AIAR Book Launch: Susan Weingarten’s Ancient Jewish Food in Its Geographical and Cultural Contexts

Please join us for a book launch panel of Susan Weingarten's new book, Ancient Jewish Food in Its Geographical and Cultural Contexts: What’s Cooking in the Talmuds? at 17:00 IDT | 10:00 EDT on Sept 3, 2025 at the Albright and on Zoom. Post-Event Reception at 18:00

Program:
- Presentation: Susan Weingarten (AIAR)
- Respondent: Limor Yungman (HUJI) – “From Stomach to Heart: A Thousand Years of Arabic Culinary Literature”
– Respondent: Yuval Sahar (TAU) – “The Rise and Fall of the Endive as a Plant Food”

Zoom Webinar ID
849 7930 8949

Passcode:
039904

Zoom Link:
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/84979308949?pwd=UbZOxb9ImmD2LTVQOEfzJ9a9WdzUyV.1

Abstract: Traditional rivalries between West and East, dating back at least as far as Herodotus, were expressed in the public rituals and symbolism of food and luxury at imperial banquets. Thus in Late Antiquity, banqueting was one of the arenas of rivalry between Roman Emperor and Sassanian King of Kings. Both in Palestine and in Babylonia, this rivalry is mirrored in the food cultures and conspicuous consumption of the Jewish community heads, the Palestinian Patriarch and his rival, the Babylonian Exilarch, as depicted in the Palestinian and Babylonian Talmuds respectively. In this presentation I shall look at how these rivalries are played out through the food on their tables.

Bio: Susan Weingarten is a food historian living in Jerusalem. She has published The Saint’s Saints: Hagiography and Geography in Jerome (2005); Haroset: A Taste of Jewish History (2019) and many papers on Jewish food in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages.

Also check out other Workshops in Jerusalem, Arts events in Jerusalem, Literary Art events in Jerusalem.