as a historian, have...
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Editors' Picks
Losing the Temple Mount Amir Shoan, Ynet. The Muslim waqf which oversees the Temple Mount is allowing archeological sites to be bulldozed, in contravention of the law. But instead of intervening, the Israeli government is covering it up.
Digging Tiberias Matti Friedman, Times of Israel. Long beloved of archeologists but overshadowed by more famous sites, the ancient metropolis of Tiberias is finally emerging from underneath soil, rubble, and the remnants of an old garbage dump.
Disjecta Membra Benjamin Balint, Los Angeles Review of Books. Not for nothing was the Cairo Genizah called "the Living Sea Scrolls": its discoverers revolutionized the study of Mediterranean Jewish life at the very moment that it was drawing to a close.
Analyzing Ashkelon Sam Roberts, New York Times. Science is revolutionizing the study of ancient Ashkelon—revealing mysterious cylinders as parts of ancient looms, proving that what we thought were palaces may really have been stables.
The Afghanistan Genizah Gil Shefler, Jerusalem Post. The scholarly world is abuzz over a cave filled with ancient scrolls that may be the most significant historical discovery in the Jewish world since that of the Cairo Genizah.  (Hebrew report with video here.)      
Found on Hanukkah Zafrir Rinat, Haaretz. Excavations near the Western Wall unearthed a rare clay seal that appears to have been used to authenticate the purity of ritual objects used in the Second Temple.
Yehuda Halevi's Death and the Cairo Genizah Eliezer Brodt, Seforim. Legend says the great 12th-century Spanish hymnist reached Eretz Yisrael but was killed at Jerusalem's city gate. Genizah documents suggest that the legend was based on fact.
Tangled Up in What? Joel Davidi, Toledot Am Ha-Sefer. Josephus refers to "a remembrance upon the arms" (which may or may not be figurative); Aristeas refers to a "sign around the hand" (same). Why are the earliest Jewish sources on tefillin so ambiguous?
Holy Land Stonehenge Associated Press. In Arabic, the site's name means "stone heap of the wild cats." In Hebrew it is known as the "wheel of ghosts." Just what is the mysterious prehistoric structure?
Dead Sea Discoveries Edward Rothstein, New York Times. In a new exhibition, the Dead Sea Scrolls are treated not as the beginning of a history, but as its culmination—almost the reverse of their usual treatment.