Instrument of Memory: Encounters with the Wandering Jew

Immortality can be a curse in the Wandering Jew legend, as Jesus cursed a man to wander until the Second Coming. Instrument of Memory explores the legend's influence on Christian and Jewish memory traditions, challenging presentism of memory studies.

Format: Hardback
Length: 292 pages
Publication date: 18 January 2024
Publisher: The University of Michigan Press

Immortality can be a curse in the context of the Wandering Jew legend, as depicted in the medieval period and inspired by hundreds of adaptations by artists and writers. According to the legend, as Jesus made his way to Calvary, a man refused him rest and cruelly taunted him to hurry to meet his fate. In response, Jesus cursed the man to wander until the Second Coming. The legend has had a profound impact on the Christian tradition, with artists and writers reimagining the Wandering Jew through Jewish memory traditions. Instrument of Memory: Encounters with the Wandering Jew, the first English-language study of the legend in over fifty years, examines the influence of the legend's medieval and early modern sources over the centuries into the present day. Through the lens of memory studies, the work shows how the Christian tradition of the legend centered the memory of the Passion at the heart of the Wandering Jew's curse. It also shows how Jewish artists and writers have reimagined the legend through Jewish memory traditions, creating complex renderings of the Wandering Jew that recognize the entanglement of Jewish and Christian memory and the impact of that entanglement on Jewish subjects. This book presents a complex, sympathetic, and more fully realized version of the legend while challenging the limits of the presentism of memory studies.

Weight: 272g
Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780472133468