#temple of jerusalem

[illustratus]

The Triumphal Procession of Titus and Vespasian in Rome, with the Spoils of Jerusalem, AD 71 — by Peter Connolly

[girlactionfigure]

[secular-jew]

Pictures for those with limited education & reading comprehension.

[eretzyisrael]

[artandthebible]

Christ and St Mary Magdalen at the Tomb

Artist: Rembrandt van Rijn (Dutch, 1606-1669)

Date: 1638

Medium: Oil on Panel

Collection: Royal Collection Trust, United Kingdom

Description

Christ and St Mary Magdalene at the Tomb reveals how imaginatively Rembrandt could interpret traditional religious subject-matter. The scriptural source for this scene is the Gospel of St John (20:11-18), who describes in some detail the burial and subsequent resurrection of Christ following the Crucifixion. Mary Magdalene returns to the tomb early the next morning, only to find the stone at the entrance removed and two angels inside it where the body should have been. She then fetches two of the disciples, who check that the tomb is empty and then leave her. The angels then ask Mary Magdalene, ‘Woman, why weepest thou?’ and she replies, ‘Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him.’ At that moment she turns round and sees a man dressed as a gardener, not appreciating that he is the resurrected Christ. She appeals to him for information, but he calls her by her name and she instantly recognises him. (‘Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned herself, and saith unto him, Rabboni; which is to say master.’) Rembrandt has depicted the moment of realisation just before the actual recognition. Most artists chose to paint the next moment in the text, when Mary Magdalene reaches out towards Jesus and he forestalls her with the words ‘Touch me not’ (in Latin, Noli me tangere).

Rembrandt skilfully evokes the dawn as the opalescent light picks out from the darkness the towers of the Temple of Jerusalem, the upper half of the figure of Christ, the face of Mary Magdalene, and the outline of one of the angels in the tomb. This use of light is almost symbolic in both the physical and the spiritual senses. The paint is in general thinly applied and, apart from the treatment of the light and the vegetation around the tomb referring to Christ’s activities as a gardener, could almost be described as monochrome. It is only after a time that the eye focuses on the two female figures (the Gospels of St Mark and St Luke refer to three Maries at the tomb) in the middle distance on the left descending the hill.

Of particular note is the positioning of Christ, who in the relationship established between his partially silhouetted vertical form and the Temple of Jerusalem behind and the rocky cave next to him dominates the composition, whereas the twisting pose of Mary Magdalene is the pivot. The tension created between Christ’s standing figure and the twisting kneeling Mary Magdalene is palpable. The artist’s only other treatment of the subject of Christ and Mary Magdalene is in Brunswick (Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum): it is dated 1651 and is totally different in composition.

[bijoumikhawal]

hello! i hope it's alright to ask you this but i was wondering if you have any recommendations for books to read or media in general about the history of judaism and jewish communities in egypt, particularly in ottoman and modern egypt?

have a nice day!

it's fine to ask me this! Unfortunately I have to preface this with a disclaimer that a lot of books on Egyptian Jewish history have a Zionist bias. There are antizionist Egyptian Jews, and at the very least ones who have enough national pride that AFAIK they do not publicly hold Zionist beliefs, like those who spoke in the documentary the Jews of Egypt (avaliable on YouTube for free with English subtitles). Others have an anti Egyptian bias- there is a geopolitical tension with Egypt from Antiquity that unfortunately some Jewish people have carried through history even when it was completely irrelevant, so in trying to research interactions between "ancient" Egyptian Jews and Native Egyptians (from the Ptolemaic era into the proto-Coptic and fully Coptic eras) I've unfortunately come across stuff that for me, as an Egyptian, reads like anti miscegenationist ideology, and it is difficult to tell whether this is a view of history being pushed on the past or not. The phrase "Erev Rav" (meaning mixed multitude), which in part refers to Egyptians who left Egypt with Moses and converted to Judaism, is even used as an insult by some.

