Editing Zenobia (section)

======Judaism======
Less than a hundred years after Zenobia's reign, Athanasius of Alexandria called her a "Jewess" in his ''History of the Arians''.{{sfn|Teixidor|2005|p= [https://books.google.com/books?id=oZcr7SzzVYYC&pg=PA217 217]}} In 391, archbishop [[John Chrysostom]] wrote that Zenobia was Jewish; so did a [[Syriac Christianity|Syriac]] chronicler around 664 and bishop [[Bar Hebraeus]] in the thirteenth century.{{sfn|Teixidor|2005|p= [https://books.google.com/books?id=oZcr7SzzVYYC&pg=PA217 217]}} According to French scholar [[Javier Teixidor]], Zenobia was probably a [[proselyte]]; this explained her strained relationship with the rabbis.{{sfn|Teixidor|2005|p= [https://books.google.com/books?id=oZcr7SzzVYYC&pg=PA218 218]}} Teixidor believed that Zenobia became interested in [[Judaism]] when Longinus spoke about the philosopher [[Porphyry (philosopher)|Porphyry]] and his interest in the [[Old Testament]].{{sfn|Teixidor|2005|p= [https://books.google.com/books?id=oZcr7SzzVYYC&pg=PA218 218]}} Although [[Talmud]]ic sources were hostile to Palmyra because of Odaenathus' suppression of the Jews of [[Nehardea]],{{sfn|Smallwood|1976|p= [https://books.google.com/books?id=FdQUAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA532 532]}} Zenobia apparently had the support of some Jewish communities (particularly in Alexandria).{{sfn|Watson|2004|p= [https://books.google.com/books?id=kJ2JAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA64 64]}} In [[Cairo]],{{sfn|Smallwood|1976|p= [https://books.google.com/books?id=jSYbpitEjggC&pg=PA517 517]}} a plaque originally bearing an inscription confirming a grant of immunity to a Jewish synagogue in the last quarter of the first millennium BC by King Ptolemy Euergetes ([[Ptolemy III Euergetes|I]] or [[Ptolemy VIII Physcon|II]]) was found.{{sfn|Smallwood|1976|p= [https://books.google.com/books?id=jSYbpitEjggC&pg=PA517 517]}} At a much later date, the plaque was re-inscribed to commemorate the restoration of immunity "on the orders of the queen and king" and the precedence of the queen in the ordering of the two titles is remarkable.{{sfn|Bowersock|1984|p= [http://quod.lib.umich.edu/b/basp/0599796.0021.001/38:4?page=root;size=100;view=image 32]}}{{sfn|Smallwood|1976|p= [https://books.google.com/books?id=jSYbpitEjggC&pg=PA517 517]}} Although it is undated, the letters of the inscription date to long after Cleopatra and Anthony's era; Zenobia and her nominal co-monarch Vaballathus, who controlled Egypt in 270–272, are the only candidates for a king and a queen ruling Egypt after the Ptolemies.{{sfn|Bowersock|1984|p= [http://quod.lib.umich.edu/b/basp/0599796.0021.001/38:4?page=root;size=100;view=image 32]}}{{sfn|Smallwood|1976|p= [https://books.google.com/books?id=jSYbpitEjggC&pg=PA518 518]}}

The historian [[E. Mary Smallwood]] wrote that good relations with the [[Jewish diaspora#Under the Roman Empire|diaspora]] community did not mean that the Jews of Palestine were content with Zenobia's reign, and her rule was apparently opposed in that region.{{sfn|Smallwood|1976|p= [https://books.google.com/books?id=FdQUAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA532 532]}} The [[Jerusalem Talmud]], in [[Masekhet|Tractate]] [[Terumot]] tells the story of the [[amoraim]] Rabbi "Ammi" and Rabbi "Samuel bar Nahmani", who visited Zenobia's court and asked for the release of a Jew ("Zeir bar Hinena") detained on her orders.{{sfn|Hartmann|2001|p= [https://books.google.com/books?id=BdcHK8Ll1jMC&pg=PA330 330]}} The queen refused, saying: "Why have you come to save him? He teaches that your creator performs miracles for you. Why not let God save him?"{{sfn|Neusner|2010|p= [https://books.google.com/books?id=OClDBJfW79QC&pg=PA125 125]}} During Aurelian's destruction of Palmyra, Palestinian conscripts with "clubs and cudgels" (who may have been Jews) played a vital role in Zenobia's defeat and the destruction of her city.{{sfn|Smallwood|1976|p= [https://books.google.com/books?id=FdQUAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA533 533]}}

There is no evidence of Zenobia's birth as a Jew; the names of her and her husband's families belonged to the Aramaic [[wikt:onomasticon|onomasticon]] (collection of names).{{sfn|Teixidor|2005|p= [https://books.google.com/books?id=oZcr7SzzVYYC&pg=PA218 218]}} The queen's alleged patronage of Paul of Samosata (who was accused of "Judaizing"),{{sfn|Smallwood|1976|p= [https://books.google.com/books?id=FdQUAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA532 532]}} may have given rise to the idea that she was a proselyte.{{sfn|Watson|2004|p= [https://books.google.com/books?id=kJ2JAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA65 65]}} Only Christian accounts note Zenobia's Jewishness; no Jewish source mentions it.{{sfn|Graetz|2009|p= [https://books.google.com/books?id=pnMtoAjig7wC&pg=PA529 529]}}