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4 Self-definition and halakhah Apostasy and Jewish identity Self-definition and halakhah T he halakhic definition of Jewishness is one of the prime factors fashioning the Jew’s understanding both of himself and of his environment. The halakhic attitude towards those Jews who voluntarily embraced Christianity, or who were forced to accept that religion, shaped the disposition of those Jews who remained Jews as against those who became Christians. While the halakhic literature contains decisions deriving, by and large, from explicitly halakhic considerations
3 Theological confrontation with Christianity’s success Apostasy and Jewish identity Theological confrontation with Christianity T he success of the Christians in defeating the Muslims in the Holy Land, conquering it and establishing a Christian colony there, particularly in the Holy City of Jerusalem, was a harsh blow to the Jews from a theological viewpoint. The theological difficulty, which emerged during the course of the twelfth century, became a central issue, one which also affected the status of voluntary converts to Christianity. The Jewish sources
the course of the twelfth century and became far more complex, requiring a different sort of arrangement. During the course of the First Crusade (1096), the Jewish communities that were under the protection both of the emperor and of the bishops, who served as his representatives at the head of cities, were subjected to murderous attacks. The Christians violently forced Jews away from their religion and compelled them to become Christians; those who refused were either murdered or killed themselves as martyrs.1 One of the leaders of the Jews called upon the emperor
In this study, the various aspects of the way the Jews regarded themselves in the context of the lapse into another religion will be researched fully for the first time. We will attempt to understand whether they regarded the issue of conversion with self-confidence or with suspicion, whether their attitude was based on a clear theological position or on doubt and the coping with the problem as part of the process of socialization will be fully analysed. In this way, we will better understand how the Jews saw their own identity whilst living as a minority among the Christian majority, whose own self-confidence was constantly becoming stronger from the 10th to the 14th century until they eventually ousted the Jews completely from the places they lived in, England, France and large parts of Germany. This aspect of Jewish self-identification, written by a person who converted to Christianity, can help clarify a number of
8 Conclusions: The change in mentality Apostasy and Jewish identity Conclusions: The change in mentality J ewish self-definition in medieval Europe was based upon classical Jewish values: first, the eternal covenant between God and the Jewish people as the chosen people; second, an explicit Jewish identity deriving from the world of commandments unique to Judaism. As the Jewish group lived within Christian society, the essence of whose theological view was that Christians and Christianity had supplanted Jews and Judaism as God’s chosen people and religion
very important, as they reflect moods and approaches that are not given expression in the mainstream of halakhic writings, and express substantive and significant mentalities. Ideologically, Ashkenazic Hasidism strongly emphasized the ability to withstand trials as a central component in the self-definition and self-fashioning of the Jew in general, and of the hasid, or ‘pietist,’ in particular, against whom its followers pose the ‘regular’ Jews and the ‘wicked.’ The description of the apostate, or mumar, is expressed in Sefer Hasidim on three levels. On one level
1 Early beginnings Apostasy and Jewish identity Early beginnings I n a society defined by religion, the attitude towards those who leave it or who wish to join it is one of the fundamentals of self-definition. The attitude of Jews in the Christian world of the Middle Ages towards those Jews who converted to Christianity, or to Christians who sought to join the Jewish religion, reflects the central characteristics of Jewish self-definition as a unique, monotheistic group, chosen by God, which sees itself as fulfilling a particular task in the world.1 In the
7 Converts to Judaism Apostasy and Jewish identity Converts to Judaism T he Jewish ethos sees the Jew as unique, by virtue of his being the offspring of the chosen group of people who left Egypt, stood at Mount Sinai, received God’s Torah, and entered into an eternal covenant with God. This ethos constituted the foundation of the Jew’s identity during the Middle Ages. The concept is expressed in the personality of the Jew and is transmitted in a direct and unmediated way to his descendants. Thus, only a Jew, himself the descendant of Jews, can recite the
were convinced of the truth of Christianity and converted to the Christian religion as the result of undergoing some miraculous experience. This point is particularly emphasized in those Christian sources describing attempts by Jews to profane the Host, the sacred bread, with depictions of Jewish women or girls (or even children) who participated against their will in attempts by their terrible fathers to harm the Host, and through it Jesus and the Christian world. When, for example, the Host is placed in a pot full of boiling water, the Jewish woman sees the image