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Rembrandt has been hailed for his love of the Jewish people — was it all a myth?
In a preface to the 1932 Hebrew edition of the painter Leonid Pasternak’s study of Rembrandt, Russian-Jewish poet Hayim Nahman Bialik observed that although the Dutch artist was not Jewish, we “must consider him as ‘a Jew of honor,’ for his love and empathy towards the Jews.”
Bialik was not alone in his admiration. Rembrandt’s close ties to his Jewish neighbors in mid-17th century Amsterdam — to say nothing of his sensitive portraits of them — were held up for generations as a model of philosemitism.
Recent scholarship, however, has shown that Rembrandt’s affection for Jews has been generally overstated. He had, for example, perhaps a couple of Jewish sitters, but nothing like the dozens once ascribed to him.
Yet a new Rembrandt exhibit at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts, entitled “Reality and Imagination: Rembrandt and the Jews in the Dutch Republic,” embraces not only the hard facts of the Rembrandt-Jewish relationship, but the myths, too.
Co-curators Michael Zell and Simona Di Nepi have juxtaposed the real with the imagined, introducing visitors to the artist’s known Jewish interactions — the “reality” — as well as his so-called imagined encounters: that is, the biblical Jews he often painted. The result is a fine overview of the Dutch maestro’s associations with Amsterdam’s Jews, as well as a fascinating window onto the relative freedoms enjoyed by Dutch Jews at large in the 17th century Dutch Republic.
Importantly, neither Zell nor Di Nepi was all that interested in addressing, at least explicitly, Rembrandt’s alleged philosemitism. “We just concentrated on the evidence that we have for relationships, commissions, interactions,” said Zell, professor of Baroque and 18th Century Art at Boston University. “We set aside any question of whether or not there was something unique about Rembrandt’s interest in the Jews.”
The exhibit, which runs until December of this year, is a collaboration between the MFA’s Center for Netherlandish Art (CNA), and art history undergraduate and graduate students at Boston University; the students were involved in every curatorial decision. “It’s a really unprecedented experiential learning and professional development opportunity,” said Zell. (This is the fifth such partnership between the CNA and an academic institution. Previous partners include Yale and Brown).
Perhaps the most striking piece in the gallery’s “reality” section is a 1647 portrait of the artist’s neighbor Ephraim Bonus, a Sephardi physician and, in all likelihood, the only living Jew Rembrandt ever painted. The portrait is the gallery’s “linchpin,” Zell said: a drawing of a Jewish subject for which Rembrandt had only to depict what was in front of him, instead of conjuring up a mix of caricature and theology (more on that later).
Next to the Bonus portrait are four images Rembrandt drew for Menasseh Ben Israel, a hugely influential Dutch Rabbi and scholar. Ben Israel would go on to use the sketches as visual representations of key biblical stories in his treatise Piedra Gloriosa (The Glorious Stone).
Rembrandt, often very precious about his work, agreed to alter two of the prints after the Rabbi insisted they did not align sufficiently with the biblical text. And though scholars have puzzled over the nature and extent of Rembrandt’s relationship with Ben Israel, it’s the images’ very existence that Zell wants to highlight. “This moment of interfaith collaboration is just remarkable,” he said.
The Ben Israel prints, however, are not only evidence of Rembrandt’s dealings with Amsterdam’s Jews. By calling attention to such a towering figure as the Rabbi, they underscore the exhibit’s other defining motif: the Jewish community’s considerable — relative to their European counterparts, at least — freedom and influence in the mid-17th century Dutch Republic. (Established in 1581, the Republic was a confederation of seven Dutch provinces that had broken away from Catholic Habsburg rule. Notionally Calvinist, it was renowned for its enlightened attitude towards religious and ethnic minorities and its patronage of the arts and sciences.)
And so also on display are several pieces of Judaica that testify to the Dutch Jewish community’s vibrancy in Amsterdam — a city so full of Jewish life that author Israel Zangwill later called it the “Jerusalem of the West” — and further afield, too. There’s a brilliantly detailed map of the so-called Holy Land, with the names and places written in Hebrew; a brass Hanukkah lamp in the Dutch-Jewish style; a Sephardi Ketubah, with engraved still-lifes that climb up the side of the document like ivy; and an 18th century copy of a portrait depicting the 1675 opening of Amsterdam’s Grand Sephardi synagogue, the world’s biggest at the time.
