Circumcision of Jesus foreshadowing of Christ's Passion to come in the context of the "Circumcision". Having borrowed the large architectural setting in the Temple of the "Presentation", later scenes may show the high priest alone holding the baby, as he or a "mohel" performs the operation, as in the St Wolfgang altarpiece by Michael Pacher (1481), or Dürer's painting (right) and his influential woodcut from his series on the "Life of the Virgin". This reflected what had by then become, and remains, standard Jewish practice, where the ceremony is performed in the synagogue and the baby is held by the seated rabbi as
If This Is a Man not merely its lexical but also its inner faithfulness." Robert S. C. Gordon writes that Levi went on to develop a close relationship with Reidt. The German edition contains a special preface addressed to the German people, which Levi said he wrote out of passionate necessity to remind them what they had done. "If This Is a Man" is often published alongside Levi's second work of witness, "The Truce" (Italian title: "La Tregua"). The book is introduced by a poem. The construction "If .." invites the reader to make a judgment. It alludes to the treatment of people as "Untermenschen"