Jesus the Jew

ISBN-13: 9783639176001 / Angielski / Miękka / 2009 / 204 str.

Sonja Spear

Opis

In the decades leading up to the Second WorldWar, American Jews claimed the historical Jesus asa fellow Jew. By invoking Jesus theJew, liberal rabbis such as Kaufmann Kohler andStephen S. Wise used Jesus as a weapon againstChristian anti-Judaism, even as they sought Christianallies against racist Anti-Semitism.This book explores the figure of Jesus the Jew in thegoodwill (interfaith) movement of the 1920s, whenliberal Jews, Protestants, and Catholics joined torepudiate the exclusive Protestant nationalism of theKu Klux Klan. These goodwill exchanges attempted tocreate an inclusive national religious identity,laying the foundation for a newinterpretation of America as a "Judeo-Christian"country during WWII. The book follows Jesus the Jewfrom the polemics of liberal rabbis to the rhetoricof liberal Protestants, who invoked the Jewishidentity of the historical Jesus in their ownstruggle against fundamentalism. When Hitler rose topower in Germany, liberalProtestants and Catholics, appropriating this Jewishrhetoric, interpreted Nazism as an attack on Christand his church.

O autorze

Sonja Spear holds a doctorate in American Religion from Indiana
University, Bloomington. She now teaches Judaism and World
Religions, at Indiana University in
Indianapolis.