After World War II, Ernst Ludwig Ehrlich (1921 2007) published works in English and German by eminent Israeli scholars, in this way introducing them to a wider audience in Europe and North America. The series he founded for that purpose, Studia Judaica, continues to offer a platform for scholarly studies and editions that cover all eras in the history of the Jewish religion.
The study assesses the main issues in the current debate about the early history of Pesach and Easter and provides new insights into the development of these two festivals. The author argues that the prescriptions of Exodus 12 provide the celebration of the Pesach in Jerusalem with an etiological background in order to connect the pilgrim festival with the story of the Exodus. The thesis that the Christian Easter evolved as a festival against a Jewish form of celebrating Pesach in the second century and that the development of Easter Sunday is dependent upon this custom is endorsed by the author's close study of relevant texts such as the Haggada of Pesach; the "Poem of the four nights" in the Palestinian Targum Tradition; the structure of the Easter vigil.
Clemens Leonhard, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster.
"Der Studie sind viele Leser - sowohl Theologen wie auch Judaisten - zu wünschen: sie steht beispielhaft für eine Form der interdisziplinären Forschung, die unser Verständnis von Entwicklung beider Religionen und ihrer Liturgien befördern kann."
Elisabeth Hollender in: Frankfurter Judaistische Beiträge 2007/2008
