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A Very Jewish Jesus

Author Anne Rice frames a first-person narrative
of the thoughts and fears of a young boy immersed
in first-century Judaism.

Naomi Pfefferman
Jewish Journal
of Greater Los Angeles

says she's proselytizing), she views her
book as a kind of antidote to Mel Gibson's
The Passion of the Christ. She appreciated
Gibson's film for its felicity to Catholic
ate into the night throughout
' doctrine but disliked its portrayal of Jews.
1993, Gothic novelist Anne Rice
"Gibson chose to present them as opera
sat in a study in.her shadowy New
villains, but he could have made the same
Orleans antebellum mansion, poring over
movie and shown all different kinds of
stacks of books on ancient Babylon and
Jews having different responses to Jesus:'
Samaria.
• she said. "I struggled to write a book I
The scene could have been lifted from
could give to people who were upset with
one of Rice's best-selling novels about
that movie and say, `This is different!"
erotically charged vampires and witches.
While Gibson refused to allow Jewish
As she studied the ancient manuscripts
leaders to see early screenings of his film,
on the floor of her office, she stumbled on
Rice personally mailed Egypt to rabbis
what she now calls "a mystery so intense
active in interfaith work. One of them was
that I was ready to do violence to my
Jonathan Miller, who recently invited the
career!'
author to speak at his Reform synagogue
The puzzle that so gripped her was "the
in Birmingham, Ala.
survival of the Jews:' Rice said, sounding
"Although the story Rice tells is not our
more demure than witchy in a phone
story," he said, "it was fascinating to hear
interview. "I couldn't understand why
how Jews lived at the time, how people
these people had endured, when so many
approached going to the Temple, and what
ancient cultures had vanished. And I
religious life was like."
began to see the hand of God in history."
Some of the author's goth-lit fans are
The revelation led her to return to her
decidedly less pleased with the book and
Catholic roots and also to write a novel,
have excoriated her on the Internet. Rice
Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt (Knopf;
— who once arrived to readings in a cof-
$25.95) about the boy Jesus — "a very
fin — now lives in La Jolla, Calif., and has
Jewish Jesus;' Time magazine noted. As
sworn off undead protagonists.
the child struggles to understand his mys-
The reviews, too, have been extreme,
terious origins and abilities, he also joy-
though mixed. Salon praised Egypt as "the
fully prays at the great Temple in
most literary" of Rice's books, while the
Jerusalem on Passover, relishes Shabbat
Chicago Tribune called it an "embarrass-
and adores his rabbinic teachers. He avid-
ment."
ly listens to discussions about the ascetic
Rice admits she is disturbed by the crit-
Jewish Essenes and how to renovate the
icism. But she stands by her work, which
crumbling family mikvah.
sustained her through the death of her
"I very much wanted to show that Jesus
husband in 2002 and her own near-
was a devout Jew, and that his extended
demise from a diabetic coma.
family was Jewish," she said. "Many
She also drew solace from the dark-
Christians think Christ brought love and
complexioned, crucified Jesus that hung
compassion to the world, but I empha-
over her computer as she wrote.
sized that Jews were already deeply con-
"I'd made sure to tell the artist, `He's a
cerned about that!'
Jew of the first century, so don't make him
look like an Aryan," she said.
Spiritual Darkness
During her strictly Catholic childhood
And so it is that the chronicler of sensu-
in New Orleans, the images were blander:
ous vampires has taken a religious turn
"Jesus certainly did not look Semitic, and
and joined the growing number of
we didn't really have a sense that he was
authors exploring Christianity's Hebraic
Jewish at all:' she said.
roots in the philosophical aftermath of
Although Rice was a devout child, her
the Holocaust.
Catholicism began eroding after her
Although Rice's hero is meant to be
mother died of complications from alco-
every inch the Jesus of the Gospels (she
holism, when she was 14. Her faith shat-

L

62

December 15 • 2005

al

tered completely when she arrived at a
Texas university around 1960, curious
about sex and other "sins" forbidden by
her pre-Vatican II
upbringing. She
was drawn to
Judaism and con-
sidered converting
for a time.
Eventually she
married poet Stan
Rice, an atheist,
and became an
atheist herself.
Rice had no
religion to comfort
her when their 5-
year-old daughter,
Michele, died of
leukemia in 1972. Instead, she exorcised
her grief by writing Interview With the
Vampire, in which a 5-year-old girl —
blond like Michele — is infected by poi-
soned blood.
Over the next three decades, Rice
penned some 30 books whose ghoulish
characters were lost in spiritual darkness,
much like the author herself.

Voluminous Research

The change came when the 64-year-old
writer began studying about Jewish conti-
nuity in 1993. She read myriad transla-
tions of the Hebrew Bible, the Jewish his-
torian Josephus and literature about mod-
ern-day Chasidism, among 400 other
books. She wrote a 1996 novel, Servant of
the Bones, in which an immortal protago-
nist follows Jewish life from the
Babylonian exile to contemporary New
York.
Her sources for the current book
include scholar Paula Fredriksen, who
received a 1999 national Jewish Book
Award for Jesus of Nazareth, King of the

Jews: A Jewish Life and the Emergence of
Christianity (Knopf). While Fredriksen's

theories about Jesus' Jewish upbringing
helped inspire Egypt, researching the
book nonetheless proved daunting.
"Both Jewish and Christian scholars
virulently disagree on how Jewish Jesus
was, which was nerve-wracking:' Rice
said. "But I tended to agree with those

OUT OF
GYPT

NE

Above: "I'd made sure to tell

the artist, 'He's a Jew of the

first century, so don't make

him look like an Aryan,"' said

Rice.

Left: Author Anne Rice wanted

to "show that Jesus was a

devout Jew."

who felt he was observant. Architectural
material indicates that houses in Nazareth
[the traditional childhood home of Jesus}
and throughout the Galilee had mikvahs.
And no pig bones were found in the exca-
vations!'
For the purpose of her narrative, Rice
takes liberties where her account doesn't
conflict with the Gospels. For example,
she has the child Jesus and his family flee
to Alexandria, Egypt, to escape the Jewish
tyrant King Herod the Great, whereas the
Gospels don't specify a city in Egypt. Rice
said she decided on Alexandria because
that city had the largest Jewish communi-
ty outside the land of Israel at the time.
To get Jesus' dialogue right, Rice said
she studied Aramaic linguistics.
Not all the Jews of Christian Bible ori-
gins get a makeover: In her tale, Rice
includes the greedy moneychangers at the
Temple. That seemed acceptable, she said,
because she based her account on pas-
sages from mishnaic sources that describe
Temple administrators as corrupt.
So how does Rice hope her book will
speak to Jewish readers?
"I hope they will be pleased to see that
someone has taken the trouble to show
the rabbis and scribes as the great teach-
ers and conservators that they were she
said. "Instead of trivializing and dismiss-
ing Judaism, I've tried to show the incred-
ible richness and complexity of this cul-
ture that has endured throughout the
ages." ❑