‘NOACHIDES  AND CONVERTS TO JUDAISM

                                                                                                             Simon Schoon

Introduction

Most Jews reject any kind of Jewish ‘missionary’ zeal and regard the Noachide commandments as the outstretched hand of Judaism towards non-Jews. Those interested in Judaism are mostly referred to these laws and to specific organizations for Noachides. Especially the Lubavitch Chabad Movement is very active in this respect. But for some of those interested in Judaism this advice is not enough. They seek full conversion ‘under the wings of the Shekhinah’. For them there are only a few organizations that encourage non-Jews to study Judaism and to make an eventual decision to convert, so as to join the Jewish people.
In the present time conversion is a much debated issue in Judaism. Few rabbis, and certainly not the Orthodox, advocate an active and stimulating attitude towards potential converts. Most practise a very restrained policy towards admitting ‘proselytes’ into Judaism. Some Jewish organisations, though, focus on achieving ‘full fledged’ converts to Judaism. They are motivated by  the decline in numbers of Jews in the world, especially resulting from the many mixed marriages in Western countries. Both groups, pro and anti conversion, refer to the Jewish tradition and the practice towards proselytes in the past to substantiate their standpoints. This practice of the past, however, was rather ambiguous, as we shall see, and the ambiguity persists today. In the first section we will deal with some questions around the Noachide commandments and Noachides, continuing in the second section with some questions around conversion and converts to Judaism.  

 1. Noachides

A few years ago I was the object of a rather ‘missionary’ approach, in a bookshop of the Lubavitch movement in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. In a Jewish environment this was for me a unique and peculiar experience. I was invited to become Noachide, and was offered several books and sermons on cassettes. Finally, I was given a bumper-sticker with the slogan 'Keep the seven, go to heaven'. This approach was very different from the usually cautious way in which Judaism was accustomed to present itself through many centuries in the diaspora. It showed me how a self-confident and lively Judaism could express itself. Especially adherents of the Hassidic Lubavitch movement are deliberately reaching out to non-Jews, not trying to convert them to Judaism, but inviting them to follow  the Noachide commandments. It seems that Christians are a particular target for them. Their information, as posted on the web, includes expositions on the corruption of the biblical faith in Christianity, such as: 'Christianity is absolute idolatry, not shittuf (partnership of deities), because most of the estimated 1.9 billion Christians worldwide believe that the other two members of the "trinity" are of equal power and stature to Hashem (G-d forbid!).’[1]
There were attempts in the recent past, in the United States at least, to acknowledge the Noachide commandments as universal law. In 1986 a correspondence was conducted between the Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem  Mendel Schneerson and President Ronald Reagan. On March 26, 1991, U.S. president George Bush signed into law a congressional resolution on the Seven Laws. In the United States there has come into existence a movement comprising thousands of Noachides, who meet regularly and who study Jewish books on this particular subject.[2] During the past decades, the Noachide movement has been growing, especially since 1989 when a significant percentage of a Tennessee Baptist congregation embraced the Noachide beliefs.[3] For some non-Jews, however, the Jewish offer in the Noachide commandments is not enough, because they seek complete conversion and want to become full members of the Jewish people. Quite often, those who confess to be Noachides, proceed to full conversion into Judaism.
Modern Noachides, as well as full proselytes, find their heroes in the Bible. It is self-obvious that the figure of Noah is the great example and paradigm for the Noachides. The figure of Abraham functions as the ideal for the proselytes or converts to Judaism. We will investigate, in brief, the historical origins of the Noachide commandments (1.1), and describe some Jewish (1.2) and Christian (1.3) responses to the Noachide phenomenon.

