“Yesterday, on October 6, 2023, I went to the Knight Library to look for a book I found twenty years ago, that proves Jesus was a Priest overturning rulings by the Sanhedrin. He was not a prophet, or a Zealot, though I believe his judgements were the PRELUDE to the War of the Jews against Rome. When his revolt was defeated, his history was altered to keep the suppression of his followers – going – as long as it takes. The suppression of Jesus ‘The Freedom Fighter’ led to the attack on Israel – on the Sabbat. I did not find that book, but took this pic of me amongst a wall of books about the Jews. I knew my prophecies were about to come true. I am for Reformed Judaism which is being demonized by Israelis.“
I have bridged the gap between Judaism and Christianity by figuring out what Jesus wrote in the dust. I demand the signaling out of German Artists – stop! As a descendant of John Wilson, the spiritual founder of Harvard, I come to the defense of the leaders of Harvard and other Universities, who are accused of encouraging Anti-Semitism and the Anhelation of the Jews – that takes place all through the Torah. Consider Noah and the Flood. Did it happen, or did Jewish Scribes eliminate a group of learned and spiritual Jews in a religious schism? Consider Jewish Genealogies.
Millions of Non-Jews, and Christians ARE AFRAID the End Time has arrived because of October 7, and the Israeli army going into Gaza. I have opposed the End Time Rapture, and made it my mission to save Art Mundi.
I condemn the atrocities of Hamas, who are also guided by religious edicts that goes after OUTSIDERS. ISIS had their End of Days cosmology – that fuels World Violence! The celebration of Hanukkah honors the Wars of the Maccabees. I object to it being put on the Brandenburg Gate.
I am a Nazarite, after Queen Helena, who sons went to war with Rome, and defended the temple..
After I posted this, I read about the Northern Lights. An Ark across the sky is being made for the leader of The Way. I might die tomorrow. I’m going to a light and color pageant in downtown Eugene.
Museum shows were canceled. A book prize was suspended. And some artists were barred from applying for a major commission.
“I would hope that we can move away from fear and move toward dialogue and discourse,” Roth said. “Germany’s commitment is very clear,” she added. “We don’t want Jews to feel unsafe in this country.”
L-R) Dr. Claudine Gay, President of Harvard University, Liz Magill, President of University of Pennsylvania, and Dr. Sally Kornbluth, President of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, testify before the House Education and Workforce Committee at the Rayburn House Office Building on December 05, 2023 in Washington, DC
The presidents of Harvard, MIT, and UPenn are under fire for their congressional hearing.
The college leaders were asked if they would discipline students calling for the genocide of Jews.
Their waffled responses drew sharp criticism from the White House and CEOs.
German Cultural Scene Navigates a Clampdown on Criticism of Israel
A torrent of canceled events is threatening Germany’s reputation as a haven for artistic freedom.
The Frankfurt Book Fair was one of many institutions that canceled events involving artists who had criticized Israel.Credit…Kirill Kudryavtsev/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
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Museum shows were canceled. A book prize was suspended. And some artists were barred from applying for a major commission.
This all happened recently in Germany because of concerns that the artists involved support a boycott of Israel, a position that the German Parliament has designated as antisemitic and which can be punished by the withdrawal of public funding.
Yet in the heightened atmosphere since the Hamas terrorist attacks of Oct. 7, arts administrators are also increasingly concerned over artists whose public comments about Israel have nothing to do with a boycott, including accusing the country of war crimes, or describing it as an “apartheid” state. Officials have been combing through social media posts and open letters, some going back over a decade. And they have been calling off projects as a result.
Billions of dollars flow annually through museums, theaters and cultural exchange programs in Germany, which support the livelihood of thousands of artists there and abroad. But the steady drum beat of cancellations has struck at the country’s reputation as a haven for free expression and risks isolating international artists whose views on Israel don’t line up with Germany’s unqualified support.
Susan Neiman, the director of the Einstein Forum, an organization for international intellectual exchange based near Berlin, said in an email that the situation was “awful,” with artists and intellectuals now “declining invitations to work.” In a recent essay in The New York Review of Books, Neiman said that Germany’s overzealous approach to combating antisemitism had turned into “hysteria” that “threatens to throttle the country’s rich cultural life.”
