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An Historical Overview of Outreach and Conversion in Judaism

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An Historical Overview of Outreach and Conversion in Judaism AN HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF OUTREACH AND CONVERSION IN JUDAISM ROBERT M. SELTZER, PH.D. Professor of History, Hunter College and the Graduate School of the City University of New York There have been much more conversion and outreach to Judaism in the past than the conventional picture implies. The lack of interest that has been predominant since the late Middle Ages is only a limited phase in a long history of cycles of isolation and out­ reach. We may now be entering into a new historic era of outreach. he notion of conversion to Judaism broader, open-ended meaning, viewed in T that has predominated in the last the context of changing definitions of the few centuries is that it must be passive boundaries and the gateways between the and even reluctant: if people make theit Jewish people and the laigei social woflds way to Judaism by themselves and in utter it occupied in vaiious etas. Even befoie sincetity and reject the warning concerning the inception of foimal conversion, thete the lowly status of the Jewish people in was a more drawn-out mode of assimilating the world, those people ate to be gtaciously non-Israelites into the people of Isiael. accepted. But there is evidence that thete Ruth's insistence that the home of hei late was fat more conveision and outreach to husband's mothei was to become het tiue Judaism in the past than the conventional home and that the place wheie Naomi pictuie implies and that the withdiawn, was to be buiied was the place wheie she disinterested appioach is only a mote lecent wanted to be bulled was accompanied by phase in a much longei histoiy (Seltzet, her fervent assertion that she desired mem­ 1988). bership in the people of Isiael and would Outteach in Jewish history is at the woiship its God. The biblical text ex- same time nairower and broader than for­ ptesses nothing but admiiation fot Ruth; mal conversion. As the tetm has come to the stoiy concludes by noting that Ruth be used tecently, outteach is a tuming to was a diiect ancestoi of Jesse, fathei of individuals who aie not Jews accoiding to King David. Regaidless of the piecise his- the Jewish law to invite them to become toiicity of the tale, it indicates that the Jews, to convince them of the desiiability giadual, infoimal integiation of such a of such a step, and to facilitate theif ac­ wofthy, devoted, pious Moabitess into the ceptance in the Jewish community. Out­ people of Istael was a live option and a reach may not be missionizing in the desirable possibility in biblical times. traditional Chiistian sense, but it is mote Such absoiption was pait of the pfo- receptive and positive m its oiientation phetic vision during the great events of than what is taken to be the usual Jewish redemption at the end of the Babylonian attitude to Gentiles. exile. The sixth-century BCE prophet Defining the lelationship between con­ whom we call Second Isaiah explicitly veision and outteach in the naiiow sense refers to "foreigners who join themselves is not the only conceptual pioblem faced to the Lofd"; theii offeiings aie to be ac­ by Jewish histoiians. Outreach can have a cepted at God's altai as a sign that God's house will be "a house of player for all peoples" (Isaiah 56:3-7). These joiners Presented at the Paul Cowan Memotial Confetence will be gathered up in the exile along on Intetmatfiage, Conversion, and Outteach at the City Univetsity of New York, Octobet 14, 1989. with tbe outcasts of Israel and brought 150 Historical Overview I back to tbe land of Israel. Does tbis mean in Judaism is to define the cycles of isola­ the the exilic generation actually engaged tion and outfeach in Jewish histoiy. Clear­ in outteach? Yehczkel Kaufmann (1970) ly, the conversionist drive has been tied argues cogently that mass conversion of both to foices internal to the history of the Gentiles in biblical prophecy was es- Judaism and to forces impinging from chatological, not practical —a gtand vision­ without —to a series of long-range dynamic ary idea associated with the End of Days, processes that made conveision only a but just an idea. Yet, ideas as such ptecede theoretical possibility in some etas and an their teality. actuality in otheis. In the test of this arti­ By the second centuty BCE, formal con­ cle, three clusters of problems are presented version was unquestionably a widespread that require special clarification for a future practice in Judaism, not only in the history of Jews-by-Choice, the joiners in Diaspora but also thfough physical coercion each generation. in the land of Israel under the Hasmonean rulers who forced Idumeans and others to become Jews. Between Second Isaiah and CONVERSION IN LATE ANTIQUITY the Hasmonean kings and Diaspora