Steven Fine, professor of Jewish History, with ancient Biblical tombstone from Zoar. The stone is from 430 C.E.—some 360 years after the destruction of the Second Temple.

Dr. Steven Fine, Dean Pinkhos Churgin Professor of Jewish History and director of the Center for Israel Studies, will deliver a lecture titled “Συναγωγή των Εβραίων: Jews and Judaism in the Aegean Basin in Roman Antiquity” in celebrating the publication of Corpus Inscriptionum Judaicarum Graeciae (CIJG): Corpus of Jewish and Hebrew Inscriptions from Mainland and Island Greece (late 4th century BCE–15th century). The date of the event is October 30, 2019, at 6 pm at the ISAW Lecture Hall at New York University. Archaeological evidence of Jewish life has been discovered across the Aegean basin, ranging from monumental synagogues to funerary inscriptions. This lecture will present some of the most important discoveries over the last century, from Corinth and Delos in Greece to Sardis and Priene in modern Turkey. In addition to his teaching and work with the CIS, Dr. Fine is directs the Arch of Titus Project and the YU Samaritan Israelites Project. A cultural historian of ancient Judaism, Dr. Fine’s most recent book is The Menorah: From the Bible to Modern Israel (Harvard University Press, 2016). His Art and Judaism in the Greco-Roman World: Toward a New Jewish Archaeology (Cambridge, 2005, second ed. 2010) received the 2009 Jordan Schnitzer Book Award of the Association for Jewish Studies. He is also a founding editor of IMAGES: A Journal for the Study of Jewish Art and Visual Culture, now in its thirteenth year. This lecture is co-sponsored by the American Friends of the Jewish Museum of Greece and Institute for the Study of the Ancient World.