Rembrandt, Jews and Jesus: Putting Judaism Back in the Picture

OP-ED NEWS 
By Bernard Starr

Murillo's Baptism of Christ and Rod Borghese;s Version by Wikipaintings

Jesus was, of course, Jewish. But few artists emphasized his ethnicity, or his humanity, as frankly and directly as Rembrandt did. That's why to counter the historic distortions I've invited artists to submit new renditions of classical artworks that restore the Jewish in Jesus -- and others in his family and community. Rod Borghese is distantly related to the noble Italian Borghese banking family, art patrons who commissioned many of the Renaissance paintings of Jesus. Rod's first submission captures the theme of the exhibit with his rendition of Bartolome Esteban Murillo's seventeenth-century The Baptism of Christ. Rod's second submission is a rendition of Michael Pacher's 15-century Engagement (some say marriage) of the Virgin.

Pacher's Engagement of the Virgin and Rod Borghese's version by Wikimedia