Rabban Gamliel Takes a Piss: Negotiating Public Space in a Multi-Cultural Society
How does a minority culture navigate resistance and accommodation within the hegemony?
How did Jews manage watching their land turn into a pagan playground? In the middle of the
bath house, a roman philosopher accosts Rabban Gamliel for bathing in Aphrodite’s bathhouse,
the most Roman and pagan practice, surely forbidden by the Torah itself. But Rabban Gamliel
refuses to give an inch, answering with four responses that each portray a different strategy of
resistance, which some have defined as an attempt to carve out a neutral space within a multicultural society.
How did Jews manage watching their land turn into a pagan playground? In the middle of the
bath house, a roman philosopher accosts Rabban Gamliel for bathing in Aphrodite’s bathhouse,
the most Roman and pagan practice, surely forbidden by the Torah itself. But Rabban Gamliel
refuses to give an inch, answering with four responses that each portray a different strategy of
resistance, which some have defined as an attempt to carve out a neutral space within a multicultural society.
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