What caught my attention most of all was a pair of silver Torah finials, whose conical shape, intricate flower engravings and tinkling bells were inspired by Dutch architecture and Christian reliquaries, said Di Nepi, who’s the MFA’s Charles and Lynn Schusterman Curator of Judaica. Made in 1649 in Rotterdam, a port town whose trade activity attracted scores of Jews, the finials are the oldest surviving in the United States. And given that they were crafted by a Christian silversmith — the Dutch Republic may have been atypically tolerant, but Jews still were not allowed into its guilds — they are an excellent shorthand for both the achievements and difficulties of 17th-century Dutch Jewry.
The power of imagination
Though the physician Bonus is today accepted as Rembrandt’s only undisputed Jewish sitter, the artist, like many of his contemporaries, was fond of depicting biblical stories — and not just from the New Testament. According to the museum, scenes from the Hebrew Bible were painted more often in the Protestant Dutch Republic than anywhere else in Europe, and inventories of Jewish households at the time revealed that these depictions often were collected by Dutch Sephardim.
The “imagination” section of the exhibit, then, features Rembrandt’s take on biblical episodes like Abraham’s sacrifice and David and Goliath, as well as two iconic pieces that scholars once held up as proof of Rembrandt’s philosemitism (‘The Jewish Bride,’ notably) but which have since been re-assessed.
Taken together, a portrait emerges of how Rembrandt understood Jews; of the influence of 17th-century Amsterdam and the importance of the artist’s solidly, immovably Christian worldview.
The paintings, generally speaking, are heavy on caricature. “This is an imagined version of the biblical characters of the ancient Jews,” Di Nepi told me. “There is this mixture of a look that evokes the Middle East, which was at the time run by the Ottoman empire. A lot of turbans, very lavish silk with gold and silver embroidery, and sashes that probably came from Persia.”
The 1648 sketch “Jews in the Synagogue,” for instance, depicts a huddle of Jews in floppy hats, long robes and turbans. To portray what he understood to be a representative Jewish figure, Rembrandt produced a blend of ancient Israelite and 17th century Dutch Jew, a formulation he repeated across his other so-called Jewish portraits. This, Zell said, “is Rembrandt’s Christian perspective shaping the way that the Old Testament scenes are portrayed.”
Far from indicating a special affinity for Jews, these paintings suggest Rembrandt didn’t really distinguish between the minority groups he mingled with in diverse 17th-century Amsterdam. Jews, Zell said, were simply part of a “vast, undifferentiated realm,” separate from Christianity.
Still, even if his outlook was traditionally Calvinist — which, at its heart, aimed to convert Jews and all other non-Christians — this need not overshadow the fact that Rembrandt, to paraphrase one reviewer, could paint in three dimensions. “He possessed a gripping naturalism,” Zell said. “And so he created these unprecedentedly lifelike figures.”
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The mayor missed the Israel Day Parade. Many who went didn’t miss him.
(JTA) — The energy was palpable Sunday as thousands packed a dozen blocks of Fifth Avenue waving Israeli flags for New York’s annual Israel Day Parade. Organizers said the turnout was the largest in the event’s six-decade history.
The procession featured its usual mix of Jewish nonprofits, schools and synagogues marching to blaring Israeli music alongside parade floats sponsored by groups including Nefesh B’Nefesh, the UJA Federation of New York and the Maccabiah Games.
But this year’s parade, which was themed “Proud Americans, Proud Zionists,” unfolded amid growing political polarization over Israel and without New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who became the first mayor in decades to skip the event.
For all the criticism Mamdani has received over his campaign pledge not to attend the event, many of those who did turn out told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency they were glad he wasn’t there.
“He doesn’t like us,” said Andrea Roman, who attended the parade wearing an Israeli flag cape and thought it was “good” that Mamdani hadn’t come. “Why should you be some place where you don’t like? He does not promote peace. This promotes peace, but of course he’s not going to be here.”
Jeremy Bell, 39, also said wasn’t bothered by the mayor’s absence – and that there were many more who felt as he did.
“I don’t think that he was really wanted here,” Bell said, adding, “I don’t want to be here with someone who doesn’t believe in our right to exist and obviously associates with people that don’t have our best interests in mind.”
Despite Mamdani’s absence, the event, known as the largest pro-Israel parade in the world, featured a lengthy roster of political officials and lawmakers. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, New York Attorney General Letitia James, U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and U.S. Rep. Jerry Nadler were among those in attendance, as were former New York City Mayors Eric Adams and Mike Bloomberg.
NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, who on Thursday said that security preparations for the parade would be “the most extensive” that the NYPD had ever put together, also joined the festivities as an honorary grand marshal.
While many paradegoers said that they never considered staying home because of security concerns, several said they appreciated the presence of thousands of police officers and extensive barricades that blocked the streets surrounding the event.
