Leaving the Jewish Fold (ebook)

Argumento de Leaving the Jewish Fold (ebook)

"Through his broad-ranging exploration of radical assimilation and conversion away from Judaism in the modern Occident over the past three centuries, Endelman examines a topic that other Jewish historians have ignored. In so doing, Endelman provides a complete portrait of how Jews responded to the challenges first brought on by Emancipation and Enlightenment in the eighteenth century. His magisterial work will richly reward students of Jewish history and multiculturalism, as well as students of modern culture."--David Ellenson, chancellor, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion

"An astonishingly comprehensive, lucid, and beautifully crafted work. With sure command of the full range of early modern and modern Jewish history, Endelman casts his net wide in a study that explores every significant manifestation of radical assimilation in Jewish life over the last several centuries. His superb book is a reminder of the great clarity a first-rate historian can bring to opening up the past as well as present."--Steven J. Zipperstein, Stanford University

"Covering all of Europe and the United States, and drawing on a massive body of sources, Leaving the Jewish Fold is a pioneering work on a topic of great significance--Jews who converted or radically assimilated away from Judaism. It will be the definitive book on the subject and essential reading for scholars and advanced students of modern Jewish history."--Derek J. Penslar, University of Toronto and University of Oxford

"This original and important book is the first to broadly investigate conversion and radical assimilation in modern Jewish history. Delving into Jewish history and historiography from the eighteenth century to the near present, and the history of Jews in the United States and Europe, this is an impressive work. It will be widely read."--David Feldman, Birkbeck, University of London

"A superb work of scholarship."--Sheldon Kirshner, Times of Israel

"This is an important book that will be of insight to every reader. Those working in Jewish education will find specific interest in the methods that the Christian missionaries used. . . . Anyone looking to understand some of the reasons for conversion and assimilation in modern Jewish history will find Leaving the Jewish Fold a most stimulating narrative."--Ben Rothke, Times of Israel

"Endelman demonstrates yet again why he is one of the leading historians of the contemporary Jewish world."--Geoffrey Alderman, Jewish Chronicle

"This is a thoughtful, convincing study of a subject--conversion and radical assimilation in modern times--that receives too little attention from Jewish historians. . . . An important and impressive study."--Choice

Finalist for the 2015 National Jewish Book Award in Modern Jewish Thought & Experience (Dorot Foundation Award), Jewish Book Council

"[A]n outstanding, wide-ranging, judicious and inevitably provocative contribution to the flourishing field of Jewish history . . . supported by statistics taken from many sources and interspersed with thumbnail sketches of individual lives. . . . Vivid and absorbing."--Ritchie Robertson, Times Literary Supplement0Preface ix
Abbreviations xi
Introduction 1
1 Conversion in Medieval and Early Modern Europe 17
2 Conversion in the Age of Enlightenment and Emancipation 49
3 Conversion in the Age of Illiberalism 88
4 Defection and Drift—Early- and Mid-Twentieth Century 147
5 Integration and Intermarriage—Midcentury to the Present 190
6 Conversions of Conviction 225
7 Neither Jew nor Christian—New Religions, New Creeds 275
8 In Baptism's Wake 310
Conclusion 360
Notes 369
Index 415