Rokeah, David (emeritus)

Personal:

Born 1930, Haifa; Ph.D. 1968, Hebrew Univ.; Lect. 1969; Sen. Lect. 1973; Assoc. Prof. 1985; Prof. 1993; Emeritus 1996.

Tel: 972-2-5883609 (office); 972-2-996-4630 (home)

Research Interests:

Antisemitism. The Church Fathers and the Jews. Relationships among pagans, Jews and Christians. The Second Temple: Mishnaic and Talmudic period.

Research Projects:

The roots of Christian antisemitism. Funding: The Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism (partial).

Abstracts of Current Research:

The roots of Christian antisemitism - the election motif:

The "election" or "chosen people" motif of the interreligious propaganda war of the early Christian centuries is crucial for the understanding of the roots of Christian antisemitism. My study of this motif in the writings of the Church Fathers Justin Martyr, Tertullian, and John Chrysostom continues. (The parts of the study dealing with Augustine and Justin Martyr are now ready for the press. Aurelii Augustini Adversus Iudaeos, translated from Latin into Hebrew and partly annotated by me, appeared in 1991; my translation of Henry Chadwick's Augustine [Oxford 1986] into Hebrew appeared in 1992.)

My study dealing with Justin Martyr and the Jews will be published shortly by the Ben Zion Dinur Institute for Research in Jewish History.

Comparative ancient history:

A continuing interest in comparative history resulted in the paper on "Slaves in the Family and Economic Context in Israel, Greece, and Rome," presented at the 1993 yearly convention of the Historical Society of Israel.

KEY WORDS: Interreligious polemic, ancient; Antisemitism, Early Christian and pagan; slavery, ancient; history, comparative ancient

Recent Publications:

Rokeah, D. (1990) Tacitus and the God of Israel. Zion, 55(3): 265-268 (Hebrew).

Rokeah, D. (1991) Early Christian-Jewish polemics on divine election. In: Chosen People, Elect Nations and Universal Mission, eds. S. Almog and M. Heyd, Jerusalem, The Zalman Shazar Center, pp.71-98 (Hebrew).

Rokeah, D. (1991) The Jewish Bible and the New Testament in the pagan world. (Review on G. Rinaldi, Biblia Gentium [Rome 1989].) Tarbiz, 60(3): 451-464 (Hebrew).

Rokeah, D. (1991) A note on the philological aspect of Paul's Theory of Faith. Theologische Zeitschrift, 47: 299-306.

Rokeah, D. (1993/94) Spinoza and the "Election of Israel." Bet Mikra, 136: 1-20 (Hebrew).

Rokeah, D. (1993) "Am Haaretz," the early pietists (Hasidim), Jesus and the Christians. In: Aux origines juives du christianisme, ed. F. Blanchetiere and M.D. Herr, Jerusalem, , pp.159-173.

Rokeah, D. (1994) The New Testament in Hebrew garb. (Review of the new Hebrew edition of the New Testament). Mishkan, 20: 64-72.

Rokeah, D. (1995) Tacitus and ancient antisemitism. Revue des ?tudes juives, 154: 281-294.

Rokeah, D. (1996) Christian Greek and Latin authors on Jews and Judaism. In: The Jews in the Hellenistic-Roman World: Studies in Memory of Menahem Stern, eds. I. Gafni, A. Oppenheimer and D. Schwartz, Jerusalem, The Zalman Shazar Center, pp.167-195 (Hebrew).

Rokeah, D. (1996) The Bar-Kochva Revolt in the Light of Findings from the Caves of Refuges, Haouma = The Nation, 136 (1999), pp. 427 - 443 (Hebrew).