If you have ever puz­zled over Marc Chagall’s incor­po­ra­tion of the cru­ci­fied Jesus into his paint­ings, or won­dered at Scholem Asch’s pos­i­tive inter­pre­ta­tions of Jesus in his sto­ries, this mono­graph is for you. These two fig­ures are among the many dis­cussed from the late 18th to ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry, with spe­cial focus on Yid­dish mod­ernism in the pre-Shoah peri­od of the 1920’s to 30’s. In case after case, Hoff­man explains how the var­i­ous con­flicts fac­ing these authors and artists were re-inter­pret­ed in terms of Jesus in ways that were pro­found­ly Jew­ish while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly chal­leng­ing both tra­di­tion­al Chris­t­ian anti-Jew­ish rep­re­sen­ta­tions of him and his teach­ings, and tra­di­tion­al Jew­ish respons­es. Jew­ish suf­fer­ing at the hands of Chris­tians, legit­i­mat­ed by appeals to Jesus, are shown to be want­i­ng in view of a Jesus whose own suf­fer­ing was like­wise that of a par­a­dig­mat­ic Jew­ish mar­tyr. Many did not agree with the wis­dom of this strat­e­gy, and Hoff­man presents their voic­es too.