Immolating Emperors: Spectacles of Imperial Suffering and the Making of a Jewish Minority Culture in Late Antiquity

Abstract

is paper traces the historical development of the discourse of violent retribution in Jewish culture over the course of Late Antiquity. e paper argues that, although Jews had long engaged in anti-Roman rhetoric, Jewish anti-imperial sentiment intensified in the fifth to seventh centuries ce. is heightened level of antipathy toward the Roman state is perhaps best exemplified by a number of texts that present tableaux of graphic violence directed against the figure of the Roman emperor. e paper shows that these fantasies of revenge redeployed and inverted specific elements of Roman imperial ideology and practice, while at the same time internalizing the pervasive stereotype of Jews in sixth-and especially seventh-century Christian sources as violent troublemakers. e paper argues that, in attempting to assert some measure of control over the "symbolic weapons" of religious violence at play in their society, the Jewish creators of this vivid discourse of retributive justice colluded with their Christian counterparts in constructing the Jew as a member of an oppositional and even dangerous religious minority.

When Unconscious Wishes Become Laws: Policing Memory and Identity in Israel and Palestine

“…From the psychological point of view, this choice may facilitate a propagandist generalization of Jewish victimization, along with providing an inspiration for the righteously vengeful rekindling of the mythical revolt in later dateas indeed it had at various times throughout Jewish history (e.g. Boustan, 2009;van Henten, 2002;Ricca, 2007;Shapira, 1989;Sternhell, 1998;Zerubavel, 1995). 9 A psychologically-plausible alternative explanation to the steady increase in the commemoration of the holocaust in Israel could be the nature of the national-level post-traumatic emotional processing.…”

“…From the psychological point of view, this choice may facilitate a propagandist generalization of Jewish victimization, along with providing an inspiration for the righteously vengeful rekindling of the mythical revolt in later date – as indeed it had at various times throughout Jewish history (e.g. Boustan, ; van Henten, ; Ricca, ; Shapira, 1989; Sternhell, ; Zerubavel, ).…”