Academic literature on the topic 'Jewish converts'

The subject of this thesis is Jewish conversion to Christianity in medieval England. The majority of the material covered dates between 1066 and c.1290. The overall argument of the thesis contends that converts to Christianity in England remained essentially Jews. Following a discussion of the relevant secondary literature, which examines the existing discussion of converts and conversion, the principal arguments contained in the chapters of the thesis include the assertion that the increasing restrictiveness of the laws and rules regulating the Jewish community in England created a push factor towards conversion, and that converts to Christianity inhabited a legal grey area, neither under the jurisdiction of the Exchequer of the Jews, nor completely outside of it. Numerous questions are asked (and answered) about the variety of convert experience, in order to argue that there was a distinction between leaving Judaism and joining Christianity. Two convert biographies are presented. The first shows how the liminality that was a part of the conversion process affected the post-conversion life of a convert, and the second shows how a convert might successfully integrate into Christian society. The analysis of converts and conversion focusses on answering a number of questions. These relate to, among other things, pre-conversion relationships with royal family members, the reaction to corrody requests for converts, motives for conversion, forced or coerced conversions, the idea that a convert could be neither Christian nor Jew, converts re-joining Judaism, converts who carried the names of royal functionaries, the domus conversorum, convert instruction, and converting minors. The appendix to the thesis contains a complete catalogue of Jewish converts in medieval England. Among other things noted therein are inter-convert relationships, and extant source material. Each convert also has a biography.

Set in a small minority community in South Africa, the Orthodox Jewish com-munity in Johannesburg, this study explores why a person would actively and volun-tarily seek minority status by converting into an ethnic-religious minority group. Taking a social constructionist approach to understanding religious conversion, it is argued that religious conversion to Orthodox Judaism is also a social process of becoming ethnically "Jewish". In this study, two types of converts are considered, namely con-verts who come to Judaism through marriage and converts for religious purposes. Through in-depth-interviews with rabbis and converts, experiences of social inclusion and exclusion, and the meaning of conversions is understood. This study finds that regardless of the path to conversion, belonging and identity are key reasons for con-version, and that it is an ethnic process that serves group and individual needs recip-rocally. At an individual level, becoming Jewish through conversion helps avoid social exclusion and achieves other social inclusions by acquiring membership in new com-munities and by forming new social identities. At a group level, the research shows that religious conversion is part of the group's broader concern for maintaining ethnic boundaries and is therefore an element of the politics of belonging. The research shows how conversion to a minority ethnic group in a plural environment becomes a social means to protect ethnic identity and avoid assimilation. By understanding con-version as the politics of belonging, the research explores the subjective experiences of citizenship at a group and individual level.

O presente estudo procura compreender Edith Stein (1891-1942), personagem emblemática do século XX, através de uma perspectiva histórica, psicanalítica e de um método hermenêutico. De origem judaica, nascida em Breslau, Prússia, dedicouse aos estudos filosóficos e ao magistério. Foi aluna de E. Husserl e realizou importantes investigações fenomenológicas, em várias áreas. Discriminada por ser mulher e judia, não pôde seguir uma carreira acadêmica, apesar de suas importantes contribuições teóricas. Converteu-se ao catolicismo tornando-se monja carmelita descalça. Foi presa pela polícia nazista e assassinada em Auschwitz, na câmera de gás, em 1942. Beatificada pelo Papa João Paulo II em 1998, tornou-se co-patrona da Europa. Neste trabalho busquei, através de seu idioma pessoal, as raízes que fecundaram o seu pensamento e a maneira como tentou responder às questões cruciais que a habitaram como mulher, filósofa, judia-católica, vivendo a tensão entre o judaísmo e o catolicismo. As principais fontes utilizadas foram sua autobiografia, cartas, obras e escritos diversos, assim como a literatura produzida sobre ela e sua época, além de material iconográfico.<br>The focus of this research is to understand Edith Stein (1891-1942), an iconic XX century figure, using historical and psychoanalytical perspectives as well as an hermeneutical method. From Jewish origin, Stein was born in Breslau, Prussia, studied with E. Husserl and developed important phenomenological investigations, in education, womanhood, philosophy, theology and mystic. However could not be an academic because of discrimination against both women and Jews. Subsequently she converted to Catholicism and even became a Carmelite monk, neither of which was enough to escape persecution of the Nazis. She flew to Holland, but was arrested by the Gestapo, taken to Auschwitz concentration camp in 1942, where her life ended in a gas chamber. She was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1998. This work examines the roots and influences of her theoretical contributions as well as the way she answered the fundamental human questions that she dealt with during her lifetime as a woman, a philosopher and a Christian-Jew. The main sources are Steins autobiography, letters, writings and other literature dealing with her life and times.

Jean de Menasce, né en 1902 dans l’aristocratie juive d’Alexandrie et impliqué dans le mouvement sioniste, demande le baptême à l’âge de 23 ans, à la suite d’un jeune cousin passé du communisme au séminaire. Il entre dans l’ordre dominicain et le sacerdoce et intègre le réseau de sociabilité maritainien. Étudiant d’Émile Benveniste, il devient spécialiste du mazdéisme et enseigne de 1938 à 1948 l’histoire des religions et la missiologie à la faculté de théologie de l’université de Fribourg en Suisse avant d’occuper la chaire « Religions de l’Iran ancien » à l’École pratique. L’originalité de sa trajectoire est multiple. Elle tient d’abord au fait qu’il entre dans l’Église avec une expérience juive dense et complexe. Il se distingue par un regard porté non pas exclusivement sur le judaïsme des origines chrétiennes ou sur la théologie d’Israël, mais sur un judaïsme étudié dans sa consistance historique et sur le monde juif contemporain, avec une attention particulière à l’État d’Israël. S’il semble d’abord s’orienter à l’instar de nombreux convertis du judaïsme vers une spécialisation dans un renouvellement des relations entre juifs et chrétiens, cet engagement originel s’intègre à deux lieux plus vastes : d’une part les fondements et exigences de la mission et du « dialogue » avec les religions non-chrétiennes et le monde sécularisé, surtout le marxisme ; de l’autre, la science des religions et son épistémologie, dont on mesurera ce qu’elles doivent, à côté d’une formation philosophique et littéraire et d’une expérience de linguiste et de traducteur, à la théologie des religions<br>Jean de Menasce, born in 1902 in the Jewish aristocracy of Alexandria and involved in the Zionist movement, converted to Catholicism at the age of 23, following a young cousin who moved from Communism to the seminary. He entered the Dominican order and was ordained priest. A student of Emile Benveniste, he became a specialist of Mazdeism. From 1938 to 1948, he taught History of Religions and Missiology at the Theology Faculty of Fribourg, Switzerland, and then, Religions of Ancient Iran at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes. The originality of his trajectory is multiple. Menasce had a rich and complex Jewish experience before his conversion. As a Catholic, he was not exclusively interested in Judaism related with the origins of Christianism, or in the theology of Israel. He studied Judaism in its historical consistence and paid attention to the contemporary Jewish world, in particular the young State of Israel. He first seems, like numerous converts from Judaism, to be inclined towards a specialisation in the renewal of the relations between Jews and Christians. This original commitment blended in two larger issues: on one hand, the foundations and demands of the mission, and of the “dialogue” with non Christian religions and the secularised world, especially Marxism; on the other, the science of religions and its epistemology, whose practice and development are linked with the theology of religions, alongside the influence of a philosophical and litterary training and an experience as a linguist and a translator