Since I mentioned that documentary, I'll start by going over more modern sources. Mapping Jewish San Francisco has a playlist of videos of interviews with Egyptian Jews, including both Karaites and Rabbinic Jews iirc (I reblogged some of these awhile ago in my "actually Egyptian tag" tag). This book, the Dispersion of Egyptian Jewry, is avaliable for free online, it promises to be a more indepth look at Egyptian Jews in the lead up to modern explusion. I have only read a few sections of it, so I cannot give a full judgment on it. There's this video I watched about preserving Karaite historical sites in Egypt that I remember being interesting. "On the Mediterranian and the Nile edited by Harvey E. Goldman and Matthis Lehmann" is a collection of memiors iirc, as is "the Man in the Sharkskin Suit" (which I've started but not completed), both moreso from a Rabbinic perspective. Karaites also have a few websites discussing themselves in their terms, such as this one.

For the pre-modern but post-Islamic era, the Cairo Geniza is a great resource but in my opinion as a hobby researcher, hard to navigate. It is a large cache of documents from a Cairo synagogue mostly from around the Fatimid era. A significant portion of it is digitized and they occasionally crowd source translation help on their Twitter, and a lot of books and papers use it as a primary source. "The Jews in Medieval Egypt, edited by: Miriam Frenkel" is one in my to read pile. "Benjamin H. Hary - Multiglossia in Judeio-Arabic. With an Edition, Translation, and Grammatical Study of the Cairene Purim Scroll" is a paper I've read discussing the Jewish record of the events commemorated by the Cairo Purim, I got it off either Anna's Archive or libgen. "Mamluks of Jewish Origin in the Mamluk Sultanate by Koby Yosef" is a paper in my to read pile. "Jewish pietism of the Sufi type A particular trend of mysticisme in Medieval Egypt by Mireille Loubet" and "Paul B Fenton- Judaism and Sufism" both discuss the medieval Egyptian Jewish pietist movement.

For "ancient" Egyptian Jews, I find the first chapter of "The Story of the Jews: Finding the Words 1000 BC-1492 AD” by Simon Schama, which covers Elephantine, very interesting (it also flies in the face of claims that Jews did not marry Native Egyptians, though it is from centuries before the era researchers often cover). If you'd like to read don't click this link to a Google doc, that would be VERY naughty. There's very little on the Therapeutae, but for the paper theorizing they may have been influenced by Buddhism (possibly making them an example of Judeo-Buddhist syncretism) look here (their Wikipedia page also has some sources that could be interesting but are not specifically about them). "Taylor, Joan E. - Jewish women philosophers of first-century Alexandria: Philo’s Therapeutae reconsidered" is also a to read.

I haven't found much on the temple of Onias/Tell el Yahudia/Leontopolis in depth, but I have the paper "Meron M. Piotrkowski - Priests in Exile: The History of the Temple of Onias and Its Community in the Hellenistic Period" in my to be read pile (which I got off Anna's Archive). I also have some supplemental info from a lecture I attended that I'm willing to privately share.

I also have a document compiling links about the Exodus of Jews from Egypt in the modern era, but I'm cautious about sharing it now because I made it in high school and I've realized it needs better fact checking, because it had some misinfo in it from Zionist publications (specifically about the names of Nazis who fled to Egypt- that did happen, but a bunch of names I saw reported had no evidence of that being the case, and one name was the name of a murdered resistance fighter???)

[blueiscoool]

‘Extremely Rare’ Ancient Stone Seal Discovered in Jerusalem

An "extremely rare and unusual" ancient stone artifact-thought to be around 2,700 years old-has been discovered in Jerusalem.

The artifact in question, a seal made of black stone, was uncovered during an excavation conducted by the Israel Antiquities Authority and the City of David organization near the Southern Wall of the Temple Mount (also known as Al-Aqsa)-a site in Jerusalem's Old City that is considered holy by Jewish people, Muslims and Christians.

