Jesus in Jewish Art: The Missing Pieces

THE HUFFINGTON POST
By Bernard Starr

Medieval and Renaissance artworks commonly Christianized Jesus, his family and close followers while omitting their Jewish identities. This phenomenon contributed significantly to the historic rift between Christianity and Judaism by picturing Jesus and Jews as separate in religion and ethnicity. The explosion of interest in the paintings of Jewish artist Marc Chagall, with several major exhibits this year alone, has brought public attention to his surprising trove of paintings of Jesus as Jew and Christian, bonded by the theme of suffering. Chagall was not alone among 19- and 20th-century Jewish artists to create artworks of Jesus, and sometimes of a Jewish Jesus. Art scholar Ziva Amishai-Maisels explains that artists sought to address anti-Semitism. [link]