About

Seth Schwartz is the Lucius N. Littauer Professor of Classical Jewish Civilization at Columbia University. He is a social, cultural, and political historian specializing in the ancient Jews, with strong interests in their Hellenistic, Roman, and early Christian environments. Schwartz earned his Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1985, his M.A. from Columbia University in 1981, and his B.A. from Yeshiva University in 1979. His research focuses on the history of the ancient Jews, exploring their societal structures, cultural interactions, and political developments during significant periods of antiquity. He has authored several influential books, including 'The Ancient Jews from Alexander to Muhammad' (2014), 'Were the Jews A Mediterranean Society? Reciprocity and Solidarity in Ancient Judaism' (2010), 'Imperialism and Jewish Society, 200 BCE to 640 CE' (2001), and 'Josephus and Judaean Politics' (1990). Schwartz has received numerous awards and fellowships, such as a Guggenheim Fellowship (1999-2000), a Junior Fellowship at the Harvard Society of Fellows (1987-1990), and fellowships at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Jerusalem and the University of Pennsylvania. His scholarly work contributes significantly to the understanding of Jewish history within broader Mediterranean and imperial contexts.

Research topics

• Medicine
• Intensive care medicine
• Pathology
• Family medicine
• Surgery
• Business
• Finance
• Audiology
• Pediatrics

Selected publications

• Auditory Outcomes Following Cochlear Implantation in Children with Unilateral Hearing Loss

  Otology & Neurotology · 2024-03-21 · 4 citations

  articleOpen access

  OBJECTIVE: Unilateral hearing loss (UHL) in children is associated with speech and language delays. Cochlear implantation (CI) is currently the only rehabilitative option that restores binaural hearing. This study aims to describe auditory outcomes in children who underwent CI for UHL and to determine the association between duration of hearing loss and auditory outcomes. STUDY DESIGN: Retrospective case series. SETTING: Three tertiary-level, academic institutions. PATIENTS: Children <18 years with UHL who underwent CI between 2018 and 2021. INTERVENTION: Cochlear implantation. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Speech perception and Speech, Spatial and Qualities of Hearing Scale (SSQ) were assessed postimplantation. Scores >50% on speech perception and SSQ scores >8 points were considered satisfactory. Associations between duration of UHL and implantation age and outcomes were assessed using Spearman's rank correlation. RESULTS: Of the 38 children included, mean age at CI was 7.9 ± 3.2 years and mean UHL duration was 5.0 ± 2.8 years. Mean datalogging was 8.1 ± 3.1 hours/day. Mean auditory testing scores were SSQ, 7.9 ± 1.2; BABY BIO, 68.1 ± 30.2%; CNC, 38.4 ± 28.4%; WIPI, 52.5 ± 23.1%. Scores >50% on CNC testing were achieved by 40% of patients. SSQ scores >8 points were reported by 78% (7/9) of patients. There were no significant correlations between UHL duration and auditory outcomes. CONCLUSION: Overall, children with UHL who undergo CI can achieve satisfactory speech perception scores and SSQ scores. There were no associations between duration of hearing loss and age at implantation with auditory outcomes. Multiple variables may impact auditory outcomes, including motivation, family support, access to technology, and consistent isolated auditory training postactivation and should be taken into consideration in addition to age at implantation and duration of UHL in determination of CI candidacy.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The Jews and the Decian Persecution, 250 CE

  SBL Press eBooks · 2024-06-07

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Deep Brain Stimulation for Primary Refractory Tinnitus: A Systematic Review

  Brain Sciences · 2024-04-30 · 9 citations

  reviewOpen access

  BACKGROUND: tinnitus is a common and often debilitating condition with limited evidence-based treatment options. Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is an approved treatment modality for certain neurological conditions; its experimental use as a treatment modality for severe tinnitus is novel and beginning to show promise. This systematic review focuses on the current evidence for the safety and efficacy of DBS for treatment of refractory tinnitus. METHODS: a systematic search in PubMed and EMBASE was performed to identify peer-reviewed studies on DBS of non-cortical structures for the primary indication of tinnitus treatment. Three studies were identified as meeting these criteria, one of which had two related sub-studies. RESULTS: seven patients with available data who underwent DBS for tinnitus were identified. DBS targets included nucleus accumbens (NAc), ventral anterior limb of the internal capsule (vALIC), caudate nucleus, and the medial geniculate body (MGB) of the thalamus. All studies used the Tinnitus Functional Index (TFI) as a primary outcome measure. DBS of the caudate was most commonly reported (n = 5), with a mean TFI improvement of 23.3 points. Only one subject underwent DBS targeting the NAc/vALIC (extrapolated TFI improvement 46.8) and one subject underwent DBS targeting the MGB (TFI improvement 59 points). CONCLUSIONS: DBS is a promising treatment option for refractory subjective tinnitus, with early data, from small patient cohorts in multiple studies, suggesting its safety and efficacy. Further studies with a larger patient population are needed to support this safety and efficacy before implementing this treatment to daily practice.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The Impact of the Jewish Revolts on the Jews of Asia Minor

