thumb|The Wandering Jew by [[Gustave Doré]]

The Wandering Jew (occasionally referred to as the Eternal Jew, a translation of the German ) is a mythical immortal man whose legend began to spread in Europe in the 13th century. An American rabbi, H. M. Bien, turned the character into the "Wandering Gentile" in his novel Ben-Beor: A Tale of the Anti-Messiah; in the same year John L. McKeever wrote a novel, The Wandering Jew: A Tale of the Lost Tribes of Israel.

Germany

The legend has been the subject of German poems by Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart, , Wilhelm Müller, Nikolaus Lenau, Adelbert von Chamisso, August Wilhelm von Schlegel, Julius Mosen (an epic, 1838), and Ludwig Köhler; of novels by Franz Horn (1818), , and Levin Schücking; and of tragedies by Ernst August Friedrich Klingemann ("", 1827) and Joseph Christian Freiherr von Zedlitz (1844). It is either the Ahasuerus of Klingemann or that of Achim von Arnim in his play, ', to whom Richard Wagner refers in the final passage of his notorious essay .

There are clear echoes of the Wandering Jew in Wagner's The Flying Dutchman, whose plot line is adapted from a story by Heinrich Heine in which the Dutchman is referred to as "the Wandering Jew of the ocean", and his final opera features a woman called Kundry who is in some ways a female version of the Wandering Jew. It is alleged that she was formerly Herodias, and she admits that she laughed at Jesus on his route to the Crucifixion, and is now condemned to wander until she meets with him again (cf. Eugene Sue's version, below).

Robert Hamerling, in his (Vienna, 1866), identifies Nero with the Wandering Jew. Goethe had designed a poem on the subject, the plot of which he sketched in his .

Denmark

Hans Christian Andersen made his "Ahasuerus" the Angel of Doubt, and was imitated by Heller in a poem on "The Wandering of Ahasuerus", which he afterward developed into three cantos. Martin Andersen Nexø wrote a short story named "The Eternal Jew", in which he also refers to Ahasuerus as the spreading of the Jewish gene pool in Europe.

The story of the Wandering Jew is the basis of the essay "The Unhappiest One" in Søren Kierkegaard's Either/Or (published 1843 in Copenhagen). It is also discussed in an early portion of the book that focuses on Mozart's opera Don Giovanni.

In the play (The Residents) by Jens Christian Hostrup (1844), the Wandering Jew is a character (in this context called "Jerusalem's shoemaker") and his shoes make the wearer invisible. The protagonist of the play borrows the shoes for a night and visits the house across the street as an invisible man.

France

The French writer Edgar Quinet published his prose epic on the legend in 1833, making the subject the judgment of the world; and wrote his in 1844, in which the author connects the story of Ahasuerus with that of Herodias. Grenier's 1857 poem on the subject may have been inspired by 's designs, which were published the preceding year. One should also note 's (1864), which combines several fictional Wandering Jews, both heroic and evil, and Alexandre Dumas' incomplete (1853), a sprawling historical saga. In Guy de Maupassant's short story "Uncle Judas", the local people believe that the old man in the story is the Wandering Jew.

In the late 1830's, the epic novel "The Wandering Jew," written by Eugene Sue was published in serialized form.

Russia

In Russia, the legend of the Wandering Jew appears in an incomplete epic poem by Vasily Zhukovsky, "Ahasuerus" (1857) and in another epic poem by Wilhelm Küchelbecker, "Ahasuerus, a Poem in Fragments", written between 1832 and 1846 but not published until 1878, long after the poet's death. Alexander Pushkin also began a long poem on Ahasuerus (1826) but later abandoned the project, completing fewer than thirty lines.

Other literature

The Wandering Jew makes a notable appearance in the gothic masterpiece of the Polish writer Jan Potocki, The Manuscript Found in Saragossa, written about 1797.