In the art world alone, the Folkwang Museum in Essen last month halted a collaboration with Anaïs Duplan, a Haitian curator based in the United States, because, in Instagram posts, he described Israel’s retaliation in Gaza as genocide. A week later, the Biennale für aktuelle Fotografie, an event that was scheduled to be held in three German cities next year, was canceled after administrators found that one of the lead curators had shared an interview on social media in which somebody likened Israel’s actions in Gaza to the Holocaust.
The Folkwang Museum in the city of Essen called off a collaboration with a Haitian curator who described Israel’s actions in Gaza as a genocide.Credit…Wilfried Wirth, via Shutterstock
Hito Steyerl, an internationally renowned artist who has represented Germany at the Venice Biennale, said the situation had become all-encompassing. “There is no discussion of art anymore,” she said. “It’s Israel-Palestine, and that’s it.”
There are historical reasons for Germany’s unease over calls for a boycott, which many Germans see as comparable to Nazi campaigns to avoid Jewish businesses in the 1930s. Because of the Holocaust, many German officials also feel a special responsibility toward Israel and are attuned toward any resurgence of antisemitism at home.
In a 2019 parliamentary resolution, lawmakers urged regional governments to deny public funding to any group or individual that “actively supports” the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, known as B.D.S., or that questions Israel’s right to exist. Even before the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, the resolution was used to justify shutting down exhibitions, concerts, lectures and panel discussions, as well as removing acts from lineups.
The cancellations and rescinded invitations were all met with pushback, and cultural leaders raised concern that the resolution was having a chilling effect on artistic freedom. But other rejections have been less public, such as the artists who were screened out of a major public art commission in Cologne over their views on Israel.
A German newspaper said Adania Shibli’s writing characterized Israel as “a killing machine.”Credit…Kirill Kudryavtsev/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
In August, the Cologne Cathedral kicked off a search for an artist to create a work responding to some antisemitic medieval carvings in the building that it had chosen to leave in place but contextualize. According to a letter seen by The New York Times, the cathedral asked “eight personalities from the international contemporary art scene” to nominate peers for the task, but rejected seven of the nominees because they had signed open letters that supported boycotting Israel or criticized the country’s actions in Gaza. Those included an open letter published in Artforum in October, whose signatories included many of the international art world’s major stars.
Markus Frädrich, a cathedral spokesman, declined to name any of the rejected artists, but said that the church could not work with anyone who had signed open letters that “trivialize terror or spread antisemitic ideas.”
Claudia Roth, Germany’s culture minister, said in an email statement that she would not tell institutions how they should balance free speech with combating antisemitism, but added that canceling events or revoking awards should be “the last step, not the first.”
“I would hope that we can move away from fear and move toward dialogue and discourse,” Roth said. “Germany’s commitment is very clear,” she added. “We don’t want Jews to feel unsafe in this country.”
Yet the pursuit of that aim has, in some cases, deprived Jewish artists of a voice. On Nov. 24, the museum authorities in Saarland, in southern Germany, canceled an exhibition scheduled for next year by Candice Breitz, a South African Jewish artist who has been based in Berlin since 2002. Her work often focuses on political themes, and Breitz has been a vocal critic of Israel’s actions in Gaza on social media, where she has said that “flattening Gaza will not make Jews safer” and criticized the censoring of “leftist Jewish” views.
In an emailed statement, Andrea Jahn, the director of the Saarlandmuseum, where the show was planned, said that Breitz’s social media posts created “a public image that questions Israel’s right to self-defense, fueling a discussion we as a museum cannot provide a platform for.”
In a separate statement, the Saarland Cultural Heritage Foundation, which oversees the Saarlandmuseum, said that the decision was taken because of Breitz’s “proximity to the B.D.S. movement.”
Works by Candice Breitz at Fotografiska Berlin in September. The Saarlandmuseum canceled an upcoming exhibition of Brietz’s work because of her “proximity to the B.D.S. movement.”Credit…Markus Schreiber/Associated Press
Breitz said in an interview that she did not support that movement, although she believed that boycotts could be a useful tool of protest. She added that it was “absurd” that “Germans with Nazi ancestry” were telling a Jewish woman what she could and couldn’t say.