  SBL Press eBooks · 2024-03-29

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Clinical Practice Guideline: Age‐Related Hearing Loss Executive Summary

  Otolaryngology · 2024-04-29 · 6 citations

  articleOpen access

  OBJECTIVE: Age-related hearing loss (ARHL) is a prevalent but often underdiagnosed and undertreated condition among individuals aged 50 and above. It is associated with various sociodemographic factors and health risks including dementia, depression, cardiovascular disease, and falls. While the causes of ARHL and its downstream effects are well defined, there is a lack of priority placed by clinicians as well as guidance regarding the identification, education, and management of this condition. PURPOSE: The purpose of this clinical practice guideline is to identify quality improvement opportunities and provide clinicians trustworthy, evidence-based recommendations regarding the identification and management of ARHL. These opportunities are communicated through clear actionable statements with an explanation of the support in the literature, the evaluation of the quality of the evidence, and recommendations on implementation. The target patients for the guideline are any individuals aged 50 years and older. The target audience is all clinicians in all care settings. This guideline is intended to focus on evidence-based quality improvement opportunities judged most important by the Guideline Development Group (GDG). It is not intended to be a comprehensive, general guide regarding the management of ARHL. The statements in this guideline are not intended to limit or restrict care provided by clinicians based on their experience and assessment of individual patients. ACTION STATEMENTS: The GDG made strong recommendations for the following key action statements (KASs): (KAS 4) If screening suggests hearing loss, clinicians should obtain or refer to a clinician who can obtain an audiogram. (KAS 8) Clinicians should offer, or refer to a clinician who can offer, appropriately fit amplification to patients with ARHL. (KAS 9) Clinicians should refer patients for an evaluation of cochlear implantation candidacy when patients have appropriately fit amplification and persistent hearing difficulty with poor speech understanding. The GDG made recommendations for the following KASs: (KAS 1) Clinicians should screen patients aged 50 years and older for hearing loss at the time of a health care encounter. (KAS 2) If screening suggests hearing loss, clinicians should examine the ear canal and tympanic membrane with otoscopy or refer to a clinician who can examine the ears for cerumen impaction, infection, or other abnormalities. (KAS 3) If screening suggests hearing loss, clinicians should identify sociodemographic factors and patient preferences that influence access to and utilization of hearing health care. (KAS 5) Clinicians should evaluate and treat or refer to a clinician who can evaluate and treat patients with significant asymmetric hearing loss, conductive or mixed hearing loss, or poor word recognition on diagnostic testing. (KAS 6) Clinicians should educate and counsel patients with hearing loss and their family/care partner(s) about the impact of hearing loss on their communication, safety, function, cognition, and quality of life. (KAS 7) Clinicians should counsel patients with hearing loss on communication strategies and assistive listening devices. (KAS 10) For patients with hearing loss, clinicians should assess if communication goals have been met and if there has been improvement in hearing-related quality of life at a subsequent health care encounter or within 1 year. The GDG offered the following KAS as an option: (KAS 11) Clinicians should assess hearing at least every 3 years in patients with known hearing loss or with reported concern for changes in hearing.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Clinical Practice Guideline: Age‐Related Hearing Loss