20th century

Latin America

In Mexican writer Mariano Azuela's 1920 novel set during the Mexican Revolution, The Underdogs (), the character Venancio, a semi-educated barber, entertains the band of revolutionaries by recounting episodes from The Wandering Jew, one of two books he had read.

In Argentina, the topic of the Wandering Jew has appeared several times in the work of Enrique Anderson Imbert, particularly in his short-story (The Grimoire), included in the eponymous book.

Chapter XXXVII, , in the collection of short stories, , by the Argentine writer Manuel Mujica Láinez also centres round the wandering of the Jew.

The Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges named the main character and narrator of his short story "The Immortal" Joseph Cartaphilus (in the story he was a Roman military tribune who gained immortality after drinking from a magical river and dies in the 1920s).

In Green Mansions, W. H. Hudson's protagonist Abel references Ahasuerus, as an archetype of someone, like himself, who prays for redemption and peace, while condemned to walk the earth.

In 1967, the Wandering Jew appears as an unexplained magical realist townfolk legend in Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. In his short story, "One Day After Saturday," the character Father Anthony Isabel claims to encounter the Wandering Jew again in the mythical town of Macondo.

Colombian writer Prospero Morales Pradilla, in his novel (The sins of Ines de Hinojosa), describes the famous Wandering Jew of Tunja that has been there since the 16th century. He talks about the wooden statue of the Wandering Jew that is in Santo Domingo church and every year during the holy week is carried around on the shoulders of the Easter penitents around the city. The main feature of the statue are his eyes; they can express the hatred and anger in front of Jesus carrying the cross.

Brazil

In 1970, Polish-Brazilian writer Samuel Rawet published ("Travels of Ahasverus to foreign lands in search of a past that does not exist because it is a future and a future that has already passed because it was dreamed"), a short story in which the main character, Ahasverus, or The Wandering Jew, is capable of transforming into various other figures.

France

Guillaume Apollinaire parodies the character in in his

collection (Heresiarch & Co., 1910).

Jean d'Ormesson wow in (1991).<!--which is what? a novel? non-fiction writing about the legend?-->

In Simone de Beauvoir's novel (All Men are Mortal, 1946), the leading figure Raymond Fosca undergoes a fate similar to the wandering Jew, who is explicitly mentioned as a reference.

Germany

In both Gustav Meyrink's The Green Face (1916) and Leo Perutz's The Marquis of Bolibar (1920), the Wandering Jew features as a central character.

The German writer Stefan Heym in his novel (translated into English as The Wandering Jew) maps a story of Ahasuerus and Lucifer ranging between ancient times, the Germany of Luther and socialist East Germany. In Heym's depiction, the Wandering Jew is a highly sympathetic character.

Belgium

The Belgian writer August Vermeylen published in 1906 a novel called (The Wandering Jew).

Romania

Mihai Eminescu, an influential Romanian Romantic writer, depicts a variation in his 1872 fantasy novella Poor Dionysus (). A student named Dionis goes on a surreal journey through the book of Zoroaster, which seemingly grants him godlike abilities. The book is given to him by Ruben, his Jewish master who is a philosopher. Dionis awakens as Friar Dan, and is eventually tricked by Ruben, being sentenced by God to a life of insanity. This he can only escape by resurrection or metempsychosis.

Similarly, Mircea Eliade presents in his novel Dayan (1979) a student's mystic and fantastic journey through time and space under the guidance of the Wandering Jew, in the search of a higher truth and of his own self.

Russia

The Soviet satirists Ilya Ilf and Yevgeni Petrov had their hero Ostap Bender tell the story of the Wandering Jew's death at the hands of Ukrainian nationalists in The Little Golden Calf. In Vsevolod Ivanov's story Ahasver a strange man comes to a Soviet writer in Moscow in 1944, introduces himself as "Ahasver the cosmopolite" and claims he is Paul von Eitzen, a theologian from Hamburg, who concocted the legend of the Wandering Jew in the 16th century to become rich and famous but then turned himself into a real Ahasver against his will. The novel Overburdened with Evil (1988) by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky involves a character in modern setting who turns out to be Ahasuerus, identified at the same time in a subplot with John the Divine. In the novel Going to the Light (, 1998) by Sergey Golosovsky, Ahasuerus turns out to be Apostle Paul, punished (together with Moses and Mohammed) for inventing false religion.