World leaders mark Hanukkah in shadow of Gaza war, soaring antisemitism
Germany’s Scholz becomes first chancellor to light Brandenburg Gate Menorah, calls for immediate release of hostages; Canada’s Trudeau notes ‘incredibly difficult’ months for Jews
Rabbi Yehuda Teichtal (2nd R) and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz (R) light the giant Menorah for Hanukkah, in Berlin at the Brandenburg Gate on December 7, 2023. (Tobias Schwarz/AFP)
World leaders on Thursday observed the first night of the Hanukkah festival by extending greetings to their Jewish communities and acknowledging their anguish over the Israel-Hamas war and rising antisemitism across the globe.
Donning a kippa, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz became the first in his role to light the menorah at Brandenburg Gate in the center of Berlin, where he called for the “immediate” release of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, accompanied by Rabbi Yehuda Teichtal, the rabbi of Berlin’s Jewish community.
“I hope the light of this candelabra will shine across this square long beyond the eight days of the Hanukkah celebration,” Scholz said.
“It stands for hope and optimism. We especially need both in these days after the Hamas terror attack on Israel.
“I am happy that many citizens are supporting the Jewish community in word and deed and showing compassion and solidarity with our Jewish neighbors, friends and colleagues,” he said.
Israel and US are at odds over conflicting visions for postwar Gaza
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FILE – U.S. President Joe Biden, left, meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, to discuss the the war between Israel and Hamas, in Tel Aviv, Israel, on Oct. 18, 2023. The United States has offered strong support to Israel in its war against Hamas. But the allies ar increasingly at odds over what will happen to the Gaza Strip once the war winds down. (Miriam Alster/Pool Photo via AP)Read More
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FILE – President Joe Biden is greeted by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after arriving at Ben Gurion International Airport, on Oct. 18, 2023, in Tel Aviv. The United States has offered strong support to Israel in its war against Hamas. But the allies ar increasingly at odds over what will happen to the Gaza Strip once the war winds down. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)Read More
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FILE – Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, right meets with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken at his office in the West Bank city of Ramallah, on Nov. 30, 2023. The United States has offered strong support to Israel in its war against Hamas. But the allies ar increasingly at odds over what will happen to the Gaza Strip once the war winds down. (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser, Pool)Read More
BY JOSEF FEDERMAN AND SAMY MAGDYUpdated 11:56 AM PST, December 7, 2023Share
JERUSALEM (AP) — The United States has offered strong support to Israel in its war against the Hamas militant group that rules the Gaza Strip. But the allies are increasingly at odds over what will happen to Gaza once the war winds down.
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, this week announced that Israel would retain an open-ended security presence in Gaza. Israeli officials talk of imposing a buffer zone to keep Palestinians away from the Israeli border. They rule out any role for the Palestinian Authority, which was ousted from Gaza by Hamas in 2007 but governs semi-autonomous areas of the occupied West Bank.
The United States has laid out a much different vision. Top officials have said they will not allow Israel to reoccupy Gaza or further shrink its already small territory. They have repeatedly called for a return of the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority and the resumption of peace talks aimed at establishing a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
“I would hope that we can move away from fear and move toward dialogue and discourse,” Roth said. “Germany’s commitment is very clear,” she added. “We don’t want Jews to feel unsafe in this country.”
Noah’s Ark, God, Giraffes & Genocide
Yes…the childhood story we all loved is examined (aka: skewered) with a slightly more critical view. If you think the biblical account makes sense…think again.
Noah’s Ark is the name for a large boat that, according to the Book of Genesis (chapters 6-9) and the Quran (surah hud), was built by Noah at God’s command to save himself, his family, and the world’s animals from a worldwide deluge. This Great Flood was a response by the Abrahamic god to address his displeasure with the wickedness of man. However, after noticing that Noah was “righteous in his generation”, the Abrahamic god makes an exception for him and his family and gives Noah detailed instructions to build the Ark.
