YIVO Presents: A Very Jewish Christmas: Toledot Yeshu, A Jewish Anti-Gospel

(New York, NY) – For the fourth year in a row, the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research will delve into how Jewish culture developed around Christmas.

On Wednesday, December 22, 2021 at 7:00pm (ET), YIVO will present A Very Jewish Christmas: Toledot Yeshu, A Jewish Anti-Gospel, a talk by Azzan Yadin-Israel on the history of this ancient book followed by an English-Yiddish bilingual reading of it by Shane Baker and Eleanor Reissa.

While the “December Dilemma” is a familiar challenge to Jews today, it has its origins in antiquity. Jews in the early days of Christianity encountered Christian traditions and sought to distinguish themselves and their beliefs. One result of this is the ancient book, Toledot Yeshu, a satirical, carnivalesque anti-gospel telling the story of a magical but not divine Jesus. It was, in some Jewish communities, a tradition to read this story dramatically on Christmas Eve similar to the way that the Megiles-Ester is read on Purim. The text, shrouded in mystery, is extant in a variety of versions, and is believed to contain narrative traditions that are over 1,500 years old. Renditions exist in Hebrew, Aramaic, Judeo Arabic, Judeo Persian, Ladino, and, of course, Yiddish. Rare versions were saved by the Paper Brigade from Nazi destruction and recently digitized as a part of the Edward Blank YIVO Vilna Online Collections Project.

When:            Wednesday, December 22, 2021 at 7:00pm (ET)
Where:          Taking Place in Person and Live on Zoom
Reservations Available at:  yivo.org/JewishChristmas2021

For more information contact:
Alex Weiser
Director of Public Programs

THE PARTICIPANTS

Azzan Yadin-Israel is a professor in the departments of Jewish Studies and Classics are Rutgers University, having earned a BA from the Hebrew University and a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. His primary area of scholarship is early rabbinic literature, and he has published two books on midrash with the University of Pennsylvania Press. His monograph, "How the Forbidden Fruit Became and Apple" is forthcoming with the University of Chicago Press.

Shane Baker is executive director of the Congress for Jewish Culture, a Yiddish cultural organization based in New York. He is best known for playing Vladimir in his own Yiddish translation of Waiting for Godot, both Off Broadway and internationally. Pre-pandemic, he was appearing as his alter ego, Mitzi Manna in Her First-Ever Final Farewell Tour, with plans to continue in 2022. In 2020, he received Adrienne Cooper Dreaming in Yiddish Award.

Eleanor Reissa is a Tony nominated director, international concert artist, award winning playwright and Broadway actor. Fluent in two languages, English and Yiddish, she has lived a life in the theatre for over thirty years, in nearly every entertainment medium and in many parts of the world. Her work is unique, honest, authentic, and reflects who she is. She appeals to a wide audience and has received critical recognition by the press as well as her peers.

YIVO

The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research is dedicated to the preservation and study of the history and culture of East European Jewry worldwide. For nearly a century, YIVO has pioneered new forms of Jewish scholarship, research, education, and cultural expression. Our public programs and exhibitions, as well as online and on-site courses, extend our outreach to a global community. The YIVO Archives contains 24 million unique items and YIVO’s Library has over 400,000 volumes—the single largest resource for the study of East European Jewish life in the world. yivo.org / yivo.org/the-whole-story