Abstract

This essay presents some representations of the figure of Jesus in Jewish philosophical and historical production of the 18th and 19th centuries and their connection with the modern Jewish attempt to negotiate a place in "western" society. This paper will present some particular Jewish portraits of Jesus from medieval religious and apologetic literature. It will then present an analysis of examples taken from philosophical and historical literature in which the image of Jesus acquires clearly positive and exemplary traits. A link is drawn between the re-evaluation and, in a sense, the re-appropriation of the figure of Jesus, and the creation of the modern and multiple Jewish "identities".