South Korea

The 1979 Korean novel Son of Man by Yi Mun-yol (introduced and translated into English by Brother Anthony, 2015), is framed within a detective story. It describes the character of Ahasuerus as a defender of humanity against unreasonable laws of the Jewish god, Yahweh. This leads to his confrontations with Jesus and withholding of aid to Jesus on the way to Calvary. The unpublished manuscript of the novel was written by a disillusioned theology student, Min Yoseop, who has been murdered. The text of the manuscript provides clues to solving the murder. There are strong parallels between Min Yoseop and Ahasuerus, both of whom are consumed by their philosophical ideals.

Sweden

In Pär Lagerkvist's 1956 novel The Sibyl, Ahasuerus and a woman who was once the Delphic Sibyl each tell their stories, describing how an interaction with the divine damaged their lives. Lagerkvist continued the story of Ahasuerus in (The Death of Ahasuerus, 1960).

Ukraine

In Ukrainian legend, there is a character of Marko Pekelnyi (Marko of Hell, Marko the Infernal) or Marko the Accursed. This character is based on the archetype of the Wandering Jew. The origin of Marko's image is also rooted in the legend of the traitor Mark, who struck Christ with an iron glove before his death on the cross, for which God punished him by forcing him to eternally walk underground around a pillar, not stopping even for a minute; he bangs his head against a pillar from time to time, disturbs even hell and its master with these sounds and complains that he cannot die. Another explanation for Mark's curse is that he fell in love with his own sister, then killed her along with his mother, for which he was punished by God.

Ukrainian authors Oleksa Storozhenko, Lina Kostenko, Ivan Malkovych and others have written prose and poetry about Marko the Infernal. Also, Les Kurbas Theatre made a stage performance "Marko the Infernal, or the Easter Legend" based on the poetry of Vasyl Stus.

United Kingdom

Bernard Capes' story "The Accursed Cordonnier" (1900) depicts the Wandering Jew as a figure of menace.

The Wandering Jew appears as a sympathetic character in Diana Wynne Jones's young adult novel The Homeward Bounders (1981). His fate is tied in with larger plot themes regarding destiny, disobedience, and punishment.

In Ian McDonald's 1991 story Fragments of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria (originally published in Tales of the Wandering Jew, ed. Brian Stableford), the Wandering Jew first violates and traumatizes a little girl during the Edwardian era, where her violation is denied and explained away by Sigmund Freud analyzing her and coming to the erroneous conclusion that her signs of abuse are actually due to a case of hysteria or prudishness. A quarter of a century later, the Wandering Jew takes on the guise of a gentile éminence grise who works out the genocidal ideology and bureaucracy of the Holocaust and secretly incites the Germans into carrying it out according to his plans. In a meeting with one of the victims where he's gloatingly telling her that she and millions of others will die, he reveals that he did it out of self-hatred.

United States

<!--Please read and contribute to the talk page discussion before adding references to: The Phantom Stranger, Keel Lorenz, Lazarus Long, Nathan Brazil, Hob Gadling (Sandman) or any other character that isn't explicitly named by the author as the Wandering Jew.-->

In O. Henry's 1911 story "The Door of Unrest", a drunk shoemaker Mike O'Bader comes to a local newspaper editor and claims to be the Jerusalem shoemaker Michob Ader who did not let Christ rest upon his doorstep on the way to crucifixion and was condemned to live until the Second Coming. However, Mike O'Bader insists he is a Gentile, not a Jew.