The stone seal bears a name inscribed in the paleo-Hebrew script, as well as an image of a winged figure. It is thought to have been used both as an amulet and as a stamp to seal documents, Filip Vukosavović, a senior field archaeologist with the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), told Newsweek.

"The seal is one of the most beautiful ever discovered in excavations in ancient Jerusalem, and is executed at the highest artistic level," Yuval Baruch and Navot Rom, excavation directors on behalf of the IAA, said in a press release.

The seal has a hole drilled through it lengthwise so that it could be strung onto a chain and hung around the neck. In the center, a figure with wings is depicted in profile, wearing a long, striped shirt and striding toward the right. The figure has a mane of long curls covering the nape of the neck, and on its head sits a hat or a crown.

The figure is raising one arm upward with an open palm, perhaps indicating that it is holding some kind of object.

Depictions of winged figures such as these are known in neo-Assyrian art of the 9th-7th centuries B.C. and were considered a kind of protective magical figure, according to Vukosavović. The artifact, thus, demonstrates the influence of the Assyrian Empire-a major civilization of the ancient Near East that had conquered the Israelite Kingdom of Judah, including its capital Jerusalem.

"This is an extremely rare and unusual discovery. This is the first time that a winged 'genie'– a protective magical figure-has been found in Israeli and regional archaeology," Vukosavović said in an IAA press release.

On both sides of the figure, an inscription is engraved in paleo-Hebrew script. In English script, this inscription translates as: "Le Yehoʼezer ben Hoshʼayahu."

"[Yehoʼezer] was a common name," Ronny Reich, a researcher from the University of Haifa said.

The researchers believe that the stone object was originally worn as an amulet around the neck of a man called Hoshʼayahu, who held a senior position in the administration of the Kingdom of Judah. He may have worn the object as a symbol of his authority. "It seems that the object was made by a local craftsman-a Judahite, who produced the amulet at the owner's request. It was prepared at a very high artistic level," Vukosavović said in the press release.

The working hypothesis of the experts is that upon Hoshʼayahu's death, his son, Yehoʼezer, inherited the seal, and then added both of their names on either side of the figure. The names were added in negative, or mirror, script-so that the impression would appear in positive and be legible-according to Reich.

"The combination of figure and script, and particularly a neo-Assyrian figure is uncommon in Judah," Reich said.

By ARISTOS GEORGIOU.

[traumaticemphaticfantastic]

These are four portraits/caricatures I did, back in May and June, of four key figures in the founding of the Reform Jewish movement.

Two of them are from Germany (Geiger and Holdheim) and two of them are from the USA (Mayer-Wise and Einhorn). Reform has its roots in the German enlightenment era, when the German government sought to grant Jews equal rights, and largely succeeded for a time. One of the products of what would come to be known as “The Emancipation” was the birth of a new class of Jewish intellectual, coming out of the darkness of the ghetto and into the enlightenment era, many Jews felt that their tradition was becoming quite archaic and outdated, and sought to update their practices to better fit into the changing world.

However, some of the decisions made by early reformers, particularly the more radical subset, greatly disturbed the more traditionally-minded. Radical early reformers were very concerned with assimilation over the more multicultural inclusion mindset that the movement is known for today, in the beginning a lot of Reform Temples felt more like Christian Churches because they had removed so much that made the Jewish people so distinct from the Christian majority that surrounded them. No head coverings, no tallit, no davening, no Hebrew, it was all in an effort to further emancipate Jewish people into mainstream goyish culture, it seems as though for a lot of radical reformers the key to stopping antisemitism for good was to simply stop being so unique.

This led to a lot of tensions within the growing movement, and it all came to a head in the USA after the infamous Trefa Banquet, where almost every dish served violated Kosher law, several Rabbis walked out, and thus the Conservative movement was born.

