Lecture in conjunction with the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society. 

The discovery of mikvehs in Early Roman Period synagogues fits well with the discovery of many domestic mikvehs – in some settlements, a mikveh was unearthed in almost every house – and together seem to indicate that large segments of Jewish society followed halakhaic norms concerning purity and impurity. Mikvehs are so prevalent, that the synagogues in which mikvehs were discovered are surrounded by houses with mikvehs, which raises the question why were so many public mikvehs needed.

Dr. Eyal Baruch teaches at the Martin (Szusz) Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology and at Department of Jewish Art in Bar-Ilan University, where he completed his Ph.D. in archaeology as well as his M.A. and B.A. from Bar Ilan University. His main fields of research and teaching are the archaeology of the Land of Israel during the Hellenistic, Roman and Byzantine Periods and Jewish Society and Material culture during those periods.