Conversions of Jews to Christianity

Last updated

There is a long history of Jewish conversion to Christianity, both voluntarily and forced conversion. What follows is a partial history of some of the well known forced conversions.

Contents

Roman Empire

Jewish Christians were the followers of a Jewish religious sect that emerged in Judea during the late Second Temple period (first century AD). These Jews believed Jesus to be the prophesied Messiah, but maintained the observance of Jewish law. [1]

Middle Ages

Forced conversions of Jews were carried out with support of rulers during Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages in Gaul, the Iberian peninsula and in the Byzantine empire. [2]

Royal persecutions of Jews from the late eleventh century onward generally took form of expulsions, with some exceptions, such as conversions of Jews in southern Italy of the 13th century, which were carried out by Dominican Inquisitors but instigated by King Charles II of Naples. [2]

Jews were forced to convert to Catholicism before and during the First Crusade by the Crusaders in Lorraine, on the Lower Rhine, in Bavaria and Bohemia, in Mainz and in Worms. [3]

Early modern Iberian peninsula

Over a hundred thousand of Spain's Jews converted to Catholicism as a result of pogroms in 1391. [4] Those remaining practicing Jews were expelled by the Catholic monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella in the Alhambra Decree in 1492, following the Catholic Reconquest of Spain. As a result of the Alhambra Decree and persecution in prior years, over 200,000 Jews converted to Catholicism and between 40,000 and 100,000 were expelled. [5]

Meanwhile, in Portugal, although an order for their expulsion was given in 1496, only a handful were allowed to leave, the rest being forced to convert. [2]

Eastern Europe 1600s

Between 1648 and 1649, a large-scale uprising of Cossacks and Ukrainian peasants led by Bohdan Khmelnytsky swept through the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, the area of today's Ukraine. In the course of the fighting, there were many Jewish casualties, and many Jewish communities were destroyed. A large number also converted to Eastern Orthodoxy.

In the 18th century, Elizabeth of Russia launched a campaign of forced conversion of Russia's non-Orthodox subjects, including Muslims and Jews. [6]

Also, in the second half of the 18th century, a mass conversion to Catholicism occurred by followers of Jacob Frank.[ citation needed ]

1800s

Although forced conversions were less common in the 20th century, missionary activity remained strong, and many Jews chose to convert in order to integrate into secular society. A critical period in Britain followed when many of the chief Sephardic families — including the Bernals, Furtados, Ricardos, Disraelis (most prominently, Benjamin Disraeli twice prime minister of the United Kingdom), Ximenes, Lopezs and Uzziellis joined the church. [7] [8]

Germany

Germany had three main periods of conversion, the first beginning with the Mendelssohnian era (see the Haskalah, the Jewish Enlightenment) and a second wave occurred during the first half of the 19th century. A list of 32 Jewish families and 18 unmarried Jews who had recently converted was given by David Friedlander to Prussian State Chancellor Hardenberg in 1811. [9] In the eight old Prussian provinces between the years of 1816–43, during the reign of Frederick William III., 3,984 Jews were baptized, among them the many of richest and most cultured [10] (2,200 from 1822 to 1840, according to the Jewish Encyclopedia). The third and longest period of secession was due to antisemitism, and began in the year 1880. Across the German states, with the exception of Austria and France, many Jews obtained high stations and large revenues in return for their renouncing Judaism. [7]

Russia

In Russia, 40,000 are believed to have been converted between 1836 and 1875. [11] while in Britain during that period, the number has been estimated at 50,000. [12]

To Roman Catholicism

Various estimates have been put forward as to the total number of conversions during the 19th century. One Catholic encyclopedia writes that the number exceeded 100,000; [13] while the Jewish Encyclopedia records approximately 190,000. [14] Other contemporary sources put the number at 130,000 [15] or even as many as 250,000. [16]

As a result of the high rate of conversion, many Catholics can be found with a measure of Jewish parentage. In 1930s Germany, Nazi officials discovered that the German Catholic population with some level of Jewish ancestry almost equalled that of the Jewish community of just over five hundred thousand. [17]

United States today

Today, according to 2013 data from the Pew Research Center, about 1.6 million adult American Jews identify themselves as Christians, most of them Protestant. [18] [19] [20] Of those, most were raised as Jews or are Jews by ancestry. [19] According to a 2012 study 17% of Jews in Russia identify themselves as Christians. [21] [22] According to a 2020 study by the Pew Research Center, 19% of those who say they were raised Jewish in the United States, consider themselves Christian. [23]

See also

Related Research Articles

Some Christian Churches, Christian groups, and ordinary Christians express religious antisemitism toward the Jewish people and the associated religion of Judaism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Persecution of Christians</span> Persecution and discrimination against Christians

The persecution of Christians can be historically traced from the first century of the Christian era to the present day. Christian missionaries and converts to Christianity have both been targeted for persecution, sometimes to the point of being martyred for their faith, ever since the emergence of Christianity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sephardic Jews</span> Jewish diaspora of Spain and Portugal

