Profile avatar
simchagross.bsky.social
Assistant Professor of Ancient Jewish History, UPenn
135 posts 2,486 followers 190 following
Regular Contributor
Active Commenter
Posts 16 Comments 33

This evening! Register and join!

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

I wrote a short piece about some of the immediate and larger historiographical interventions I tried to make in my recent book!

submitted 4 days ago • 1 comment

Some article titles reach for nuance. Others just get straight to the point.

submitted 15 days ago • 0 comments

Badass Byzantinist Anthony Kaldellis had me on his podcast, and it was great. Although it was daunting to discuss Procopius with the expert! podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/b...

submitted 17 days ago • 2 comments

well hellooooo

submitted 17 days ago • 8 comments

OKAY! OKAY! I’m getting the book! What a glowing endorsement and appreciation. Congrats, @simchagross.bsky.social !

submitted 17 days ago • 0 comments

Shai Secunda explores the methodological insights of Simcha Gross’ Babylonian Jews and Sasanian Imperialism in Late Antiquity.

submitted 17 days ago • 1 comment

This month AJR is featuring a panel of scholars celebrating Simcha Gross's 2025 National Jewish Book Award winning monograph, Babylonian Jews and Sasanian Imperialism in Late Antiquity. We begin with an overview of the book's interventions from Christine Hayes.

submitted 26 days ago • 3 comments

This year at Harvard, our Starr fellows theme is Jews in/against Empire so imperialism is much on my mind… when asked to give a talk for this public-facing series on “peace,” I decided to think with Pax Romana and its effects on Jews and Christians +

submitted 28 days ago • 2 comments

I am very honored that my book Babylonian Jews and Sasanian Imperialism in Late Antiquity won the National Jewish Book Award for Scholarship!! Cheaper paperback version now slated to appear in just a few months, but for now the book is available here: www.cambridge.org/core/books/b...

submitted 31 days ago • 4 comments

Mazel tov @simchagross.bsky.social !!! www.jewishbookcouncil.org/book/babylon...

submitted 32 days ago • 1 comment

Finally the article that I'd been hoping someone would write on the Allegory of the Cave has appeared...

submitted 512 days ago • 4 comments

zut alors, me voilà en français! mille mercis à @annetteyreed.bsky.social pour ce livre cadeau!

submitted 47 days ago • 1 comment

On the last day of Hanukkah, let's talk about the end of the Hasmonean dynasty. This is typically dated to the end of the 1st BCE. Herod married the Hasmonean Mariamne, had two children with her, but would come to kill all three. Thus ended the dynasty. Or did it...? 🧵1/13

submitted 53 days ago • 2 comments

Hellenistic Hasmoneans?! As discussed here bsky.app/profile/simc..., though Hanukkah is typically remembered as a clash of cultures, this is an ideological framing imposed by our literary evidence. This helps explain why the Hasmoneans are so "Hellenized"! 🧵 1/12

submitted 55 days ago • 1 comment

Disappointed there is no equivalent scriptural text for Hanukkah like the Scroll of Esther? Say hello to the Scroll of Antiochus, a fascinating text that nearly became a widespread feature of Jewish Hanukkah liturgy, and challenges the notion of a "closed canon". 🧵 1/10

submitted 56 days ago • 2 comments