Joseph and Aseneth is a unique text, and testimony of a route not taken in the history of Judaism. It shows how fluid thinking about conversion could be in these early centuries. It imagines a strange mystical scene, one of lonely and intense prayer, fasting and ritual purity, and for a woman. This would not become the route of conversion for Jews. But it also shows how complicated the history of conversion is and how different Hellenistic and earlier Judaism is from the image offered by those who claim to speak for tradition.
Jacob Hassan 7 March 1956 to 1 May 2018 Jane Liddell-King Jacob Hassan was the youngest of 3 children. He leaves a sister, Magny and brother, Isaac. Born in Gibraltar weighing in at 11lbs, he grew to be a man overflowing with kindness. Educated at the Hebrew School, by the age of 9 he was in the top class studying Mishna and Gemara. For a year he attended the Christian Brothers' Grammar School before going as a 12-year-old to Carmel College. A Gibraltar Government Scholarship enabled Jacob to read Medicine at King's College, Cambridge. Unusually, he stayed on at Addenbrooke's Hospital for his clinical studies. He relates how, when his viva had been scheduled for Yom Kippur, Sir Roy Calne arranged for a change of date. Jacob's House jobs were local. He relished an event that happened when he was working in Obstetrics at Harlow's Princess Alexandra Hospital. The department had two postnatal wards which came in particularly useful when one man proved to have fathered a baby by 27