Yair Mintzker, "I, Wandering Jew: A Five-Century History of Our Modern Condition" (Princeton UP, 2026)

About this episode

Yair Mintzker discusses the historical and cultural significance of the Wandering Jew figure in his book.

The story behind the mythical figure of "the Wandering Jew" is one of the most fascinating tales in European history. In I, Wandering Jew, National Jewish Book Award-winning historian Yair Mintzker traces the tale back to its source, follows its many metamorphoses through five centuries, and relates it to the fraught present moment. According to a mysterious pamphlet published in 1602, the Wandering Jew was a real person, named Ahasversus, who was cursed by Jesus to eternal wandering after refusing to help him as he was led to his crucifixion. For more than four hundred years, many otherwise reliable witnesses have claimed to have seen the Wandering Jew. Moving in reverse chronological order, I, Wandering Jew explores crucial episodes in the story of this figure. We meet an unforgettable, Wandering Jew-like character who appeared out of nowhere in Israel in the 1950s; a nineteenth-century novelist who was the first Jew to favorably describe the Wandering Jew; an eighteenth-century German scholar who saw the Wandering Jew emerging from a devastating fire; and the man who likely inspired the 1602 pamphlet. A work of history that reads like a detective story, I, Wandering Jew is…

People in this episode

Guest: Yair Mintzker

Topics covered

• history
• antisemitism
• Jewish identity
• literature
• memoir

Keywords

• Wandering Jew
• Yair Mintzker
• history
• antisemitism
• Jewish identity
• memoir
• literature

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Princeton UP

Books & works: I, Wandering Jew: A Five-Century History of Our Modern Condition

Places: Israel

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