This project analyzes how ancient rabbis use Roman holidays like Saturnalia to encourage or prevent assimilation into their larger Roman imperial context. Building on scholarship that understands rabbinic texts as literary texts, I examine rabbinic prohibitions of interaction during Roman holidays and their corresponding narratives in the Roman age rabbinic tractate on foreign worship. This tractate describes how the rabbis propose living under Roman rule and how to deal with Roman idolatry such as baths and the worship of Roman gods. I find, using McCutcheon’s theory of mythification, that rabbinic texts show three motivations for the prohibition or allowance for interaction with Romans on their holidays: interactions were allowed because of an interest in the larger Roman economy but limited to avoid participating in Roman idolatry and to avoid the erosion of group identity in the Roman world. Finally, I apply this methodology to a Roman law on Purim in the Theodosian Code.