Noah’s Ark is a religious myth that is part of the biblical canons of both Christianity and Judaism as well as being an important story in other traditional Abrahamic religions, especially Islam. As such, many scholars think that the Noah’s Ark flood myth may in fact be derived from older Mesopotamian stories. Many biblical scholars interpret this story as metaphor, but biblical literalists are still digging up the mountains of Ararat, where the Bible claims the Ark came to rest after the floodwaters subsided, in search of its remains.
Interestingly, despite the fact that the Abrahamic god claimed (in the Bible — and we all know how internally consistent the Bible is!) that he would never again send a great flood to destroy all life on earth, this god still wishes to destroy all life in an event known to the religious as “Judgment Day”. Despite the fact that the Bible claims no one will know when Judgment Day will occur, that doesn’t stop religious wingnuts, wackaloons and other crazies from speculating on this anyway.
For example, former civil engineer and lifelong religious kook, Harold Camping, claims to have devised a mathematical formula showing that Judgment Day will occur on 21 May 2011 — the alleged 7,000th anniversary of the mythical Great Flood.
But before you give all your beloved pets to us atheists for safekeeping after your rapture, I must point out that Camping is a professional “doomsdayer”: his previous prediction (again, using a mathematical formula) was that Judgment Day would occur on 6 September 1994. Much to the disappointment of his followers, who showed up at Alameda’s Veterans Memorial Building in Alameda, California, donned in their Sunday best, praying, proselytizing and carrying Bibles, nothing happened.
Why didn’t the world end that day, as promised? Camping claims he may have made a mathematical error in his calculations.
Originally instituted as a feast “in the manner of Sukkot (Booths)”, it does not come with the corresponding obligations, and is therefore a relatively minor holiday in strictly religious terms. Nevertheless, Hanukkah has attained major cultural significance in North America and elsewhere, especially among secular Jews, due to often occurring around the same time as Christmas during the festive season.[8]
The Mishna (late 2nd century) mentions Hanukkah in several places,[30] but never describes its laws in detail and never mentions any aspect of the history behind it. To explain the Mishna’s lack of a systematic discussion of Hanukkah, Nissim ben Jacob postulated that information on the holiday was so commonplace that the Mishna felt no need to explain it.[31] Modern scholar Reuvein Margolies suggests that as the Mishnah was redacted after the Bar Kochba revolt, its editors were reluctant to include explicit discussion of a holiday celebrating another relatively recent revolt against a foreign ruler, for fear of antagonizing the Romans.[32]
Hanukkah lamp unearthed near Jerusalem about 1900
The miracle of the one-day supply of oil miraculously lasting eight days is described in the Talmud, committed to writing about 600 years after the events described in the books of Maccabees.[33] The Talmud says that after the forces of Antiochus IV had been driven from the Temple, the Maccabees discovered that almost all of the ritual olive oil had been profaned. They found only a single container that was still sealed by the High Priest, with enough oil to keep the menorah in the Temple lit for a single day. They used this, yet it burned for eight days (the time it took to have new oil pressed and made ready).[34]
The Jewish historian Titus Flavius Josephus narrates in his book, Jewish Antiquities XII, how the victorious Judas Maccabeus ordered lavish yearly eight-day festivities after rededicating the Temple in Jerusalem that had been profaned by Antiochus IV Epiphanes.[40] Josephus does not say the festival was called Hanukkah but rather the “Festival of Lights”: Now Judas celebrated the festival of the restoration of the sacrifices of the temple for eight days, and omitted no sort of pleasures thereon; but he feasted them upon very rich and splendid sacrifices; and he honored God, and delighted them by hymns and psalms. Nay, they were so very glad at the revival of their customs, when, after a long time of intermission, they unexpectedly had regained the freedom of their worship, that they made it a law for their posterity, that they should keep a festival, on account of the restoration of their temple worship, for eight days. And from that time to this we celebrate this festival, and call it Lights. I suppose the reason was because this liberty beyond our hopes appeared to us; and that thence was the name given to that festival. Judas also rebuilt the walls round about the city, and reared towers of great height against the incursions of enemies, and set guards therein. He also fortified the city Bethsura, that it might serve as a citadel against any distresses that might come from our enemies.[41]
