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Date
Time
2:00 pm to 3:00 pm
Venue
Brunei Gallery, SOAS
Room
B102
Event type
Seminar

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This is the second of a trilogy of talks dedicated to fasting in the three monotheistic traditions. 

In Judaism, a full 24-hour fast is associated with Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement, 1-2 October this year) at the end of the autumn holiday period and with Tisha B’Av (Ninth of Av, 2-3 August this year), when the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple is commemorated. In these contexts, fasting is associated with repentance and mourning and followed by a festive break-fast consisting of light meals. In my presentation I shall trace the historical development of the Jewish practice of fasting from the Hebrew Bible to the Talmud and afterwards reflect on contemporary practices. 

Ancient rabbis were not only concerned with the observance of fasts but also with health issues relating to them: Should individuals with health problems, for whom fasting may be risky, decide for themselves whether or not to abstain from food or should they rely on their doctors’ advice? Which fluids are permitted to drink on fast days? Should children participate in fasts, and if so, does their practice differ from that of adults? Last but not least, (to what extent) are the ancient meanings of the fast days still relevant today?

About the speaker

Prof. Catherine Hezser is Professor of Jewish Studies in the HRP department at SOAS. Her main focus of research is the social history of Jews in Roman-Byzantine Palestine and classical  rabbinic literature, especially the Talmud Yerushalmi. Her most recent publications are The Routledge Handbook of Jews and Judaism in Late Antiquity (New York and London: Routledge/Taylor &Francis, 2024) and Rabbinic Scholarship in the Context of Late Antique Scholasticism (London: Bloomsbury, 2025). 

She is currently working on an interdisciplinary AHRC-DFG-funded research project on “Rabbinic Civil Law in its Ancient Cultural Context: A Legal Compendium to the Talmud Yerushalmi”, together with Prof. Constantin Willems at the Law department of the University of Marburg

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