Off the Shelf: Jewish culture in Roman times

By Rabbi Rachel Esserman

When I was in rabbinical school, we read several scholarly articles about whether the ancient Jewish population had been influenced by the Greek culture of its time. The material was very easy to summarize: even though the authors used the same evidence, some said Greek culture had no influence, while others suggested the exact opposite. These studies came to mind when I was reading Yaron Z. Eliav’s “A Jew in the Roman Bathhouse: Cultural Interactions in the Ancient Mediterranean” (Princeton University Press). Although his topic may sound as if it might be of limited interest, Eliav instead offers an excellent discussion of the way ancient Jews managed to live a Jewish life while still taking part in the culture that surrounded them. He focuses on the ways rabbinic literature portrays how the rabbis and other Jews were able to enjoy the Roman bathhouse, while avoiding potential halachic (legal) difficulties the bathhouse potentially offered. His overview of Jewish culture offers a different way of exploring the past.

Eliav begins by discussing the physical set-up of the bathhouse and how the Romans accomplished something remarkable, something we take for granted: being able to not only provide running water, but offering running hot water. According to the author, bathhouses were commonly found across the Roman empire and were popular among the different cultures that were under Roman imperial rule. While this material was interesting, most readers of this review will be more interested in the Jewish population’s use of Roman bathhouses. What Eliav does is focus on the intersections of Jewish and Roman culture, rejecting the idea that the Jews either completely avoided Roman culture or were completely Romanized. Using rabbinic texts, he discusses a middle ground, one that allowed Jews to take part in Roman life, while maintaining Jewish culture and religious practices. 

To place what occurred in context, Eliav offers details on the development of the rabbinic halachic enterprise. He cautions readers not to read back rules and judgments from today’s Orthodox Jewish world about ideas of nudity and separation from the general culture into Roman times. The author notes that, in rabbinic writings, there was little to no sense of negative judgment of the Jews who used the baths: he sees only passing references to nudity and licentiousness, which in no way stopped the rabbis and other Jews from participating. This includes the fact that men and women generally shared the same rooms in the bathhouse despite both being nude. In fact, these casual references show how the baths were a regular part of daily Jewish life. Eliav also differentiates between the mikvah (ritual bath), which served a religious purpose, and the bathhouses, which did not. 

The author notes discussions of nudity found in rabbinic texts from the time and writes, “Nothing in these halakhot forbids Jews (or rabbis) from using the baths. They simply state, objectively, that certain activities involving the uttering of God’s name, studying Torah, or reciting prayers cannot be carried out in the presence of nudity. Rather than implying that all Jews must avoid all baths altogether, I believe that these texts do the opposite: by delineating which specific religious activities may not be carried out in the baths, the rabbis are acknowledging that Jews regularly used them.”

Eliav compares rabbinic judgments about the baths to their comments about other Roman entertainments. He notes that some offered a lenient opinion about attending them with “rabbinic texts betray[ing] familiarity with the goings-ons in these places, suggesting that the authors had firsthand knowledge of them. But the overall disapproval on the part of at least some Jews cannot be mistaken, highlighting the absence of similar condemnation of the bathhouse in rabbinic literature. Whereas at least some rabbis resented the theater and amphitheaters, none, as far as our sources tell us, harbored such hostility, or at least anything close to it, toward the public bathhouse.” The author notes that more than 500 mentions of bathhouses occur in rabbinic texts. Some of these discussions look to find ways that Jews might use a bathhouse during the shemitah (sabbatical year); this shows that people wanted to use the baths, even during times of possible restrictions. If they were not invested in using the bathhouse, there would have been no need for the discussions.

Eliav also discusses the statues of emperors and Roman gods that were present in the bathhouse. He notes that these types of statues were a regular part of daily Roman life and that Jews would have passed them daily in the marketplace. The statues were extremely difficult to avoid, but Jewish texts suggested that they were generally ignored in both places. The rabbis noted that the activities done in the presence of these statues (for example, urinating) show that people – even Romans – did not consider them holy. The author does mention that Jews did not usually use baths that were connected to a temple dedicated to Roman gods. That might have been considered taking part in idolatrous practices. 

Eliav does note that one needs to be careful when analyzing the ideas and stories offered in rabbinic texts because the tales are not necessarily history and the concerns featured focus on specifically Jewish thought, rather than Roman. For example, while the Roman bathhouse was often used in Roman literature to show the greatness of the Roman empire, that was not true of Jewish texts. The rabbis had their own project – discussions of a post-Temple Judaism – that was not concerned with the glorification of Rome.

The author’s ultimate purpose in writing his work is the hope that readers will rethink the way that the ancient rabbis and ancient Judaism engaged with Greco-Roman culture. Eliav writes, “The model I’ve offered here, which I call ‘filtered absorption,’ explains how different ways of life interact in a relatively peaceful manner. Just as important, it highlights the diversity and disagreement that prevailed among the rabbis themselves about absorption and adaptation. The entire system of cultural interaction comes to life in the bathhouse as rabbis embraced, absorbed, and accepted it, while at the same time they also rejected, reconfigured, and re-created it. The bathhouse tells an entirely new story about ancient Judaism, offering deeper and richer understanding of its interplay with the common way of life in Roman Mediterranean.” 

“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. Even though a scholarly work, Eliav’s prose is generally easy to read, even for the non-specialist. 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.