Some modern scholars, following the account in 2 Maccabees, observe that the king was intervening in an internal civil war between the Maccabean Jews and the Hellenized Jews in Jerusalem.[54][55][56][57] These competed violently over who would be the High Priest, with traditionalists with Hebrew/Aramaic names like Onias contesting with Hellenizing High Priests with Greek names like Jason and Menelaus.[58] In particular, Jason’s Hellenistic reforms would prove to be a decisive factor leading to eventual conflict within the ranks of Judaism.[59] Other authors point to possible socioeconomic reasons in addition to the religious reasons behind the civil war.[60]
Modern Israeli 10 agorot coin, reproducing the menorah image from a coin issued by Mattathias Antigonus
What began in many respects as a civil war escalated when the Hellenistic kingdom of Syria sided with the Hellenizing Jews in their conflict with the traditionalists.[61] As the conflict escalated, Antiochus took the side of the Hellenizers by prohibiting the religious practices the traditionalists had rallied around. This may explain why the king, in a total departure from Seleucid practice in all other places and times, banned a traditional religion.[62]
The miracle of the oil is widely regarded as a legend and its authenticity has been questioned since the Middle Ages.[63] However, given the famous question Joseph Karo posed concerning why Hanukkah is celebrated for eight days when the miracle was only for seven days (since there was enough oil for one day),[64] it was clear that he believed it was a historical event. This belief has been adopted by most of Orthodox Judaism, in as much as Karo’s Shulchan Aruch is a main code of Jewish Law. The menorah first began to be used as a symbol of Judaism in the Hasmonean period – appearing on coins issued by Hasmonean king Mattathias Antigonus between 40 and 37 BCE – indicating that the tradition of an oil miracle was known then.[65]
Helena moved to Jerusalem, where she is buried in the pyramidal tomb which she had constructed during her lifetime, three stadia north of Jerusalem.[13] The catacombs are known as “Tombs of the Kings.” A sarcophagus bearing two inscriptions was found there, the funerary epigram reading: Ṣaddan Malkata (Palmyrene: ?ﾐﾡﾣ? ?ﾐﾡﾫ?ﾐﾡﾶ?), and Ṣaddah Malkatah (Aramaic: צדה מלכתה), interpreted by scholars to mean: “Our mistress, the Queen.”[14][15] The sarcophagus of Queen Helena of Adiabene was discovered by Louis Felicien de Saulcy in the nineteenth century; although he believed the bones inside, wrapped in shrouds with golden embroidery, were the remains of the wife of a king of Judea from the First Temple period, possibly Zedekiah or Jehoash. De Saulcy was forced to suspend the dig when the news that human bones were being dug up drew the ire of the Jewish community of Jerusalem. The sarcophagus and other findings were sent to France and displayed at the Louvre.[16]
The story presents Queen Helena as pious but ignorant. The vow was misguided for two reasons. According to the rabbis, a nazirite vow must be kept while in the land of Israel, which Helena does not know.[2] Second, nazirite vows are generally for a short duration; seven years is an unreasonable undertaking since if a nazarite vow is accidentally violated, it must be repeated from the beginning.
This is only one of a number of anecdotes the rabbis tell about Queen Helena and her sons, all of whom converted to Judaism. It captures the rabbis’ ambivalence about her, a righteous convert to Judaism who, at the same time, is a consummate outsider.
Helena, Queen of Adiabene, and her sons Kings Izates II and Monobazus II converted to Judaism in the mid-first century C.E. Rabbinic literature preserves several anecdotes about this family, such as Helena’s nazirite vow, her giant sukkah, and the circumcision of her two sons.
Mishna Nazir 1:5 – 4:1 from Cambridge MS Add.470.1 Folios 90v and 91 r combined.CC BY-NC 3.0
Part One
Helena’s Nazarite Vow
The Mishnah tells of Queen Helena of Adiabene, called Heleni HaMalka in Hebrew, who made a nazirite vow that she accidentally ended up doubling or tripling (m. Nazir 3:6):[1]
It is related the Queen Helena, when her son went to war, said, “If my son returns in peace from the war, I shall be a Nazirite for seven years.” Her son returned from the war, and she observed a naziriteship for seven years.
