REMBRANDT'S BLESSING

An interfaith friendship takes center stage in this imagined origin story for one of Rembrandt’s biblical paintings.

The Dutch artist lived for years in the same neighborhood as a prominent rabbi, Menashe ben Israel. While scholars debate the extent of their interaction, in her backmatter Lehman-Wilzig asserts that they enjoyed a “close relationship” marked by a warm exchange of social invitations and mutual professional support. In this tale, Rembrandt attends Shabbat dinner at Menashe’s house, witnessing a traditional blessing in which the rabbi cups his hands over his children’s heads and recites a prayer. The ritual inspires Rembrandt’s Jacob Blessing the Sons of Joseph. Capturing the setting effectively, Barghigiani’s illustrations incorporate Dutch tropes—tulips, narrow row houses, paintings of ships—along with ribbons of color evoking an artist at work. Both text and illustration offer a pleasant vision of friendship between men of different religions. Young people unfamiliar with Rembrandt or the Bible story may not find as much import in the tale as adults, especially those who have a religious or art history background. Educators and caregivers might need to fill in some gaps, but Lehman-Wilzig’s backmatter (which includes images of Rembrandt’s work and photos of his home and studio in Amsterdam) serves as a solid starting point for doing so.

A thought-provoking historical “what if.”