SephardicJews, also known as Sephardi Jews or Sephardim, and rarely as Iberian Peninsular Jews, are a Jewish diaspora population associated with the Iberian Peninsula. The term, which is derived from the Hebrew Sepharad, can also refer to the Jews of the Middle East and North Africa, who were also heavily influenced by Sephardic law and customs. Many Iberian Jewish exiled families also later sought refuge in those Jewish communities, resulting in ethnic and cultural integration with those communities over the span of many centuries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crypto-Judaism</span> Secret adherence to Judaism

Crypto-Judaism is the secret adherence to Judaism while publicly professing to be of another faith; practitioners are referred to as "crypto-Jews".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Religion in Argentina</span>

Christianity is the most widely professed religion in Argentina, with Roman Catholicism being its largest denomination. This historical background is very much due to the Spanish influence brought about through the newly conquered territories. However, affiliation with Protestant churches is increasing and immigration throughout the 20th century has brought other religions from various regions to Argentina.

New Christian was a socio-religious designation and legal distinction in the Spanish Empire and the Portuguese Empire. The term was used from the 15th century onwards primarily to describe the descendants of the Sephardic Jews and Moors baptised into the Catholic Church following the Alhambra Decree. The Alhambra Decree of 1492, also known as the Edict of Expulsion, was an anti-Jewish law made by the Catholic Monarchs upon the Reconquista of the Iberian Peninsula. It required Jews to convert to Catholic Christianity or be expelled from Spain. Most of the history of the "New Christians" refers to the Jewish converts, who were generally known as Conversos while the Muslim converts were known as Moriscos.

Jewish population centers have shifted tremendously over time, due in modern times to large scale population movements, and in earlier times due to a combination of population movements, religious conversions and religious assimilation. Population movements have been caused by both push and pull factors, with the most notable push factors being expulsions and persecutions, in particular the pogroms in the Russian Empire and the Holocaust.

The Catholic Church and Judaism have a long and complex history of cooperation and conflict, and have had a strained relationship throughout history, with periods of persecution, violence and discrimination directed towards Jews by Christians, particularly during the Middle Ages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Religion in Europe</span>

Religion has been a major influence on the societies, cultures, traditions, philosophies, artistic expressions and laws within present-day Europe. The largest religion in Europe is Christianity. However, irreligion and practical secularisation are also prominent in some countries. In Southeastern Europe, three countries have Muslim majorities, with Christianity being the second-largest religion in those countries. Ancient European religions included veneration for deities such as Zeus. Modern revival movements of these religions include Heathenism, Rodnovery, Romuva, Druidry, Wicca, and others. Smaller religions include Indian religions, Judaism, and some East Asian religions, which are found in their largest groups in Britain, France, and Kalmykia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of the Jews in Europe</span> Aspect of world history

The history of the Jews in Europe spans a period of over two thousand years. Jews, an Israelite tribe from Judea in the Levant, began migrating to Europe just before the rise of the Roman Empire. Although Alexandrian Jews had already migrated to Rome, a notable early event in the history of the Jews in the Roman Empire was the 63 BCE siege of Jerusalem.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christianity in Morocco</span>

Christians in Morocco constitute less than 1% of the country's population of 33,600,000. Most of the Christian adherents are Catholic and Protestants.

Forced conversion is the adoption of a religion or irreligion under duress. Someone who has been forced to convert to a different religion or irreligion may continue, covertly, to adhere to the beliefs and practices which were originally held, while outwardly behaving as a convert. Crypto-Jews, Crypto-Christians, Crypto-Muslims and Crypto-Pagans are historical examples of the latter.

Growth of religion involves the spread of individual religions and the increase in the numbers of religious adherents around the world. In sociology, desecularization is the proliferation or growth of religion, most commonly after a period of previous secularization. Statistics commonly measure the absolute number of adherents, the percentage of the absolute growth per-year, and the growth of converts in the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christianity in Yemen</span>

Christianity is a minority religion in Yemen. The Yemeni constitution mentions religious liberty. There are three churches in Aden.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christianity in the United States</span>

Christianity is the most prevalent religion in the United States. Estimates from 2021 suggest that of the entire U.S. population about 63% is Christian. The majority of Christian Americans are Protestant Christians, though there are also significant numbers of American Roman Catholics and other Christian denominations such as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Eastern Orthodox Christians and Oriental Orthodox Christians, and Jehovah's Witnesses. The United States has the largest Christian population in the world and, more specifically, the largest Protestant population in the world, with nearly 210 million Christians and, as of 2021, over 140 million people affiliated with Protestant churches, although other countries have higher percentages of Christians among their populations. The Public Religion Research Institute's "2020 Census of American Religion", carried out between 2014 and 2020, showed that 70% of Americans identified as Christian during this seven-year interval. In a 2020 survey by the Pew Research Center, 65% of adults in the United States identified themselves as Christians. They were 75% in 2015, 70.6% in 2014, 78% in 2012, 81.6% in 2001, and 85% in 1990. About 62% of those polled claim to be members of a church congregation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Religion in Eritrea</span>

Religion in Eritrea consists of a number of faiths. The two major religions in Eritrea are Christianity and Islam. However, the number of adherents of each faith is subject to debate. Estimates of the Christian share of the population range from 47% and 63%, while estimates of the Muslim share of the population range from 37% to 52%.