 1.1 Noachide Commandments

Like every other religion, Judaism has formulated its conception about ‘the others’, i.e. about non-Jews and members of different religions. However, in the older traditional texts there are almost no specific views on Christianity and the Church except for some polemical and apologetical references. The most explicit view on non-Jews is addressed in the concept of the Noachide laws. Among scholars, Jew and non-Jew alike, there are many differences of opinion on almost every aspect of these laws, not least on when this notion arose, but also on the specific number of the Noachide laws, and on the influence and the purpose of this idea. One of the first listings of these commandments, only preceded by a passage in the Tosefta, is from the Babylonian Talmud, where adjudication, or the creating of justice in courts, is mentioned as a positive commandment, and the following prohibitions are listed: idolatry, blasphemy, sexual immorality, bloodshed, robbery, and the eating of a limb torn from a living animal.[4]
David Novak has written an extensive survey of the different opinions in Judaism on the historical origin of the concept of the Noachide laws.[5] The traditional-orthodox view is that these commandments originate from biblical times. They are regarded as essentially Scriptural, revealed by God to mankind. The German rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, in the 19th century, argued persuasively for the primacy of the Noachide laws in human history, holding that they should be esteemed as the original foundation of all legal systems in Antiquity, including the Torah. A modern-Jewish theory is just the opposite of this, and maintains that the Noachide laws are just a version of law codes of other ancient Near-Eastern peoples. Some scholars suggested, that the sages of Israel could have accepted in Antiquity the standards of the Hittite code, which code was discovered in the twentieth century. Another attempt to clarify the origin of the seven Noachide laws sought to trace them back to the time of the Maccabees, who after their victories were obliged to come to terms with the presence of Gentiles living under Jewish rule. But such ‘tolerance’ did not actually exist in the time of the Maccabees, when forced conversions, also among Jews, were more or less the rule.
Novak, a traditionally observant rabbi, rejects all these theories on the origins of the Noachide laws as anachronistic, because they are not founded on historical research but on ideological motives. He is confident that orthodox-Jewish scholars wanted by these theories  to show the ‘tolerance’ of the people of Israel in Antiquity or to ‘prove’ that the Noachide laws were the original basis of the moral code of humanity. Novak is of the opinion that the definitive formulation of the Noachide laws originates from the end of the period of the Tannaite rabbis, at the beginning of the third century CE, long after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. In biblical times a ger toshav was a non-Israelite living as a resident alien under Israelite rule. There was no process for a solely religious conversion in the Bible or in the era of the Second Temple, but when the Jewish polity after 70 and 135 CE disappeared, this changed. When the Jews, in the time of the Talmud, were no longer in possession of the land, the concept of the ger toshav was linked to the theory of the Noachide laws and developed as the halakhah for Jewish-Gentile relations.
Some rabbis saw the Noachide commandments as a kind of ’half-way house’ to Judaism, leading Gentiles towards the status of full proselytes. There was a maximum and a minimum interpretation of the number of commandments that Noachides should fulfil, from the three cardinal prohibitions of idolatry, sexual immorality and bloodshed, to the seven already mentioned commandments, and later even to thirty commandments which they would accept in the future. It is sometimes argued that the three cardinal prohibitions for Jews must be regarded  as a kind of precursor of the later seven Noachide commandments. A very much debated issue is, whether in the New Testament these commandments should be presupposed in Acts 15, where the minimum conditions are formulated for Gentile admittance to the new Jesus-community.  In times of persecution the three cardinal prohibitions were the most central laws, that  Jews were absolutely forbidden to trespass, even in the face of death. If a Jew were to be forced to violate one of these commandments, he should prefer to become a martyr for the ‘sanctity of the Name’. This may have contributed to the belief that the three cardinal prohibitions were not only meant for Jews but for the whole of mankind.
      Novak asserts that the developing concept of the Noachide laws was the outcome of an internal Jewish process. The resulting theory served originally to define the borderlines between Jews and non-Jews in the first centuries. That made it possible for Jews to decide, when they could cooperate with non-Jews and when not. The formulation of these commandments was an instrument in the hands of the Jewish people to assist their survival in a non-Jewish environment, through always changing and often threatening  circumstances. When in the course of history the Noachide commandments as norms were abandoned and betrayed by non-Jews, it became almost impossible for Jews to live and to survive in such a society. 

 1.2 Some Jewish responses

Jewish scholars have on occasion referred to the Noachide commandments, in order to give guidelines on relations between the Jewish People and the Church or between Jews and Christians as individuals. In this respect, the opinion of the famous rabbi Jacob Emden (1697-1776) was both significant and influential. He wanted to make clear, that Jews and Christians had a common basis to fight the pernicious heresy of the licentious Frankists. In his great halakhic work Lechem Shamaiem he wrote:

‘Their assembly [Christianity and Islam] is also for the sake of Heaven, to make Godliness known among the nations, to speak of Him in distant places; they have accepted virtually all of the Noachide Commandments, aside from many fine practices which they have endorsed and accepted; He grants prophecy to those who have sanctified themselves.’
Later he wrote a letter to the Jewish leaders in Poland, in which he formulated a moving appeal to the Christian community: 
‘You, members of the Christian faith, how good and pleasant it might be if you will observe that which was commanded to you by your first teachers. How wonderful is your share, if you will assist the Jews in the observance of their Torah. You will truly receive reward as if you had fulfilled it yourselves – for the one who helps others  to observe is greater than one who observes but does not help others to do so – even though you only observe the Seven Commandments.’[6]

