End of April, 1741. A son was recently born to Empress Maria Theresa, and the Jewish community in Prague is celebrating, parading in the streets. The blaring of trumpets, the pounding of drums, and the swell of joyous melodies fill the air. Leading the procession is the Jewish postman, wearing a wig with a long braid, topped by a luxurious hat. After him, accompanied by two trumpeters, rides Simon Wolff Frankel — the ‘primator’ — the mayor of the Jewish city, so says the inscription in German that describes the detailed drawing of the procession of the Jews through the streets of the city. From the medieval to the early modern era, the city was the political unit of the greatest importance. Thus, early modern urban processions are understood in the research literature to represent the different parts of society and the internal relations between them. Edward Muir has suggested that they can be seen as a kind of unwritten ‘civic constitution’, where the processions did more than showcase social order; they symbolically reinforced the city’s identity as a cohesive political unit. It is therefore unsurprising to see the head of the community, Simon Wolff, leading the procession of the Jewish city of Prague, in the first row. The presence of scholars and rabbis, representatives of the religious–traditional leadership in the second row, is also not unexpected. The Jewish guilds (butchers, tailors, and bookbinders) asserted their prominence within the community by their flags hanging from huge poles. Yet what most catches the eye is the enormous image of Bacchus. Six Jews lead his carriage, and he himself is riding on a giant wine barrel. Behind him, a Jewish reveller dances while brandishing a bottle of beer. Not far from him is a giant platform carried by eight people, on which the god Pan is depicted as he plays his long shepherd’s flute. Forest animals are also carried on the platform, peeping from between the trees, enchanted by his melody. Why are Bacchus and Pan marching in the Jewish street? What was their role in the cultural composition of Jewish communities in Europe in the eighteenth century? This question should naturally be directed to the rabbi — the representative of religious authority in the traditional Jewish community in the early modern period. Let us turn to the row of bearded rabbis in the second row of the procession. One of them, Rabbi Jonathan Eybeschütz (1690–1764) served at that time as the senior rabbinical authority in the city’s Jewish community. Three years after marching alongside Bacchus and Pan in a parade, Rabbi Eybeschütz surprisingly described the importance of Greco-Roman mythology for Jewish culture.

— Maoz Kahana, The return of the gods: Greco-Roman mythology in eighteenth-century rabbinic lore