JESUS AS THE NEW JEW: ZIONISM AND THE LITERARY REPRESENTATION OF JESUS

Abstract

This article deals with Modern Hebrew writers' attempt to present Jesus as part of the national project of Zionism. It argues that Jesus functions in these works in different and sometimes opposite ways and that the Zionist project was eager to distinguish itself from the world of traditional Judaism by embracing its ultimate Other. In this sense, the reclamation of Jesus by Zionist writers can be understood as an attempt to mark the boundaries of the new Jewish self vis-à-vis traditional Judaism. But Jesus's Otherness functioned as more than that––it provided a kind of mirror that reflected to Zionist writers their own communal identities. In order to find themselves in this mirror, they had to distinguish between the Jesus of Christianity and the historical, “authentic” Jewish Jesus.

Notes

For outstanding studies of modern Jewish historiography and thought on Jesus see Fleishman, The Problem of Christianity, and Heschel, Abraham Geiger and the Jewish Jesus.

Heschel, Abraham Geiger and the Jewish Jesus, 13; see also Fleishman, The Problem of Christianity, 106–18.

For a detailed historical discussion of the figure of Jesus in Zionist thought at the beginning of the twentieth century, see Sadan, Of Our Very Own Flesh, and Werses, From Mendele to Hazaz. For preliminary discussion of Israeli depictions of Jesus, see Lapid, Israelis, Jews and Jesus, and also Waldman, “Glimpses of Yiddish and Hebrew Literature”, 223–39. For a full discussion of the representations of Jesus in modern Hebrew literature, see Stahl, Tselem Yehudi, and the expanded English version of the work, Other and Brother: Jesus in 20th Century Jewish Literary Landscape. For a discussion of the representation of Jesus in Yiddish literature and culture see Hoffman, From Rebel to Rabbi. Also see Weininger, Imagining Jesus, Imagining Jews, 71–114; Ben-Chorin, “The Image of Jesus in Modern Judaism”, 401–30; Roskies, Against Apocalypse, 258–310; Amishai-Maisels, “Origins of the Jewish Jesus”.

Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, “Lordship and Bondage”. Cf. Forster, Hegel's Idea, 111, 248–55.

Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 238–53.

Bhabha, “The Other Question”, 38.

As Anita Shapira describes in her 1997 book, New Jews Old Jews [Yehudim hadashim yehudim yeshanin], the ideology that promoted the need to reshape the face of the Jewish people appeared toward the end of the eighteenth century, before the beginning of Zionism. Yet, the myth of “the New Jew” was strongly connected to the Land of Israel. According to Shapira, the Zionist view was that only through the connection between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel could this dramatic transformation actually take place. For further reading on the Zionist perception of the New Jew, see Shapira, New Jews Old Jews, 155–91.

As the “Translator's Preface” to the 1925 English edition of his book reveals, Klausner considered himself a scholar who had a “high and well-earned reputation as writer, historian and leader of thought in those Jewish circles working in the cause of the present Hebrew cultural revival commonly called Zionism” (Klausner, Jesus of Nazareth: His Life, Times and Teaching, 5).

Sadan, Of Our Very Own Flesh, 129.

Due to space limitations and my attempt to emphasize specific elements of the exodus of Jesus from Europe to Palestine and from Christianity to national Judaism in the form of Zionism, I will not discuss all of these writers in this article. For a detailed discussion of these writers, please see chapter 1 of my Tselem Yehudi.

On the “Brenner Affair” and its aftermath see Govrin, The Brenner's Affair. For a detailed and most interesting discussion of Brenner and the reactions to his article in the context of Zionism and its relation to Jesus, see Sadan, Of Our Very Own Flesh, 92–126.

Brenner, The Complete Works of Y.H. Brenner, 57.

Ibid. 59.

Ibid. 58.

Ibid. 59.

Ibid.

“Torah mitsiyon”, in The Complete Work of Ahad Ha`am, 407.

Sadan, Of Our Very Own Flesh, 56. Sadan also presents a detailed discussion of Ahad Ha`am's views of Christianity and the relationship between Judaism and Christianity: see 30–57.

Sadan, Of Our Very Own Flesh, 101; Kna`ani, The Second Aliya, 71.

Klausner, “Freedon and Heresy”, 88–91.

“Leharhavat hagvulin” in He`atid III (Berlin, 1923), 134–5.

Werses, From Mendele to Hazaz, 336–7.

