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Jesus and the Rabbis
Susannah Heschel and Riccardo Di Segni, the Chief Rabbi of Rome in conversation with Federica Francesconi APRIL 29, 2007 2:00 PM
THE CENTER FOR JEWISH HISTORY

In the Gospel According to Luke, we find the 12-year-old Jesus "in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions." This scene hints at things to come: the long, tangled relationship between Jesus and the leaders of Rabbinic Judaism, a relationship marked by admiration and acrimony, by disputations, self-censorship, and more-than-occasional violence. Susannah Heschel and the Rabbi of Rome look at how rabbis have responded to the figure of Jesus from the Talmud to the Crusades to the modern Jewish embrace of Jesus as one of their own.

SUSANNAH HESCHEL holds the Eli Black Chair in Jewish Studies in the Department of Religion at Dartmouth College. Her numerous publications include Abraham Geiger and the Jewish Jesus, which won a National Jewish Book Award, and a forthcoming book, The Aryan Jesus: Christians, Nazis and the Bible. She edited On Being a Jewish Feminist: A Reader and co-edited Insider/Outsider: American Jews and Multiculturalism, with David Biale and Michael Galchinsky.

DR. RICCARDO DI SEGNI received his medical degree from the University of Rome La Sapienza and his rabbinical ordination from the Collegio Rabbinico Italiano, both in 1973. Since then, he has pursued a dual career as a physician specializing in radiology and a rabbi. He has taught at the Collegio Rabbinico since 1974 and was named director in 1999. In 2001, he was elected Chief Rabbi of Rome. He is the author of numerous books and articles on Jewish subjects, including Talmudic literature, liturgy, Jewish-Christian relations, and the anthropology of ritual. His book Il Vangelo del Ghetto (The Ghetto's Gospel), explored Jewish Legends on the origin of Christianity.

FEDERICA FRANCESCONI is a Scholar-in-Residence at the Hadassah Brandeis Institute at Brandeis University. Educated in Italy and Israel, she received her Ph.D. in Jewish history from Haifa University in 2006. Before coming to Boston, she was fellow at the Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Currently she is working on her book A Network of Families from Modena: Jewish Life and Society between the Renaissance and Emancipation (1600-1814).