"The Wandering Jew" is the title of a short poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson which appears in his 1920 book The Three Taverns. In the poem, the speaker encounters a mysterious figure with eyes that "remembered everything". He recognizes him from "his image when I was a child" and finds him to be bitter, with "a ringing wealth of old anathemas"; a man for whom the "world around him was a gift of anguish". The speaker does not know what became of him, but believes that "somewhere among men to-day / Those old, unyielding eyes may flash / And flinch—and look the other way."

George Sylvester Viereck and Paul Eldridge wrote a trilogy of novels My First Two Thousand Years: an Autobiography of the Wandering Jew (1928), in which Isaac Laquedem is a Roman soldier who, after being told by Jesus that he will "tarry until I return", goes on to influence many of the great events of history. He frequently encounters Solome (described as "The Wandering Jewess"), and travels with a companion, to whom he has passed on his immortality via a blood transfusion (another attempt to do this for a woman he loved ended in her death).

"Ahasver", a cult leader identified with the Wandering Jew, is a central figure in Anthony Boucher's classic mystery novel Nine Times Nine (originally published 1940 under the name H. Holmes).

Written by Isaac Asimov in October 1956, the short story "Does a Bee Care?" features a highly influential character named Kane who is stated to have spawned the legends of the Walking Jew and the Flying Dutchman in his thousands of years maturing on Earth, guiding humanity toward the creation of technology which would allow it to return to its far-distant home in another solar system. The story originally appeared in the June 1957 edition of If: Worlds of Science Fiction magazine and is collected in the anthology Buy Jupiter and Other Stories (Isaac Asimov, Doubleday Science Fiction, 1975).

A Jewish Wanderer appears in A Canticle for Leibowitz, a post-apocalyptic science fiction novel by Walter M. Miller, Jr. first published in 1960; some children are heard saying of the old man, "What Jesus raises up STAYS raised up", and introduces himself in Hebrew as Lazarus, implying that he is Lazarus of Bethany, whom Christ raised from the dead. Another possibility hinted at in the novel is that this character is also Isaac Edward Leibowitz, founder of the (fictional) Albertian Order of St. Leibowitz (and who was martyred for trying to preserve books from burning by a savage mob). The character speaks and writes in Hebrew and English, and wanders around the desert, though he has a tent on a mesa overlooking the abbey founded by Leibowitz, which is the setting for almost all the novel's action. The character appears again in three subsequent novellas which take place hundreds of years apart, and in Miller's 1997 follow-up novel, Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman.

Ahasuerus must remain on Earth after space travel is developed in Lester del Rey's "Earthbound" (1963). The Wandering Jew also appears in Mary Elizabeth Counselman's story "A Handful of Silver" (1967). Barry Sadler has written a series of books featuring a character called Casca Rufio Longinus who is a combination of two characters from Christian folklore, Saint Longinus and the Wandering Jew. Jack L. Chalker wrote a five-book series called The Well World Saga in which it is mentioned many times that the creator of the universe, a man named Nathan Brazil, is known as the Wandering Jew. The 10th issue of DC Comics' Secret Origins (January 1987) gave The Phantom Stranger four possible origins. In one of these explanations, the Stranger confirms to a priest that he is the Wandering Jew. Angela Hunt's novel The Immortal (2000) features the Wandering Jew under the name of Asher Genzano.

Although he does not appear in Robert A. Heinlein's novel Time Enough for Love (1973), the central character, Lazarus Long, claims to have encountered the Wandering Jew at least once, possibly multiple times, over the course of his long life. According to Lazarus, he was then using the name Sandy Macdougal and was operating as a con man. He is described as having red hair and being, in Lazarus' words, a "crashing bore".

The Wandering Jew is revealed to be Judas Iscariot in George R. R. Martin's distant-future science fiction parable of Christianity, the 1979 short story "The Way of Cross and Dragon".

In the first two novels of science fiction author Dan Simmons' Hyperion Cantos (1989-1997), a central character is referred to as the Wandering Jew as he roams the galaxy in search of a cure for his daughter's illness. In his later novel Ilium (2003), a woman who is addressed as the Wandering Jew also plays a pivotal role, acting as witness and last remaining Jew during a period where all other Jewish people have been locked away.

