Jesus Christ Brought Nothing New?
Jewish Studies, Gender, Antisemitism, and the Art of Scholarship
Susannah Heschel and Željko Stanojević
Susannah Heschel
Eli M. Black Distinguished Professor of Jewish Studies
Chair, Jewish Studies Program
Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, USA
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2859-6793
Željko Stanojević
Institute for Hebrew Language and Literature, Belgrade, Serbia
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0009-0717-6184
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21538655
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https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21538655
Abstract
This scholarly interview examines the intellectual foundations and major themes of Professor Susannah Heschel’s research in Jewish Studies, biblical scholarship, Jewish intellectual history, gender studies, antisemitism, and interreligious relations. Particular attention is given to the development of modern biblical scholarship and to the political, religious, and cultural assumptions that shaped the academic study of Judaism in nineteenth-century Europe.
The discussion explores Abraham Geiger’s interpretation of Jesus within Second Temple Judaism. Heschel explains Geiger’s argument that the teachings attributed to Jesus were rooted in contemporary Jewish traditions and introduced nothing fundamentally new in relation to the Judaism of his time. The interview also considers Christian scholarly responses to Geiger and the later racial reinterpretation of Jesus as an allegedly non-Jewish or “Aryan” figure.
A substantial part of the conversation focuses on The Woman Question in Jewish Studies, co-authored by Susannah Heschel and Sarah Imhoff. Heschel examines the historical and continuing exclusion of women from major academic projects, university positions, conferences, journals, editorial boards, citation networks, and systems of scholarly mentoring.
The interview further addresses Jewish refugee scholars who arrived in the United States during the 1930s, their influence on American universities and historically Black colleges and universities, and their participation in the civil rights movement. Heschel also reflects on contemporary antisemitism and the responsibility of universities to preserve evidence-based, critical, respectful, and intellectually rigorous academic discourse.
The conversation concludes with reflections on scholarship as an art characterized by complexity, subtlety, intellectual humility, and resistance to simplistic judgments. Heschel also discusses the international and interdisciplinary potential of the European Hebrew Journal and encourages scholars to submit innovative research that connects Jewish Studies with wider academic conversations.
Keywords
Susannah Heschel; Jewish Studies; Abraham Geiger; Jesus; Jewish Jesus; Second Temple Judaism; Judaism and Christianity; Judaism and Islam; Hebrew Bible; biblical scholarship; history of biblical scholarship; gender studies; feminist theory; The Woman Question in Jewish Studies; antisemitism; Aryan Jesus; Jewish refugee scholars; academic inclusion; academic mentoring; European Hebrew Journal; scholarship as art
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How to Cite This Work
Heschel, S. and Stanojević, Ž. (2026). “Jesus Christ Brought Nothing New? Jewish Studies, Gender, Antisemitism, and the Art of Scholarship.” Scholarly Interviews in Hebrew, Biblical, Religious, and Jewish Studies, 2. Belgrade: Institute for Hebrew Language and Literature. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21538655
Description
This publication presents a wide-ranging scholarly conversation with Professor Susannah Heschel, Eli M. Black Distinguished Professor of Jewish Studies and Chair of the Jewish Studies Program at Dartmouth College.
The discussion examines the historical emergence of Jewish Studies and modern biblical scholarship, focusing particularly on Abraham Geiger’s challenge to nineteenth-century Christian theology. Geiger situated Jesus within Second Temple Judaism and argued that his teachings reflected ideas already present in contemporary Jewish tradition.
The publication also explores the origins and arguments of The Woman Question in Jewish Studies. Heschel discusses structural inequalities in academic publishing, employment, conferences, editorial boards, mentoring, and citation practices, while emphasizing the importance of intellectual diversity and greater inclusion of women, younger scholars, minorities, and researchers from different cultural and religious backgrounds.
Further topics include Jewish refugee scholars in the United States, the relationship between Jewish academics and historically Black colleges and universities, the civil rights movement, contemporary antisemitism, and the role of universities in maintaining dignified and critically informed public discourse.
The interview concludes by presenting scholarship not as the delivery of final verdicts, but as an intellectual art requiring careful distinctions, openness to complexity, extensive research, and interpretative humility. Heschel also discusses the importance of international, interdisciplinary, and openly accessible academic publishing through the European Hebrew Journal.
Related Works
Heschel, S. and Imhoff, S. (2025). The Woman Question in Jewish Studies. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691215426
Heschel, S. (2008). The Aryan Jesus: Christian Theologians and the Bible in Nazi Germany. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Heschel, S. (1998). Abraham Geiger and the Jewish Jesus. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Heschel, S. and Ryad, U. (eds.) (2019). The Muslim Reception of European Orientalism: Reversing the Gaze. New York: Routledge.
Stanojević, Ž. (2026). “Editorial Foreword to Volume 1, Issue 1.” European Hebrew Journal, 1(1).
Additional Keywords
Susannah Heschel interview; Susannah Heschel bibliography; Jewish Studies scholarship; Abraham Geiger and Jesus; Jesus in Judaism; historical Jesus and Judaism; Jewish origins of Christianity; Judaism and early Christianity; Jewish scholarship on Islam; Qur’an and rabbinic Judaism; women in Jewish Studies; gender and academic scholarship; women in academia; academic exclusion; academic mentoring; Jewish intellectual history; nineteenth-century biblical scholarship; Protestant biblical scholarship; Christian antisemitism; Nazi theology; Aryan Jesus; Jewish refugees in America; Jewish scholars and civil rights; antisemitism in universities; academic freedom; scholarly discourse; interdisciplinary Jewish Studies; Diamond Open Access; European Hebrew Journal; Institute for Hebrew Language and Literature