Marian Devotion and the Jewish Gospel (Toledot Yeshu) in Eighteenth Century Amsterdam

While cataloguing Yiddish manuscripts from the Netherlands I noted the peculiarity of the Toledot Yeshutradition and decided to consider the manuscripts of this Jewish life of Jesus in a distinct chapter.1Whereas the origins of this polemical narrative remain debated, its enduring popularity throughout the centuries is truly astonishing. The story of Jesus was constantly retold, with slight changes updating the general narrative and adapting it to new historical situations. The Yiddish texts from the Netherlands are all handwritten and were compiled from Hebrew texts. But the compilers also felt free to supplement their sources and alter and fit them to their current situation. So far, little attention has been given to the Yiddish versions of Toledot Yeshu. In an earlier study examining the oldest extant Toledot Yeshu manuscript from the Netherlands, produced in 1711, I sought to show a connection between the declining messianic movement generated by the seventeenth-century Jewish ‘messiah’ Sabbatai Zvi and this retelling of the life of Jesus. In the same volume, Claudia Rosenzweig published a transcription of this manuscript, along with a translation and critical apparatus, making it available for further research. In another study, Rosenzweig also examined another early Yiddish manuscript of Toledot Yeshu, now held in the Russian State Library in Moscow. <a href="https://universityofflorence.medium.com/marian-devotion-and-the-jewish-gospel-toledot-yeshu-in-eighteenth-century-amsterdam-d9894fc9aed8">Read More</a>