ABSTRACT
The coast, the ship, and the port are three primary elements that reflect man’s relationship to the sea throughout history and determine the forms of maritime identity. While the geographical structure of shores conditions different types of settlement and of maritime occupations, the ship and the port represent the technological and economic motivations of m an’s activity at sea. Peoples and civilizations may be characterized as ‘maritime’ not only by the practice of seafaring but also by their perception of the maritime sphere, that is, by the way in which they assimilate the sea and express it through literature, art, and material culture. A possible classification of various relationships to the sea could be organized in terms of a gradient from ‘passive’ to ‘active’ maritime attitudes, including types of coastal settlements, maritime occupations in ports, trade and seafaring, naval warfare, and the construction and operation of ships and fleets. The goal of this paper is to examine, with the help of literary and archaeological sources, the extent to which Judaism and the Jews of the Graeco-Roman period reacted to the sea and seafaring and how their maritime attitudes were expressed.