  Otolaryngology · 2024-04-30 · 33 citations

  articleOpen access

  OBJECTIVE: Age-related hearing loss (ARHL) is a prevalent but often underdiagnosed and undertreated condition among individuals aged 50 and above. It is associated with various sociodemographic factors and health risks including dementia, depression, cardiovascular disease, and falls. While the causes of ARHL and its downstream effects are well defined, there is a lack of priority placed by clinicians as well as guidance regarding the identification, education, and management of this condition. PURPOSE: The purpose of this clinical practice guideline is to identify quality improvement opportunities and provide clinicians trustworthy, evidence-based recommendations regarding the identification and management of ARHL. These opportunities are communicated through clear actionable statements with explanation of the support in the literature, evaluation of the quality of the evidence, and recommendations on implementation. The target patients for the guideline are any individuals aged 50 years and older. The target audience is all clinicians in all care settings. This guideline is intended to focus on evidence-based quality improvement opportunities judged most important by the guideline development group (GDG). It is not intended to be a comprehensive, general guide regarding the management of ARHL. The statements in this guideline are not intended to limit or restrict care provided by clinicians based on their experience and assessment of individual patients. ACTION STATEMENTS: The GDG made strong recommendations for the following key action statements (KASs): (KAS 4) If screening suggests hearing loss, clinicians should obtain or refer to a clinician who can obtain an audiogram. (KAS 8) Clinicians should offer, or refer to a clinician who can offer, appropriately fit amplification to patients with ARHL. (KAS 9) Clinicians should refer patients for an evaluation of cochlear implantation candidacy when patients have appropriately fit amplification and persistent hearing difficulty with poor speech understanding. The GDG made recommendations for the following KASs: (KAS 1) Clinicians should screen patients aged 50 years and older for hearing loss at the time of a health care encounter. (KAS 2) If screening suggests hearing loss, clinicians should examine the ear canal and tympanic membrane with otoscopy or refer to a clinician who can examine the ears for cerumen impaction, infection, or other abnormalities. (KAS 3) If screening suggests hearing loss, clinicians should identify sociodemographic factors and patient preferences that influence access to and utilization of hearing health care. (KAS 5) Clinicians should evaluate and treat or refer to a clinician who can evaluate and treat patients with significant asymmetric hearing loss, conductive or mixed hearing loss, or poor word recognition on diagnostic testing. (KAS 6) Clinicians should educate and counsel patients with hearing loss and their family/care partner(s) about the impact of hearing loss on their communication, safety, function, cognition, and quality of life (QOL). (KAS 7) Clinicians should counsel patients with hearing loss on communication strategies and assistive listening devices. (KAS 10) For patients with hearing loss, clinicians should assess if communication goals have been met and if there has been improvement in hearing-related QOL at a subsequent health care encounter or within 1 year. The GDG offered the following KAS as an option: (KAS 11) Clinicians should assess hearing at least every 3 years in patients with known hearing loss or with reported concern for changes in hearing.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Cochlear Implantation Outcomes in Pediatric Unilateral Hearing Loss: Impact of Device Use and Direct Input

  Otolaryngology · 2024-02-05 · 6 citations

  articleOpen access

  OBJECTIVE: To investigate the impact of daily cochlear implant (CI) use on speech perception outcomes among children with unilateral hearing loss (UHL). STUDY DESIGN: Multi-institutional retrospective case series of pediatric patients with UHL who underwent CI between 2018 to 2022. SETTING: Three tertiary children's hospitals. METHODS: Demographics were obtained including duration of deafness and age at CI. Best consonant-nucleus-consonant (CNC) word scores and data logs describing hours of CI usage were assessed postimplantation. Use of direct audio input (DAI) during rehabilitation was recorded. RESULTS: Twenty-seven children were included, with a mean age at CI of 7.8 years. Mean datalogging time was 7.8 ± 3.0 hours/day. 40.7% of children utilized daily DAI. The mean CNC score using the best score during the study period was 34.9%. There was no significant correlation between hours of CI usage and CNC score. There was a significant improvement in CNC score associated with whether the child used DAI during rehabilitation (CNC 50.91% [yes] vs 23.81% [no]), which remained significant when adjusting for age at CI, duration of deafness, and data log hours. CONCLUSION: Unlike children with bilateral hearing loss and CI, children with UHL and CI demonstrate no significant correlation between hours of daily CI usage and CNC scores. However, children who used DAI during postoperative rehabilitation achieved significantly higher CNC scores than those who did not. This suggests that rehabilitation focused on isolated listening with the implanted ear maybe critical in optimizing outcomes with CI in UHL patients.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Problematic social media use and vaping among Mexican-American college students

  Digital Health · 2024-01-01 · 7 citations

  articleOpen access

  Introduction: Social media use and vaping nicotine are highly prevalent in the daily lives of young adults, especially among Mexican-American college students. The excessive and compulsive use of social media platforms, coupled with the urge to stay continuously connected, can lead to problematic social media use. To date, no studies have explored the impact of problematic social media use on the daily patterns of vaping among this vulnerable population. Methods: In Spring 2023, we employed Ecological Momentary Assessment over a period of 14 days to collect real-time daily data on participants' social media use and vaping behaviors via a mobile phone-based application. Participants were 51 Mexican-American college students aged 18-25 years, 72.5% female, who were current vapers. We used generalized linear regression models to examine differences in vaping behaviors among participants with and without problematic social media use. All regression models adjusted for age, sex, and SES. Results: < .05). Problematic social media use is associated with more frequent daily vaping [b = 0.03; 95% CI: 0.02-0.05], increased number of days vaping [b = 0.14; 95% CI: 0.07-0.20], and vaping higher nicotine concentrations [b = 0.08; 95% CI: 0.03-0.14]. Conclusion: Results suggest that problematic social media use significantly increases the risk of daily vaping among Mexican-American college students. Findings highlight the need to strengthen digital resilience and social media literacy to help college students navigate and mitigate the risks of social media.