The Wandering Jew encounters a returned Christ in Deborah Grabien's 1990 novel Plainsong.

21st century

Brazil

Brazilian writer Glauco Ortolano in his 2000 novel uses the theme of the Wandering Jew for its main character, Domingos Vera Cruz, who flees to Brazil in one of the first Portuguese expeditions to the New World after murdering his wife's lover in Portugal. In order to avoid eternal damnation, he must fully repent of his crime. The book of memoirs Domingos dictates in the 21st century to an anonymous transcriber narrates his own saga throughout 500 years of Brazilian history. At the end, Domingos indicates he is finally giving in as he senses the arrival of the Son of Man.

Ireland

Local history and legends have made reference to The Wandering Jew having haunted an abandoned watermill on the edge of Dunleer town.

United Kingdom

English writer Stephen Gallagher uses the Wandering Jew as a theme in his 2007 novel The Kingdom of Bones. The Wandering Jew is a character, a theater manager and actor, who turned away from God and toward depravity in exchange for long life and prosperity. He must find another person to take on the persona of the wanderer before his life ends or risk eternal damnation. He eventually does find a substitute in his protégé, Louise. The novel revolves around another character's quest to find her and save her from her assumed damnation.

Sarah Perry's 2018 novel Melmoth is part-inspired by the Wandering Jew and makes several references to the legend in discussing the origin of its titular character.

J. G. Ballard's short story "The Lost Leonardo" features the Wandering Jew as a mysterious art thief.

The fate of Maglor, the last surviving son of Fëanor, in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion, has been inspired by the legend of the Wandering Jew: as Maglor is an elf and hence immortal, and banned ever returning to the Undying Lands, he is doomed to wander the Earth until Dagor Dagorath comes.

United States

  • In Glen Berger's play Underneath the Lintel, the main character suspects a 113-year overdue library book was checked out and returned by the Wandering Jew.
  • The Wandering Jew appears in "An Arkham Halloween" in the 30 October 2017, issue of Bewildering Stories, as a volunteer to help Miskatonic University prepare a new translation of the Necronomicon, particularly qualified because he knew the author.
  • The Wandering Jew appears in Angela Hunt's inspirational novel The Immortal (2000) and is named Asher Genzano.
  • Kenneth Johnson's novel The Man of Legend is a retelling of the story of the Wandering Jew, who is in fact a Roman soldier and head of Pilate's personal guard.
  • In the novella The Wandering Christian by Eugene Byrne and Kim Newman an alternate history is narrated by the Wandering Jew, in which Constantine is defeated at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge.

Uzbekistan

Uzbek writer Isajon Sulton published his novel The Wandering Jew in 2011. In this novel, the Jew does not characterize a symbol of curse; however, they appear as a human being, who is aware of God's presence, after being cursed by Him. Moreover, the novel captures the fortune of present-day wandering Jews, created by humans using high technology.

In art

19th century

thumb|[[Personifications of death|Death grabs an executioner while sending the Wandering Jew away. Detail from The Chariot of Death (1848–1851), painting by Théophile Schuler.]]

thumb|[[Ahasuerus at the End of the World, by Adolf Hirémy-Hirschl, 1888.]]

[[File:Kaulbach Zerstoerung Jerusalems durch Titus.jpg|thumb|Titus destroying Jerusalem, Kaulbach.

  • 1846 finished work purchased by King Ludwig I of Bavaria for the royal collections; 1853 installed in Neue Pinakothek, Munich.
  • 1842 Kaulbach's replica for the stairway murals of the Neues Museum, Berlin commissioned by King Frederick William IV of Prussia.
  • 1866 completed.
  • 1943 destroyed by war damage.
  • 1848–1851, Théophile Schuler's monumental painting The Chariot of Death features a prominent depiction of the Wandering Jew (who is driven away by Death).
  • 1852, a coloured caricature was used as a cover design for the June number of the satirical , published by Charles Philipon.