A Very Jewish Christmas: Jesus in Modern Jewish Literature
Schedule
Wed, 17 Dec, 2025 at 07:00 pm
UTC-05:00Location
15 W 16th St, New York, NY, United States, New York 10011 | New York, NY
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In person and on Zoom“Other, and indeed banned, and yet one of my brothers” was how the renowned Yiddish and Hebrew modernist, Uri Zvi Greenberg, expressed his ambivalence toward Jesus in one of his many poems about this towering figure. Greenberg’s contemporaries shared this sentiment. For them, Jesus was inextricably bound up with the history of violence towards Jews committed in his name. At the same time, he also embodied an “authentic national Jew,” whose suffering and resistance to the authorities of his time created a powerful image that played a significant role in rethinking Jewish identity.
In this talk, Neta Stahl will examine how Jewish writers portrayed Jesus during periods of significant transformations in Jewish life. She will demonstrate that Jesus serves a range of ideological, theological, aesthetic, political, social, and psychological functions that not only relate to the long history of Jewish-Christian relations in Europe but also reflect attempts to reframe Jewish national lives in the diaspora and Israel.
A kosher Chinese food dinner will follow the presentation.
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Where is it happening?
15 W 16th St, New York, NY, United States, New York 10011Event Location & Nearby Stays:
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