BETURIA, PAULINA:
Roman proselyte to Judaism (about the year 50), known under the name "Sarah," who, according to her Latin epitaph, was eighty-six years and six months old at the time of her death. For sixteen years she was a Jewess, a mother of the synagogues ("mater synagogarum") of the Campesian and Volumnian communities in Rome. A proselyte variously mentioned in Talmudic sources as Beluryah, Beruryah, Belurit, and Beruẓia, who was learned in the Jewish law, and who induced her slaves to become proselytes (Mek., Bo, 15; R. H. 17b; Yeb. 46a; Gerim. ii. 4), is perhaps identical with Beturia.
Bibliography:
- Grätz, Gesch. der Juden, 3d ed., iv. 102;
- Vogelstein and Rieger, Gesch. der Juden in Rom, i. 74.