“We are grateful that tens of thousands of participants and spectators were able to gather safely and proudly in the heart of New York City,” Mitchell Silber, the CEO of the Community Security Initiative, said in a statement. “Today’s success reflects the extraordinary planning, coordination, and professionalism of the NYPD and our law enforcement partners.”
That number was boosted in some cases by participants who said the mayor’s decision to skip the event factored into their own decision to come.
Karene Hermon, 22, said that while previously she would have been more “neutral” about attending, hearing that Mamdani had chosen not to come drove her to “be with my people.”
“I think it sends the wrong message,” Hermon said of the mayor’s refusal to participate. “I think we’re trying to come together, not separate people, regardless of … how you feel about a cause.”
First-time paradegoer Luis Margules travelled to the march from Pennsylvania. He said that he had come because it felt like “a moment to be with Israel.”
“This is my first parade, but I think this year it’s one of the most important ones,” Margules said. “I think the world doesn’t understand the situation with Iran and the Palestinians, and everything is blamed on Israel.”
Ofir Akunis, the consul general of Israel in New York, said in a statement that the parade “delivered a resounding answer to all those who hate Israel.”
“This year’s parade was an unprecedented demonstration of strength by New York’s Jewish community and the people of Israel,” Akunis said. “It sends a clear and unequivocal message: We are here to stay, and we are not going anywhere.”
But not all of the spectators Sunday were there in support.
While there was no large-scale protest visible during the parade, roughly 25 people demonstrated along the route to oppose the inclusion of a record delegation of roughly 10 Israeli Knesset members, including far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and two members of National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s ultra-nationalist Otzma Yehudit party.
As the delegation passed the demonstration, which was organized by the progressive groups Israelis for Peace and Friends of Standing Together New York, protesters shouted “shame” and “war criminals,” according to Tamar Glezerman, an organizer for Israelis for Peace.
“We were there to protest against the Israeli Knesset delegation, the largest of its size of all of the parades, that sent members of the coalition and the so-called opposition to do hasbara and march victoriously up a New York avenue,” Glezerman told JTA in a phone interview Sunday, using the Hebrew word for public relations.
While the focus of the demonstration centered on opposing the Knesset delegation, Glezerman added that “a parade that very much champions unexamined, unchecked and non-critical support of Israel is perhaps important for people here. It is not good for Israelis. It sure as hell isn’t good for Palestinians.”
Margules, in contrast, said that seeing the Israeli Knesset members pass by had made him feel “proud.”
“It’s good to know that even in these dark times we can still be together without violence, and we can disagree on many things, but we have to agree on something,” Margules said. “We are here because Israel exists.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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NY Democratic stalwarts show support for Israel even as Mamdani skips parade
(JTA) — Hundreds of Jewish leaders and New York politicians gathered early Sunday morning ahead of the annual Israel Day Parade to voice their support for the Jewish state, even as anti-Israel rhetoric has proliferated in elections across the United States.
“I stand before you as a proud Jew and a proud Zionist, and those of us who feel that way can never waver,” Rep. Dan Goldman, who is trailing primary challenger Brad Lander in the polls, said to a chorus of cheers. “It should not be momentous to say that, but unfortunately, in many ways, today it is.”
The annual pre-parade breakfast included a demonstration by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul of state power that will better defend Jewish institutions from anti-Israel protests that critics say have at times veered into antisemitism.
Sitting on stage at a desk flanked by a host of New York elected officials and Jewish nonprofit leaders, Hochul signed a statewide law establishing a 50-foot security “buffer zone” around houses of worship. The legislation is more expansive than a city-level law insulating houses of worship from protests that was passed without New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s signature and was watered down after he expressed concerns about the bill.
Mamdani declined to participate in Sunday’s parade.
“We will not just march today in an act of defiance against those who say we have no right, we’ll also sign legislation that says no, we have the power, we have leaders in government who can make changes happen,” Hochul said.
Hochul, who is running for reelection, was not the only non-Jewish politician to join the pre-parade event hosted by the Met Council, a Jewish-run antipoverty nonprofit. Democratic New York Attorney General Letitia James and Republican Rep. Mike Lawler, both of whom are also running for reelection, spoke at the event.
James vowed that “antisemitism will not be tolerated in the state of New York as long as I am the attorney general.” She added, “It is not just the responsibility of the Jewish community to respond, it requires all of us to respond. To stand shoulder to shoulder, arm in arm with the Jewish community.”
Lawler took aim at antisemitism on the political left and right during his remarks, calling out Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Candace Owens and Hasan Piker by name.
