Chanukkah 5777: ”The Jews of Diaspora in the Hasmonean Period” with Dr. Malka Z. Simkovich

When the Hasmoneans ruled Judea in the second and first centuries BCE, hundreds of thousands of  pious Jews were comfortably settled in Egypt – with no plans to return to their homeland. We will discuss what these Jews practiced, how they related to the land of Israel and the Jerusalem Temple, and what it meant to assimilate into the Greco-Roman world and still identify as a Jew.