Behold the Man: Jesus in Israeli Art

This publication accompanying a major Israel Museum exhibition investigates the significant, multifaceted, and surprisingly pervasive appearance of the figure of Jesus in Jewish and Israeli art. Surveying works by prominent artists from the second half of the nineteenth century up until today, the richly illustrated text analyzes the evolving attitude of Jewish, Zionist, and Israeli art towards the portrayal of Jesus: from artists laboring “in the shadow of the Cross,” who saw Jesus as an emblem of the persecuted Jew, through artists who saw Jesus as a symbol of the rebirth of the Jewish people in the land of Israel, to those whose engagement is detached from the fraught relations between Christianity and Judaism and who view him as a symbol of the suffering artist.