Christian population growth is the population growth of the global Christian community. According to a 2011 Pew Research Center survey, there were more than 2.2 billion Christians around the world in 2010, more than three times as many as the 600 million recorded in 1910. However, this rate of growth is slower than the overall population growth over the same time period. In 2020, Pew estimated the number of Christians worldwide to be around 2.38 billion. According to various scholars and sources, high birth rates and conversions in the Global South were cited as the reasons for the Christian population growth. In 2023, it was reported: "There will be over 2.6 billion Christians worldwide by the middle of 2023 and around 3.3 billion by 2050, according to a report published in early January by the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary."

The main religion in Morocco is Sunni Islam, which is also the state religion of the country. Officially, 99% of the population are Muslim, and virtually all of those are Sunni. The second-largest religion in the country is Christianity, but most Christians in Morocco are foreigners. There is a community of the Baháʼí Faith. Only a fraction of the former number of Maghrebi Jews have remained in the country, many having moved to Israel.

References

  1. ↑ Shiffman, Lawrence H. (2018). "How Jewish Christians Became Christians". My Jewish Learning. Archived from the original on 2018-12-17. Retrieved 2018-12-27.
  2. 1 2 3 François., Soyer (2007). The persecution of the Jews and Muslims of Portugal : King Manuel I and the end of religious tolerance (1496-7). Leiden: Brill. ISBN   9789047431558. OCLC   311601500.
  3. ↑ Abraham Joshua Heschel, Joachim Neugroschel, Sylvia Heschel (1983). Maimonides: A Biography. Macmillan. p. 43.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  4. ↑ Lea, Henry Charles (January 1896). "Ferrand Martinez and the Massacres of 1391". The American Historical Review. 1 (2): 209–219. doi:10.2307/1833647. ISSN   0002-8762. JSTOR   1833647.
  5. ↑ Pérez, Joseph (2012). History of a Tragedy. p. 17.
  6. ↑ Dominic Lieven, ed. (2006). The Cambridge History of Russia: Volume 2, Imperial Russia, 1689-1917. Cambridge University Press. p. 186.
  7. 1 2 "CONVERTS TO CATHOLICISM, MODERN - JewishEncyclopedia.com". www.jewishencyclopedia.com. Retrieved 2017-09-25.
  8. ↑ Picciotto, James (1875). Sketches of Anglo-Jewish history. University of California Libraries. London : Trübner & Co.
  9. ↑ Rabbi Abraham Geiger, "Vor Hundert Jahren," Brunswick, 1899
  10. ↑ "Jews, Missions to the". www.ccel.org. Retrieved 2017-09-25.
  11. ↑ “Missionsblatt des Rheinisch-Westphälischen Vereins für Israel," 1878, p. 122
  12. ↑ Johannes Friedrich Alexander de le Roi, "Die Evangelische Christenheit und die Juden," iii. 60
  13. ↑ Johann Jakob Herzog (1882). Real-Encyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche. [With] Generalregisterband. Unter ... (in German). Oxford University. Leipzig, J.C. Hinrichs. pp. x. 114.
  14. ↑ "STATISTICS - JewishEncyclopedia.com". www.jewishencyclopedia.com. Retrieved 2017-09-25.
  15. ↑ Dalman, Gustaf (1893). Kurzgefasstes Handbuch der Mission unter Israel (in German). Reuther und Reichard. p. 48.
  16. ↑ “Divre Emeth," 1880, p. 47; 1883, p. 187
  17. ↑ Hess, Jonathan M. (January 2009). "Review of Hertz, Deborah, How Jews Became Germans: The History of Conversion and Assimilation in Berlin". www.h-net.org. Retrieved 2017-09-25.
  18. ↑ "How many Jews are there in the United States?". Pew Research Center. 2013-10-02. Retrieved 2017-09-25.
  19. 1 2 "Chapter 1: Population Estimates". Pew Research Center's Religion & Public Life Project. 2013-10-01. Retrieved 2017-09-25.
  20. ↑ Maltz, Judy (2013-09-30). "Survey Says American-Jewish Population Rises to 6.8 Million". Haaretz. Retrieved 2017-09-25.
  21. ↑ "Main page project "Arena"". Non-profit research based consulting "Sreda". 2012-10-19. Retrieved 2017-09-25.
  22. ↑ 2012 Survey Maps. "Ogonek", № 34 (5243), 27/08/2012. Retrieved 25-09-2017.
  23. ↑ "Jewish Americans in 2020". Pew Research Center. That means that one-third of those raised Jewish or by Jewish parent(s) are not Jewish today, either because they identify with a religion other than Judaism (including 19% who consider themselves Christian) or because they do not currently identify as Jewish either by religion or aside from religion.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.