Klausner's book was harshly criticized by both Jewish and Christian historians for its lack of historical accuracy. I will not discuss historians' reactions to Klausner's book here, but important to our discussion is a short review that appeared in the journal Hatekufa, of a Yiddish book by S.Z Zetser, entitled Tsu Der enthtehung fun Kristetum (1922, USA). The book was a response to Klausner's book, and its goal was to present a traditional Jewish depiction of Jesus––”to place ‘that man’ outside the camp of Israel” (219). The reviewer, A.S. Kamnatski, who was the Hebrew translator of Graetz's Geschichte der Juden (vols. 3 and 4, 1870), accuses Klausner of negatively influencing Hebrew writers who take un-established facts from these books and teach them to their young Jewish readers (Hatekufa 20, 1923: 519–21). This was a typical critique of Klausner's book and it demonstrates the fact that the book was already conceived as a source of inspiration for Hebrew writers soon after its publication.

Klausner, Jesus of Nazareth, 231, 236. For the sake of accuracy I have made some changes to the translation. Compare with Klausner's Jesus of Nazareth: His Time, Life and Teaching [Yeshu HaNotzri: zmano, hayav vetorato], 244–5.

The same theme repeats itself in several later Hebrew works. See, for example, Mossinson, Judas Iscariot.

Published in Sdarim, Dec. 1941, 413.

Kabak, “Why did I write The Narrow Path?”

Kabak, The Narrow Path, 347.

On the reception of Bamish`ol hatzar, see Alon, ‘Jews, Christians and Others’, 163–90.

Asch first tried to publish chapters of the novel in different Yiddish literary periodicals, but was rejected. He ended up sending the novel to the Communist Yiddish newspaper Morgen frayhayt, which was the only one to agree to publish chapters from the novel.

On the reception of Asch's Christian trilogy in the Jewish world, see Berliner Fischtahl, “Reactions of the Yiddish Press”; Norich, Discovering Exile, 74–95; Alon, “Jews, Christians and Others”, 175–99.

Morgentaler, “The Foreskin of the Heart”, 222.

Cited in Alon, “Jews, Christians and Others”, 186; my translation.

Heschel, Abraham Geiger and the Jewish Jesus, 3.

Bistritzky, Jesus of Nazareth, 14

See Stahl, Tselem Yehudi, 69–105.

Cited in Tzur, Our Community, 68.

Hever, Captives of Utopia, 7.

Translated by Charles A. Cowen (with my own minor modifications).

“Ki ba mo`ed”––”You will arise and take pity on Zion, for it is time to be gracious to her; for the appointed time has come” (Psalms 102:14).

Translated by Charles A. Cowen.

For a detailed discussion of Greenberg's Jesus, see: Stahl, “Uri Zvi Before the Cross”, 49–80; Abramson, “The Crucified Brother”, 171–186; Weininger, Imagining Jesus, Imagining Jews, 71–114.

Greenberg, The Complete Works, vol. I, 44–5.

Greenberg, “In the Kingdom of the Cross”, 15–24.

Greenberg, The Complete Works, vol. I, 46.

Rimon, Vol. 6, 1924, Berlin, 21.

Around the same time, Zalman Shneour's (1887–1959) poem “The Words of Don Henriquez” also appeared, first written in Hebrew as “Divrei Don Henriquez” (Berlin 1922), and later published in an expanded Yiddish version as “Di Verter fun Don Henriquez” (Paris 1931). The speaker of the poem is Don Henriquez, a Marrano who is about to be burned at the stake by the Inquisition. The poem presents this Jewish martyr's last words, directed at Jesus and calling him not to trust the gentiles and to return to the Jewish people. For further discussion of Shneour's poem, see Stahl, Tselem Yehudi, 87–90; Waldman, “Glimpses of Yiddish and Hebrew Literature”, 226–7; Hoffman, From Rebel to Rabbi, 181–8.

Shlonsky [Poems], 133. My translation.

Shlonsky [Poems], 183.

Shlonsky [Poems], 183–4.

As Hanan Hever mentions, the allusion to the Twelve may also refer to Alexander Blok's revolutionary poem “The Twelve” which Shlonsky translated into Hebrew, and which associates Jesus and his disciples with the October revolution (Hever, Captives of Utopia, 32).

Shlonsky [Poems], 185. My translation.

See Hever, Captives of Utopia, 7.

Cited in Hever, Captives of Utopia, 7; my translation.