out- First, there are questions dealing with con­ reachers, we have the late biblical account veision to Judaism in late antiquity when of Ezra's uncompromising injunctions in the impulse was especially fervent. How the mid-fifth century BCE that IsraeHtes was the Jewish outreach of the Hellenistic put aside all their non-Israelite wives, and Roman periods related to the emer­ regardless of religious behavior or loyalty. gence of multiple forms of Judaism in the The silence of the books of Ezra and late Second Temple period? Which groups Nehemiah concerning procedures by which spearheaded it? Did the translation of the the worthy and pious among these women Bible into Greek (the Septuagint) in the could be formally accepted among the third century BCE spur outreach in the Judaites indicates the nonexistence of such Diaspora to non-Jews in the eastern Medi­ procedures in an era of closing ranks and terranean? How important as a source of sharpening boundaries; the main preoccu­ proselytes were the so-called sebominoi, pation was re-establishing the purity of the "God-fearers" who were said to have the "holy seed" in a mood of contrition been attracted to the singular Jewish deity for the sins of that generation and of their and to have adopted some Jewish practices, ancestors. (There is no indication, by rhe but who did not —or had not yet —become way, that Ezra's strictures were carried out full-fledged members of the people of to the degree and in the manner that he Israel (Biblical Archeological Review, J986)? demanded.) We know the three primary elements of From the fifth century BCE to the first conversion according to early rabbinic century BCE and first century CE, Jewish practice: tevilah (ntual immersion, bap­ leadership moved from the separatist tism), milah (circumcision), and the offer­ policy espoused by Ezta and Nehemiah to ing of a special sacrifice at the Jerusalem the friendly attitude to ptoselytes men­ temple. What was required in the Diaspora tioned by such wfitcfs as the Alexandrian of such converts? In Judea did the Sad- Jewish philosopher Philo, the Jewish histor­ ducees, the priestly party, oppose outreach ian Josephus, the Roman historian Tacitus, and the Pharisees support it? Although the authof of the New Testament book of the Pharisees were bitterly critical of the Matthew (see Matthew i^'s) ^^id at- later Hasmonean kings for their cruelty tfibuted in the Talmud to the sage Hillel and religious perversions, there is no indi­ (see Babli Shabbat 31a). cation that the royal conversionist policies came under attack. Did the rise of apoca­ One of the key methodological ptoblems lyptic fanaticism spur conversion, or (more in reconstructing the history of conversion 13 2. / journal of Jewish Communal Service likely) did such groups as the Essenes, doms and states that had as tbeii official preoccupied with the end of history, tutn religions one of Judaism's two daughtet away from efforts to bring Jewish mono­ teligions, Chtistianity ot Islam. Recently theism to the Gentiles? Did the Jewish Noiman Golb (1987) of the Univeisity of wats against the Romans in the fitst and Chicago has shown that the eta of active second cemufies inhibit tbe pace of prose- Jewish conveisionism lasted much longei lytism or (as the sources seem to indicate) than has been suspected. He concludes make little difference? that "we may peiceive, ftom the vatiety of In the Talmud thete is an indication texts available, that Jewish proselytism in that significant numbers of conversions to the early Middle Ages was a phenomenon Judaism continued to occur until the that can be ttaced ftom the ninth century Christianization of the Roman Empire in onwards, and seems to have leached its the fourth century, when the Chiistian apogee in the eleventh centuiy" (Golb, emperors issued legislation against it 1987, p. 36). Not a few of these conveits (Bambeiger, 1968; Braude, 1940; Nock, whose stories have come down to us in 1933; Rosenbloom, 1978). If conversion to Jewish and Christian chionicles wete Judaism continued to be pievalent, why monks attiacted to the Jewish faith exactly did Christianity win far more con­ because of theii study of the Old Testa­ verts than Judaism in the 150 years during ment; they then settled in Muslim lands which they weie more or less on the same wheie conveision from Chtistianity to footing? Christianity began as ajewish Judaism was not prohibited (although sect, and the early Jewish-Christians in conversion from Islam to Judaism was). Jerusalem were possessed by apocalyptic On the basis of the materials in tbe Caiio fervor. Yet Chtistianity spiead mote suc­ Genizah, Golb (1987) goes so fat as to cessfully among Hellenized Jews and pagans estimate that 15,000 men and women fled in the Diaspora than among Judean Jews Europe to become Jewish conveits in the and even more rapidly among pagans than Islamic wotld between 1000 and iioo.
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