Nittel Nacht: An Inverted Christmas with Toledot Yeshu

“Custom of abstaining from study on the calamity night of that man (peloni, i.e. Jesus).” “ומנהג ביטול הלימוד בליל חוגה של פלוני.” Yair Bakharakh, Shulḥan ‘Arukh, ’Oreh Ḥayyim im perush Mekor Ḥayyim (Jerusalem, 1983), vol. 2, Kiẓur Halakhot, para. 155, sec. I, p. 256. For a discussion of the possible meaning of the name Nittel, see: Marc Shapiro, “Torah Study on Christmas Eve,” Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy 8.2 (1999): 319-353 [320-321]. For a discussion of the Bakharakh quote, see idem, 344.

Ernestum Ferdinandum Hessen, Flagellum Iudeorum. Juden Geissel (Straßburg, 1601), Cap. IV, [pp. 74-75]. For Shapiro's discussion of the apostate sources, see his, “Torah Study on Christmas Eve,” 334-341, 344.

“Das selbig büchlin [Tholdos Jescho] wirr gemeinliche an der weyhenacht aber gelesen und geprediget.” Johannis Pfefferkorn, Handt Spiegel (Mainz, 1511), [p. 12].

“Und solches repetieren sie alle Jar an Weynacht tag, mit irem gantzen Hauszgesind, sagen das diser Christus sey ein Hurenkind.” Julium Cunradum Ottonem, Gali Razia Occultorum Detectio (Niribergae, 1605), Liber Secundus, Cap. V, [p. 170].

“In einem Buch Maese Thola genand, welches nicht gedruckt, sonder mit HebraischerCurrent geschrieben, unnd die Juden in grosser geheim an der Christnach in ihren Heusern lessen.” Friderich Samuel Brentzen, Jüdischer abgestreiffter Schlangenbalg (Nürnberg, 1614), Cap. I, [p. 21].

Deutsch, Toledot Yeshu in Christian Eyes, 21-28.

Yaacov Deutsch, “Toledot Yeshu in Christian Eyes: Reception and Response to Toledot Yeshu in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period” (Hebrew; master’s thesis, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1997), 86-88, 92.

Ora Limor, “Judaism Examines Christianity: The Polemic of Nestor the Priest and Toledot Yeshu” (Hebrew), Pe‘amim 75 (1998): 116.

On the question of the credibility of converts’ testimony, see for example Elisheva Carlebach, The Anti-Christian Element in Early Modern Yiddish Culture (Ramat-Gan, 2003). On the prohibition against printing Toledot Yeshu or reading it in the presence of Christians, see Samuel Krauss, Das Leben Jesu nach Judischen Quellen, vol. 1 (Berlin, 1902), pp. 10-11; William Horbury, A Critical Examination of the Toledoth Jeshu (Ph.D. diss., Clare College, Cambridge, 1970), 481.

Sarit Kattan Gribetz, “Hanged and Crucified: The Book of Esther and Toledot Yeshu,” in Toledot Yeshu (“The Life of Jesus”) Revisited: A Princeton Conference, eds. P. Schäfer, M. Meerson and Y. Deutsch (Tübingen, 2011), p. 176. For a similar claim, see Herbert W. Basser, “The Acts of Jesus,” in The Frank Talmage Memorial Volume, ed. Barry Walfish, (Haifa, 1993), 1.276.

Tractate Gittin of the Babylonian Talmud tells of Onkelos bar Kalonikos, who conjured up one of the sinners of Israel: “He [Onkelos] said: What is your punishment? He answered: with boiling excrement. For the Lord said: Whoever mocks the words of the Sages is punished with boiling excrement”. In contrast to the printed versions of the Talmud, the manuscripts explicitly state “Jesus of Nazarene” instead of “sinners of Israel”. On Jesus’ punishment in hell see Peter Schäfer, Jesus in the Talmud (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), 82-94, 141-144.

Shapiro, “Torah Study on Christmas Eve,” 335, 339-340.

talui, “the hanged one,” was a common derogatory name for Jesus.

Johannis Pfefferkorn, Handt Spiegel (Mainz, 1511), [p. 12].

Ernestum Ferdinandum Hessen, Flagellum Iudeorum. Juden Geissel (Straßburg, 1601), Cap. IV, [p. 75].

Iohann Adrian, Send und Warnungs-Brieff, An Alle Hartneckige unnd Halßstarrige Jüden (Wittenberg, 1609), p. 29.

