A Very Jewish Christmas: Jesus and Shabbtai Zvi, from Heretic to Hero
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Lecture
Admission: Free |
In Jewish memory, Jesus and Shabbtai Zvi were heretics, false messiahs who rebelled against the rabbis and against normative Judaism. But a funny thing happened in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: modern Jewish writers and artists reclaimed these heretics and gave them an honored place in Jewish history. In doing so, they transformed the historical figures, Jesus and Shabbtai Zvi, into heroes, projecting on to them these thinkers own modern dilemmas.
About the Speaker
David Biale is Emanuel Ringelblum Distinguished Professor of Jewish History at the University of California, Davis. He was educated at UC Berkeley, the Hebrew University and UCLA. His most recent books are Hasidism: A New History (with seven co-authors), Gershom Scholem: Master of the Kabbalah and Not in the Heavens: The Tradition of Jewish Secular Thought. Earlier books are Gershom Scholem: Kabbalah and Counter-History, Power and Powerlessness in Jewish History, Eros and the Jews and Blood and Belief: The Circulation of a Symbol Between Jews and Christians. He is also the editor of Cultures of the Jews: A New History and the Norton Anthology of World Religions: Judaism. His books have been translated into eight languages and have won the National Jewish Book Award three times.
Professor Biale has served as chair of the Department of History at UC Davis and as Director of the Davis Humanities Institute. He also founded and directed the UC Davis Program in Jewish Studies. In 2011, he won the university’s highest award, the UC Davis Prize for Undergraduate Teaching and Scholarly Achievement. He also founded the Posen Society of Fellows, an international doctoral fellowship for students of modern Jewish history and culture.
Other programs in this series:
Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese Food (2020)
A Very Jewish Christmas: Old World Jewish Christmas Traditions (2019)
A Very Jewish Christmas (2017)