At the end of the seven years, she went up to the land [of Israel] and Beth Hillel ruled that she must be a Nazirite for a further seven years. Towards the end of this seven years, she contracted ritual defilement, and so altogether she was a Nazirite for twenty-one years. R. Judah said: “She was only a Nazirite for fourteen years.”
The story presents Queen Helena as pious but ignorant. The vow was misguided for two reasons. According to the rabbis, a nazirite vow must be kept while in the land of Israel, which Helena does not know.[2] Second, nazirite vows are generally for a short duration; seven years is an unreasonable undertaking since if a nazarite vow is accidentally violated, it must be repeated from the beginning.
This is only one of a number of anecdotes the rabbis tell about Queen Helena and her sons, all of whom converted to Judaism. It captures the rabbis’ ambivalence about her, a righteous convert to Judaism who, at the same time, is a consummate outsider.
Her story, and that of her two sons, Izates II and Monobazus II, is told at length by Josephus, the late first century C.E. Jewish historian, in book 20 of his Antiquities of the Jews (17-96).[3] The rabbinic anecdotes about Helena and her sons are therefore, based on real people and likely inspired by real occurrences. Nevertheless, as well shall see, the rabbinic accounts are framed according to the rabbis’ loose grasp of Second Temple period history.[4]
Queen of Adiabene Goes to Jerusalem
Helena was the queen of Adiabene, a region in what was once Assyria, along the northern end of the Tigris river, between the upper and lower Zab. After being a vassal of the Persian Empire and then the Parthian Empire, it became an independent state in the first century B.C.E., with its capital in the city of Arbela (modern Erbil; not to be confused with the Galilean city of the same name).
A map with Adiabene and Judah. 95-66 BC Armenica.org via wikimedia
According to Josephus, at a certain point during the reign of her son, Izates II (34-58 C.E.), after both had converted to Judaism, Helena decided to move to Judea:
Helena, the mother of the king, saw that peace prevailed in the kingdom and that her son (=Izates II) was prosperous and the object of admiration in all men’s eyes, even those of foreigners, thanks to the prudence God gave him. Now she had conceived a desire to go to the city of Jerusalem and to worship at the temple of God, which was famous throughout the world, and to make thank-offerings there. (
Ant. 20:49)
Helena’s Palace
Helena stayed in Jerusalem for many years, and famously built a palace there (Jud. War5:253), where she lived until her return to Adiabene toward the end of her life. The palace was eventually burnt at the end of the Great Rebellion (Jud. War 6:355). Nevertheless, the early Church Father Eusebius of Caesaria (ca. 260 – 340 C.E.), mentions that Helena’s monuments were still visible in his day:
But splendid monuments of this Helen, of whom the historian (=Josephus) has made mention, are still shown in the suburbs of the city which is now called Æelia (=Jerusalem), but she is said to have been queen of the Adiabeni.[5]
One of these “monuments,” i.e., Helena’s palace, may be the structure excavated by Doron Ben Ami and Yana Tchekhanovets in the Givati Parking Lot in 2007 right outside the City of David.[6] Another of these monuments is likely a reference to Helena’s enormous tomb.
Helena’s Tomb
Although we do not know when Helena moved to Jerusalem, according to Josephus she returned briefly to Adiabene in 58 C.E. when her son Izates II died at the age of 55[7] and her other son, Monobazus II, the older brother of Izates II, took the throne. She must have been at least in her seventies at the time of this trip. Although consoled by the fact that her other son was made king, “Helena was sorely distressed by the news of her son’s death, as was to be expected of a mother bereft of a son so very religious” (Ant. 20:93-94), and she died soon after her return.
Helena was not buried in her native land; apparently, she had already constructed a tomb for herself and Izates II in Jerusalem:
Monobazus [II] sent her bones and those of his brother [Izates II] to Jerusalem to be buried in the three pyramids that his mother had erected at a distance of three furlongs from the city of Jerusalem. (
Ant. 20:94)
The tomb of Helena and Izates is a large structure that still exists. It was originally excavated by Louis Félicien de Saulcy in 1863, but misidentified it as “the Tomb of Kings,” namely of earlier Judahite kings. The number of sarcophagi found in this tomb (five complete and a piece of a sixth lid) demonstrate that it was used for more than just Helena and Izates II.
