This study constitutes the first comprehensive examination of rabbinic body language represented in Palestinian rabbinic sources of late antiquity. Catherine Hezser examines rabbis appearance and demeanor, spatial movement, gestures, and facial expressions on the basis of literary and social-anthropological methods and theories. She discusses the various forms of rabbis non-verbal communication in the context of Graeco-Roman and ancient Christian literary sources and in connection with the material culture of Roman and early Byzantine Palestine. Catherine Hezser convincingly shows that in...

The contributions in Jews and Health: Tradition, History, Practice examine the significance of the preservation of physical, mental, and spiritual health in the Jewish tradition and in Jewish societies from ancient to modern times from multiple thematic and methodological perspectives. The authors -- Carmen Caballero Navas, Maria Diemling, William Friedman, Catherine Hezser, Magdaléna Jánošíková, Reuven Kiperwasser, Katherine E. Southwood, Irit Offer Stark, and Nimrod Zinger -- deal with definitions and representations of health in biblical, Jewish Hellenistic, rabbinic, medieval, and...