“Follow the Wise”

Lee Israel Levine came to Jerusalem as a Columbia doctoral student and stayed, at Yigael Yadin's invitation, to teach archaeologists the Jewish history and rabbinic sources their digging needed. This Festschrift honours a career spent joining those disciplines, gathering 32 essays by 35 scholars, 26 in English and 6 in Hebrew, edited by Zeev Weiss.

The sections follow Levine's own interests: Hellenism, Christianity and Judaism; the art and archaeology of Jerusalem and Galilee; the rabbis; the ancient synagogue; sages and patriarchs; and historical geography. Taken together they show how much is gained when texts and excavated stones are read side by side. It is a substantial scholarly volume for specialists and serious students of ancient Judaism, late antique Palestine and the early synagogue, and a fitting tribute to a field-shaping teacher.