Description
Greek and Roman gods did not vanish with antiquity. They continued to surface in unexpected places, including Jewish life and culture. This lecture begins with a remarkable event: in 1741, the Jewish community of Prague celebrated the birth of a Habsburg heir with a public procession featuring the gods Bacchus and Pan.
Between Renaissance and Enlightenment, Jewish scholars, writers, and communities rediscovered and reimagined classical mythology, bringing it into Jewish learning, Kabbalah, public celebrations, and visions of history and redemption. Rather than treating ancient myths merely as relics of a pagan past, they gave them new meanings, using them to think about identity, memory, spirituality, and the human condition. The lecture follows these surprising encounters and reveals how the ancient gods found new life within Jewish culture.
Maoz Kahana is Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Jewish History at Tel Aviv University. His research explores early modern Jewish intellectual and cultural history, with particular attention to encounters between Jewish tradition and the broader intellectual worlds of Europe. His second book, A Heartless Chicken: Science and Religion in the Eighteenth Century, examined Jewish engagements with the Scientific Revolution. His forthcoming book, Pagan Gods in Jewish Space (Stanford University Press), traces the surprising vitality and creative reworking of Greco-Roman mythology in early modern Jewish culture.
This program is made possible through the generous support of the Lilly Endowment Inc.
For transcript and more information, visit https://www.loc.gov/item/video-13167/