As for Reform itself, many Ashkenazi reformers ended up in the USA (Such as Isaac Mayer-Wise), they saw in the growing nation a world devoid of the centuries-old, set-in-stone Jewish law that largely held them back in Europe. Today, Reform Judaism holds its largest communities in the USA and parts of Canada, though there are remaining pockets all around the world. And as for their more assimilationist policies, Reform has largely revoked much of their previous bans in favour of a more personalized and optional approach, many Reform Temples have racks of tallit for those who wish to use them, give the option of head-covering such as kippahs to all regardless of gender, and most Temples recite their prayers in Hebrew, and sometimes the dominant language of the region. In the modern time, Reform Judaism largely prioritizes the individual journeys of its adherence, rather than on telling people what to think and feel (In most cases there are limits of course).

There is also the issue of Zionism, which I will touch upon briefly before ending this post: Early Reform Jews were very strictly anti-Zionist. Abraham Geiger, for example, removed the prayers for the return to Zion completely from his services. This was because of, again, The Emancipation. The Reform Jews in their respective countries firmly believed that Jews were equal citizens of their countries and for a group of people from one country, who insist that they are part of that country, to pray every Friday/Sunday for a mass exodus and return to another nation, well that doesn’t seem very “Patriotic” as it were, does it? And so the Jewish Reformers of old declared that they were no longer a nation, but instead a religious group, completely denouncing the wish of returning to Zion. And so it was, but unfortunately, this decree would not survive the Holocaust, when the world that the early Reformers so strongly desired to be a part of changed irreversibly or, in some cases, ceased existence entirely. It is, in my opinion, one of the many great tragedies of the 20th century.

Sorry it got a bit sad at the end there, I hope you enjoyed learning a bit about Reform Judaism with me today. That will be all, be well.

[hebrewbyinbal]

Tisha B'Av: A Day of Mourning and Reflection

Tonight marks the eve of Tisha B'Av (תשעה באב), and tomorrow, we observe the most solemn day in the Jewish calendar.

Tisha B'Av, the 9th day of the Hebrew month of Av, commemorates the destruction of both the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem—catastrophic events that led to exile and immense suffering.

The First Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 BCE, and the Second Temple by the Romans in 70 CE.

These tragedies are not merely historical events; they represent profound spiritual turning points that have shaped the course of Jewish history.

But Tisha B'Av is more than a day of mourning; it's a time for deep introspection and connection to our past.

Traditional observances include fasting for 25 hours, refraining from pleasurable activities, and reading the Book of Lamentations (איכה), which poetically laments the destruction of Jerusalem.

The atmosphere is one of solemnity as we remember the loss of the Temples and the countless other tragedies associated with this day, such as the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492 and the start of World War I, which brought immense suffering to the Jewish people.

Tisha B'Av is a powerful reminder of the enduring connection between the Jewish people, the Hebrew language, and the land of Israel.

It underscores the resilience of a people who, despite repeated devastations, have maintained their faith, culture, and identity through the centuries.

This day also calls us to reflect on the current state of the world, the importance of unity, and the hope for a future of peace and rebuilding.

While Tisha B'Av is a day of sorrow, it also carries the seeds of hope.

Jewish tradition teaches that the Messiah will be born on Tisha B'Av, transforming the day of mourning into a day of joy.

This duality—the deep sorrow for what has been lost, combined with hope for redemption—is at the heart of the day’s significance.

[artthatgivesmefeelings]

Francesco Hayez (Italian, 1791-1882) The Destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem, 1867 Dorsoduro, Venice, Veneto Tisha B'Av (lit. 'the ninth of Av') is an annual fast day in Judaism, on which a number of disasters in Jewish history occurred, primarily the destruction of both Solomon's Temple by the Neo-Babylonian Empire and the Second Temple by the Roman Empire in Jerusalem.

[illustratus]

The Visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon by Edward John Poynter

[sugarmarbles21]

Something needs to be done about the red heifers!

I believe that I don’t have to explain why this sacrifice can’t come to pass. If you don’t know, fanatical religious groups are planning to tear down the Al aqsa mosque after killing a red cow and that mosque is not only sacred to Muslim countries but also Muslims over the world!