One sarcophagus has the remains of a woman referred to once as Queen Tzadan (צדן מלכתא) and another time as Queen Tzaddah (צדה מלכתה). Though some believe this to be Helena, others note that the body seems to be of a younger woman, not a septuagenarian.[8] If so, this Tzadda(n) was probably someone else from the royal family and unknown to us. (The sarcophagus is now in the Louvre.)
The Nazirite Vow: Confusing Berenice and Helena?
One element that does not appear in Josephus’ story is the nazirite vow. Nevertheless, Josephus does have a story about a “quasi-foreign” Jewish queen who made a nazirite vow, namely, Berenice, who was the daughter of King Agrippa I of Judea, son of Herod the Great.
Berenice, who was a generation younger than Helena, was already a fourth generation Jew on her father’s side. Her paternal great-grandfather, Antipater, was an Idumean convert, but she herself was born Jewish; moreover, she was of Hasmonean lineage from her grandmother Miriam (wife of Herod). At the same time, Berenice was also the Queen of Chalcis (a province in Syria), having married its king, Herod V (her paternal uncle), when she was a young woman.[9]
Josephus tells the following story about Berenice (Jud. War 2.15.1):
She was visiting Jerusalem to discharge a vow to God; for it is customary for those suffering from illness or other affliction to make a vow to abstain from wine and to shave their heads during the thirty days preceding that on which they must offer sacrifices.
The existence of two stories about two different Jewish queens making nazirite vows is surprising. It is possible that this was a practice among wealthy women who were in the public eye, and who had an interest in being seen as especially pious. Such behavior would have been even more attractive to “foreign” queens like Berenice and Helena who were quasi-outsiders. Moreover, nazirite vows would be uniquely accessible to women: the option of a woman making such a vow is explicitly mentioned in Numb 6:2.
Nevertheless, it is striking that Helena’s nazirite vow appears only in rabbinic literature while Berenice’s appears only in Josephus.[10] This suggests that the rabbis have confused Helena and Berenice.[11]
The Generosity of Helena and Munbaz
The Mishnah (late 2nd century C.E.) describes the donations of Helena and her son Munbaz (=Monbazus II), mentioning his first (m. Yoma 3:10):
King Munbaz had the handles of all the vessels used on Yom Kippur made of gold. His mother Heleni made a golden candelabrum over the opening of the Temple sanctuary. She also made a golden tablet, on which the portion concerning the suspected adulteress was inscribed.[16]
The list of gold objects donated to the Temple communicates the wealth and piety of this family. Munbaz’s donations focus on preexisting Temple objects; since Temple utensils could not themselves be made of gold, he decided to beautify them by giving them golden handles. Helena’s donations, in contrast, are of new and unusual items.
Her first gift is a golden נברשת, a term that appears nowhere else in rabbinic literature and is generally translated as candelabrum or lamp. A candelabrum outside the sanctuary could be used for decoration, or for light in the night time. The Tosefta (Yoma 2:3) suggests that it was meant to shine at sunrise, perhaps as a picante decorative feature.[17]
Particularly intriguing is her donation of the sotah tablet, i.e., a tablet upon which a copy of the curse that the priest must write out for the woman accused of adultery who is to drink the bitter waters (see Num 5:23). First, it is striking that Helena is connected to both the nazirite and the sotah, two biblical institutions that appear back to back in the book of Numbers. Second, the sotah is a uniquely female ritual, but one that is quite negative, since it is designed to test suspected adulteresses.
Although the purpose of the golden sotah tablet was to make matters simpler for the priest, who could copy the required text onto parchment without bringing out a Torah scroll, having the text of the curse carved in gold seems discordant. It is possible that the rabbis are offering a slight jab to a woman who married her own brother, but more probably, it merely reflects their attempt to paint Helena as a pious, well-meaning woman yet naively lacking a sense of what is appropriate in the Jewish Temple.
Although Josephus says nothing about donating gold to the Temple, he does emphasize how fond she is of the Temple, and it is certainly possible that the royal family did donate money. This would fit with what we learn from Josephus elsewhere, that Helena and Izates donated money to save Judeans from famine.
A map with Adiabene and Judah. 95-66 BC Armenica.org via wikimedia
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