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

Lecture & Performance Admission: Free

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 interreligious encounter 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 1500 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.

Join YIVO for a very Jewish Christmas celebration featuring a talk on the history and receptions of Toledot Yeshu by Azzan Yadin-Israel. Following Yadin-Israel’s presentation, Shane Baker and Eleanor Reissa will perform a bilingual reading, in Yiddish and English, of a version of the story.

About 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.

Other programs in this series:
A Very Jewish Christmas: Jesus and Shabbtai Zvi, from Heretic to Hero (2022)
Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese Food (2020)
A Very Jewish Christmas: Old World Jewish Christmas Traditions (2019)
A Very Jewish Christmas (2017)