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I read the Schafer book awhile ago, but as I recall he made the excellent point that the historicity of these passages isn't terribly important. Far more important for ecumenical purposes is that it was traditionally simply assumed that the Jesus and Mary in these passages of the Talmud were the very same Jesus and Mary in the Christian New Testament.

That's what folks believed, and that's the main point.

I am reminded of the "His blood be on us and on our children" passage in the Gospel of John. Christians rightly object that, given the Christian understanding of salvation through the Blood of Christ, the passage could not reasonably be read as a curse but only rather as calling down the salvation of God on the Jews. And I think that's a valid point. But at the same time it must be admitted that Christians throughout the ages understood that passage not as a blessing but indeed as a curse.

The Talmudic passages in question present an analogous situation. It might very well be that this was a different Jesus, but for purposes of inter-religious dialogue that fact does little good. What would do a lot of good would, in my opinion, is rather a frank admission of the traditional understanding of these mutual anathemas that the two traditions hurled at each other.