  PublisherDOI

• Hearing Science Accelerator: Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss—Executive Summary of Research Initiatives

  Otology & Neurotology · 2024-10-28 · 1 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Corpus Inscriptionum Iudaeae/Palaestinae 5: Galilaea and Northern Regions ed. by W. Ameling et al. (review)

  Phoenix · 2023-03-01

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Reviewed by: Corpus Inscriptionum Iudaeae/Palaestinae 5: Galilaea and Northern Regions ed. by W. Ameling et al. Seth Schwartz Corpus Inscriptionum Iudaeae/Palaestinae 5: Galilaea and Northern Regions Edited by W. Ameling, H. Cotton, W. Eck, A. Ecker, J. Heinrichs, B. Isaac, A. Kushnir-Stein†, J. Price, P. Weiss, O. Abudarham, and A. Yardeni†. Berlin: De Gruyter. 2023. Part 1: xliv, 1041; part 2: x, 2098. Volume 5 is the richest and most complex of the CIIP volumes so far. The territory covered, corresponding to Israel north of the Jezreel Valley, is small: a mere thirty miles from the Sea of Galilee to the Mediterranean, and sixty from Skythopolis/Beth Shean at the southern end to the Israel-Lebanon border at Metula, in the so-called Finger of Galilee, which is not part of Galilee at all but is a segment of the Great Rift Valley that contains the Huleh Valley north of the Sea of Galilee and stretches north towards the Beqaa Valley. Until the recent past this was an area of staggering cultural complexity, some of it balkanized into separate enclaves and some of it evident in religiously, ethnically, and linguistically mixed towns and villages. This was, if anything, even more true in antiquity, and then, as later, highly local and particularized identities were only infrequently based on primordial local attachments. Indeed, the CIIP enables one to trace with ease the transformation of an area like the Huleh Valley, home at the opening of the period covered by the volumes to wealthy Greek farmstead-owning grandees (5920–61); to a landscape dotted with Greco-Phoenician villages, most notably the substantial settlement of Kadasa (5965–79); to the biblical Kedesh Naftali, containing in the middle Hellenistic period far more evidence for its Phoenician than its Greek affiliations; to a linguistic and constitutional shift under Rome, with all writing now in Greek and elements of an urban euergetistic culture in place, side by side with what could be read as religious survivals from an earlier period. More likely, however, these Greco-Syrian gods were innovations of the Roman period, as were the sodalities that cultivated their worship. But there is evidence for a real survival: a grandee, the owner of a great estate in the Valley, ca 200 c.e., whose oikonomos was distinguished enough to be commemorated with a beautifully carved and inscribed funerary altar. But the grandee is now not a Greek colonist but a Roman lady of senatorial rank (5978). Finally, there is evidence from the sixth century c.e. for the emergence of rural ecclesiastical foundations in the immediate vicinity of Kadasa as wielders of significant economic power, reinforced by imperial rescript (5983), testifying to the material impact of Christianization even in this peripheral part of the Holy Land. [End Page 171] An even more striking time-lapse effect is provided by two exceptionally significant items discovered on neighboring kibbutzim in the eastern Jezreel Valley, the rural hinterland of Skythopolis/Bet Shan/Beisan. The first text is the famous Hefziba inscription (7561), containing a dossier of documents recording privileges extended to the royal official Ptolemy son of Thraseas before and after the Fifth Syrian War, in the course of which Ptolemy switched sides. Ptolemy owned villages in the area to which the kings granted privileges. But the main privileges benefited Ptolemy himself: he received exclusive jurisdiction over the laoi who populated the villages of his lands, and even demanded a say in the resolution of disputes between "his" laoi and those controlled by others. This is important evidence for the virtual enserfment of the residents of proprietary villages of this grain-rich region. Flash forward seven hundred years, and much about the villagers is unrecognizable: the epigraphical remains of the synagogue at Bet Alfa, close to the findspot of the Hefziba inscription, introduce us to villagers with at least three self-consciously embraced and performed identities (as Jews, Bet-Alfans—in fact the ancient name of their village is unknown—and Romans), a strong sense of agency, and a recognition of the significance of their rural...

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Bevan Yueh

  University of Minnesota

  63 shared

• Shukri F. Khuri

  Harvard University

  49 shared

• William G. Henderson

  University of Colorado Denver

  49 shared

• Jennifer Daley

  49 shared

• Charles Maynard

  University of Washington

  49 shared

• Richard M. Rosenfeld

  SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University

  22 shared

• Daniel M. Zeitler

  Virginia Mason Medical Center

  20 shared

• Samantha Anne

  Cleveland Clinic

  14 shared

Education

• Ph.D.

  Columbia University

  1985

• M.A.

  Columbia University

  1981

• B.A.

  Yeshiva University

  1979

Awards & honors

• Junior Fellowship, Harvard Society of Fellows (1987-1990)
• Guggenheim Fellowship (1999-2000)
• Fellowship, Institute for Advanced Studies, Jerusalem (2002-…
• Membership, School of Historical Studies, Institute for Adva…
• NEH Fellowship (2006-07)