The author presents a very solid argument as to why it seems that Rembrandt was actually not as sympathetic towards Jews and Judaism as most people make him out to be. He does this by providing ample examples and evidence to support his case against the opposing argument and especially against Jakob Rosenburg's monograph on Rembrandt of 1948. The first thing that Schwartz uses to argue his point is the critique of Rosenburg's work in which Schwartz counters each of Rosenburg's points by saying that Rembrandt's art reflected essential features of medieval Christian dogma in their attitude towards Judaism, that Calvinists held a deep antipathy for Jews because they rejected Christ, that it can not be known with absolute certainty on either side …show more content…
(Schwartz 34) If this statement or assumption about Rembrandt was true then why would it be the case that many others who were similar to Rembrandt were not also accused of the same assumption? If thinking logically, either the majority of artists that fit this criteria that is laid out were friendly towards Jews or the majority were not, but it would not be that only one was friendly to Jews and the rest were not because that simply does not make sense. Schwartz says that "Rembrandt was one of the greatest Christian artists of all time, an interpreter of the Christian message from the center of the faith." (34) With this being said, it is very unlikely that Rembrandt differed in his opinion on one of the main issues that defines his religious affiliation because, as it says in the quote above, he interpreted the messages from the center of his faith and if they were contradictory to the views of his fellow Christians then his art probably would have been frowned