This awful ritual must be stopped or else, WORLD WAR III! If we can prevent the cow from being slaughtered then they can’t destroy Al aqsa. There is a link to a petition to save the cows in the video. Sign it if you’re able to.

[princessg3rard]

hey my favorite bible nerd! I have another weird question. with all the jesus stuff again I'm wondering if he celebrated any holidays and you seem most likely to be able to answer <3

ok I’ve got this one :3 as a second temple era jew, jesus would have celebrated most of the holidays modern jews do - just a little differently.

(a fuck ton of yapping below the cut :3)

before we go in tho, pls keep in mind all of these practices are closed. these are holidays and fasts that are incredibly important and have been around for generations, and trying to do them without invite from a jewish person is a sucky thing to do. u can emulate jesus in plenty of other ways <3

when the temple was still around, jews were obligated to come over to it from all around the land and worship there - especially for the big 3, sukkot, passover, and shavuot. the big 3 (or shloshet ha’regalim as we call them, loosely translated as “the three pilgrimage holidays”) are agricultural holidays, so there was also the obligation to bring the fruits of your labour.

from historical and biblical sources, we can infer that jesus definitely celebrated these holidays as every other jew from around this area (Galilee, Golan, etc - modern northern Israel and southern Syria). He’d leave his house to make the pilgrimage to the temple in jerusalem, sacrifice some of his property/fruit of his labour to the lord, and then have the traditional Seder.

his Seder however looked a little different - probably without most songs, and because this is all pre-shulchan aruch, I really can’t tell how long the blessings and games would take (most of my context is obv how we do it modern day, but the earliest Haggadah known is from the 14th century - we mostly guess about the additives).

so yea, jesus probably did it kinda like me and most modern jews - celebrated the agricultural holidays (there are so many of them), and also the non-agricultural holidays (which would be Hanukkah and purim), and fasted at most times we do in modern times (minus tisha be’av, tzom gdaliya, and im putting sfirat haomer here too bc it’s sad and he wouldn’t have done it (I know it’s not a fast)).

[secular-jew]

What location should the "occupation mosque" be relocated to?

[eretzyisrael]

Source

[artandthebible]

Christ Healing the Paralytic at the Pool of Bethesda

Artist: Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (Spanish, 1617–1682)

Date: 1667-1670

Medium: Oil on Canvas

Collection: The National Gallery, London, England, United Kingdom

Painting Description

This painting shows one of the seven acts of charity described in the Gospel of Matthew and was part of a series that Murillo painted for the church of the Hospital de la Caridad in Seville. The Caridad was a charitable brotherhood dedicated to helping the poor and sick of the city; Murillo himself was a member.

The pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem was periodically visited by an angel, and whoever first touched its water after this would be cured of illness. Christ went to the pool and heard a sick man complain that someone always stepped into the water before him.

Here, Christ invites the man to stand, curing him; their mirrored hand gestures capture the powerful connection between them. The man’s raised arms create an upward motion, as if he is being lifted from the ground by an invisible force – a visual evocation of the miracle taking place.

Biblical Narrative

The name of the pool, “Bethesda,” is Aramaic. It means “House of Mercy.” John tells us that “a great number of disabled people used to lie [there] - the blind, the lame, the paralyzed” (John 5:3). The covered colonnades would have provided shade for the disabled who gathered there, but there was another reason for the popularity of the Pool of Bethesda. Legend had it that an angel would come down into the pool and “stir up the water.” The first person into the pool after the stirring of the water “was made well from whatever disease with which he was afflicted” (John 5:4). The Bible does not teach that this actually happened - John 5:4 is not included in most modern translations because it is unlikely to be original to the text - rather, the superstitious belief probably arose because of the pool’s association with the nearby temple.

On the day that Jesus visited the Pool of Bethesda, there was a man there who “had been an invalid for thirty-eight years” (John 5:5). Jesus asked the man if he wanted to be healed. The man replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me” (verse 7). Obviously, the man believed the urban legend about the stirring of the water. He blamed the fact that he was never healed on his tardiness in getting into the water.