”ויהי לעת ערב ויקח יהודה את גוף יש”ו מעל העץ וישמהו בגן שלו במרתף של גרף לקיים דברי חכמים כל המלעיג על דברי חכמים נדון בצואה רותחת.” Johannes Jacobus Huldricus, Historia Jeshuae Nazareni a Judaeis blaspheme carupta (Leiden, 1705), 87-88, 97; b. Gittin 57a.

Deutsches Wörterbuch von Jacob und Wilhelm Grimm (DWB), 1^st ed., s. v. “winkel”.

“unnd auss ihn geharnet biß er herab auff die erden gefallen, und einen windel angetroffen da sey der gemeine Bösel welcher ihm anhängig, und den Jescha widerumb begeret, zugelauffen, und die Juden haben ihn ausz den winckel gezogen bey dem haar, die sie ihm außgerissen, davon er eine blatten bekommen.” Samuel Brentzen, Jüdischer abgestreiffter Schlangenbalg (Nürnberg, 1614), Cap. I, [pp. 23-24].

“Zu letzt aber habe ihm Gott solches nicht mehr zusehen wollen, sondern ihn gestürtzt, das er auff die Erden gefallen, habe ihn das Jüdische Volck durch alle moschabim, das ist, durch alle Cloaken gezogen, in welchen er also verdorben”. Julium Cunradum Ottonem, Gali Razia Occultorum Detectio (Niribergae, 1605), Liber Secundus, Cap. V, [p. 170].

See also Joh. Christophorus Wagenseilius, Tela Ignea Satanae, hoc est Arcani et horribiles Judaeorum adversus Christum Deum & Christianam religionem libri [anekdotoi], vol. 2 (Altdorf, 1781), Liber Toldos Jeschu, 13.

Ms. Strasbourg BnU 3974, fol. 172r. Also published in Krauss, Das Leben Jesu, 1.43.

DWB, v. c. “weihnacht.”

See Krauss, Das Leben Jesu, vol. 2, p. 269. Veynakht (lit. “woe-night”) was a common Yiddish term for Christmas. See Jeffrey A. Shandler. 2011. “Christmas”. YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe. http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Christmas (accessed December 2, 2016).

Mss. Princeton Firestone Lib. 28, Fol. 9r-v; Ramat Gan Bar-Ilan University 1216, fol. 45v.

This is a paraphrase of Gen 32:26, in which the angel wrestling with Jacob realizes he cannot defeat him.

See: Shapiro, pp. 334-337; Abraham J. Sperling, Ta‘amei ha-minhagim, vol. 2 (Lemberg, 1928), p. 40b.

Jonathan Eybeschütz’s participation in Nittel festivities is mentioned in: Jacob Emden, ספר התאבקות [The Book of Struggling] (Lemberg, 1877), p. 59a.

It was believed that every child conceived in the night of Jesus’ nativity was thought to become a Christian. See: Rebecca Scharbach, “The Ghost in the Privy: On the Origins of Nittel Nacht and Modes of Cultural Exchange,” Jewish Studies Quarterly 20.4 (2013): 340-372 [344-345, 347].

On Nittel customs, see Shapiro, “Torah Study on Christmas Eve”; Scharbach, “The Ghost in the Privy.”

Scharbach, “The Ghost in the Privy.”

Scharbach, “The Ghost in the Privy,” 361.

For example, see: Martha Bayless, Parody in the Middle Ages: The Latin Tradition (Michigan, 1996), 6; Edmund K. Chambers, The Mediaeval Stage, vol. 1 (London, 1903), 274-371; Ingvild S. Gilhus, “Carnival in Religion: The Feast of Fools in France,” Numen 37.1 (1990): 24-52.

On a liturgical event, “at the supreme moment of consummation, past and future coalesced in the present to become the non-ephemeral”. Aron J. Gurevich, Categories of Medieval Culture (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985), 149.

David Nirenberg, Communities of Violence: Persecution of Minorities in the Middle Ages (Princeton, 1996), pp. 214-217, 229. Staging the Massacre of the Innocents was generally done on the on the 6^th of January, but also on Christmas Eve itself. See in detail Claudine Fabre-Vassas, The Singular Beast: Jews, Christians & the Pig (New York, 1997), 176-185.

Nirenberg, Communities of Violence, p. 220. Also see Hanna Węgrzynek, “Sixteenth-Century Purim Festivities,” Polin 15 (2002): 87-92.

Victor Turner, From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play (New York, 1982), 28; Also see Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, Carnival in Romans (New York, 1979), 316.