“It is imperative, as elected officials, and there are a lot of elected officials in the room today, not just to be here, not just to say that we support a strong U.S.-Israel relationship, not just to speak out against antisemitism, but to root it out, to root it out by exposing the people in our own parties,” Lawler said.
Eric Goldstein, the outgoing CEO of the UJA-Federation of New York, thanked the public officials who showed up for joining in the Israel parade. He stressed, “We need to be open and public at this apolitical gathering to show our love for the one and only Jewish homeland.”
Mamdani’s refusal to participate, in contrast, has drawn condemnation from many Jewish leaders. Goldstein issued a scathing condemnation on Friday, writing in an open letter that the mayor’s absence is “simply the latest in a pattern of demonizing anti-Israel rhetoric and actions that continue to place the Jewish community of New York at greater risk.”
“Mr. Mayor, you cannot close your eyes to the deadly impact of this incendiary rhetoric that is playing out in Jewish communities across the world, from Bondi Beach to Boulder to Washington, D.C.,” Goldstein wrote.
Later Sunday morning, the organizer of the parade said that what really counted was those who did choose to come.
“Let’s give it up for all of our allies and supporters who are here, because that’s what matters, those who actually do show up,” Mark Treyger, the CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, which organizes the parade, told the crowd as Jewish leaders and politicians gathered on a podium overlooking the parade route on Fifth Avenue.
“We march because of our unwavering, unflinching connection to the Jewish State of Israel,” he declared.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer also gave remarks from the podium before politicians including Hochul, James and New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin began marching down Fifth Ave to speakers blaring Israeli music.
“The Jewish people have yearned for a state of Israel, whilst experiencing the constant anxiety of knowing the place where they live could violently expel them at any moment, as happened again and again,” Schumer said. “We cannot, we must not go back to that era. I believe in the State of Israel. I support the State of Israel.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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For the first time, a kosher restaurant has won a Michelin star
(JTA) — As golden confetti rained down around him Thursday, Israeli chef Raz Shabtai broke down in tears and was embraced by his cheering staff.
Moments earlier, a livestreamed Michelin ceremony had announced that his Miami restaurant, Mutra, had become the first kosher restaurant ever awarded a Michelin star, long regarded as the highest honor in the restaurant industry.
“It’s a moment of joy, it’s a moment of pride, it’s a moment of relief, it’s a moment of confirmation,” Shabtai told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency Friday. “It’s not just about Mustra getting that star, but it’s about the entire Jewish community getting that, and I felt a lot of responsibility.”
Shabtai, who has worked in kitchens across New York and Israel, opened Mutra in February 2025, naming the kosher eatery after his Jerusalem-born grandmother whose cooking he said heavily inspires its menu.
“I really like to call the restaurant Jerusalem cuisine versus Mediterranean and Middle Eastern or Israeli or stuff like that, because the flavors that I’m trying to bring to the table, it’s flavors that came from memories and visiting in the market with my grandma,” Shabtai said. “I have to be very loyal to what my grandma fed me.”
A description of Mutra on the Michelin website praised the restaurant’s “show-stopping plate of beets in a pool of ajo blanco and topped with beetroot sorbet” and “signature lamb kebab with smoked aubergine cream and tomato oil.”
“Israeli Chef Raz Shabtai has brought his take on Middle Eastern cuisine to Miami,” the Michelin inspectors wrote. “Named for his grandmother, this is a place where snagging a seat at the chef’s counter is a must.”
The award places Mutra among the world’s most celebrated restaurants and marks a breakthrough for kosher cuisine, which operates under strict dietary rules. For Shabtai, who has kept kosher for more than a decade, the award proved that culinary excellence can thrive under those constraints.
“Kosher is a beautiful spiritual way of me to bond with God, and the limitation that he gave me, but yet to do amazing good food that everybody can eat,” Shabtai said.
The recognition arrived after months of suspense. Shabtai said that Michelin inspectors visited the restaurant several times before sending an email in February requesting information and photos about the establishment, a sign he said alerted them that they were under consideration.
For Noa Figari, Mutra’s director of operations who joined the team after first working as Shabtai’s real estate agent to find the Miami location, the announcement Thursday was a “release.”
“All the hard work that we put has been, you know, validated,” Figari said. “We carry a responsibility not only just for Raz’s cuisine, but for the whole entire Jewish community and kosher world we made history.”
Looking ahead, Shabtai said he hoped the achievement would inspire other kosher chefs.
“Be proud of where you’re coming from, get connected to those roots that you have,” Shabtai said. “Sometimes it’s not going to be a smooth sail. It’s okay, learn how to fix it, but believe in yourself. Don’t ever compromise, and don’t let other people compromise you.”
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
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