Only in a much later period were the Noachide Commandments regarded and sometimes propounded as an invitation to non-Jews to accept them as ‘universal moral law’. The Italian rabbi and kabbalist Elia Benamozegh (1822-1900) is a good example of a scholar, who tried in many writings to interpret the Noachide commandments for his particular time. From the sources of the kabbala he drew universal ideas, which he expressed in his most important book, written in French, Israel et l'Humanité. He described the Mosaic Law as the unique way for Israel, and the Noachide commandments as the universal way for the rest of humanity. His closest student and disciple, Aimé Pallière, published this unfinished work after his death. This Frenchman, originally Catholic, had tried for a long time to find spiritual truth. On this personal search he met Benamozegh, who convinced him that it was not necessary to become a proselyte, but that he could live as a Noachide according the laws of Noah. Until his death in 1949 he devoted himself with all his energy to disseminate the thoughts of Benamozegh and to promote the movement of the Noachides. At the end of his book Benamozegh formulated in emotional words his political and moral message:

‘So, behind Christianity and Islam, with their grandeurs as well as their blemishes, behind Jesus and Mohammed, we find Judaism, with its sacred Law, its blueprint for mankind, its hopes for renewal and universal brotherhood.  How different the world would have been if, instead of attaching itself almost exclusively to the problematical personage of Jesus, erecting thus a new mythology of the ruins of the old ones, Christianity had seized and adapted the truth of Hebraism (which the Nazarene, a good Jew who did not dream of founding a rival church, undoubtedly wished to propagate) – if instead of rupturing the natural ties  who ought to unite it with Israel, it had worked, together with Israel, to create a great human family whose various peoples are equally dear to the Father in Heaven! How much blood would have been spared. How many painful pages could be torn from the book of history.’[7]

According to Orthodox-Jewish thought the theory of the Noachide commandments comprises the only correct view on the way in which non-Jews should live. These commandments do not intend to give a specific Jewish view on Christianity, but on non-Jews in general. There are neo-Orthodox Jewish thinkers, who are of the opinion that the place that Judaism gives to non-Jews in the doctrine of the Noachide commandments is not enough and who prefer different approaches. For example, the Jerusalemite and philosopher David Hartman distinguishes between two covenants, on the one side the covenant of creation, including that of Noah, that is meant for the whole of humankind, and on the other side, the covenant of Sinai, which is exclusively meant for the people Israel.[8] On the basis of these different covenants he speaks of a plurality of revelations from the side of God, in which the Eternal engages Himself in specific relations with different peoples. Each people is thereby invited to celebrate its own particularity within the space of creation, while Israel is bound to the Torah from Sinai. The Oxford scholar Norman Solomon pleads for an end to the theoretical discussion on the theological status of other peoples; instead we should invest all our energy to the attempts to live harmoniously together as human beings in one world.[9] One more voice from neo-Orthodoxy must be mentioned: Rabbi Irving Greenberg not only bases his view of Christians on the Noachide commandments, but goes further to accept them as co-workers with Jews for the ‘restoration’ or ‘salvation’ of the world.[10]

 1.3 Some Christian responses

Some Jewish and Christian scholars are convinced that there is an important reason why modern Christians should be reminded of the seven Noachide commandments. It is their firm belief, that the three (or more) prohibitions, imposed upon the Gentiles within the Christian community by an Apostolic gathering mentioned in Acts 15, were an early version of what became called Noachide commandments.[11] But even if this text could be explained as an early reference to the concept of the Noachide commandments, then the question still remains unanswered, what this text could and should mean to modern Christians. Should they in the totally different context of modern time conform themselves to the three or four Apostolic prescripts or should they even feel themselves bound by the later seven Noachide commandments? The affirmative answer to this question has, for example, led Jehovah Witnesses to the prohibition of the eating of blood sausages and to the refusal of blood transfusion. And to this day Ethiopian-Orthodox Christians feel attached to many of the Jewish dietary laws, just because of the longer version of the Apostolic Decree in Acts 15.
     There are also Christian authors, who politely refuse the Jewish invitation, implied in the Noachide commandments, because acceptance would in their opinion not give enough room to the expression of Christian identity. The American-Protestant theologian Paul van Buren wrote, that the Noachide commandments do not suppose a personal relationship between God and the peoples of the world, and do not require that Noachides have a personal faith in God. According to his view Christians could not give up their claim on a place within the Abrahamic covenant and should in Jewish-Christian dialogue ask for understanding of their standpoint.[12]
     There are other Christians and ex-Christians, who hold firmly to the belief, that they should accept with joy and thankfulness the Jewish offer in the Noachide commandments. There are voices advocating the acceptance of these commandments as a possible way to a universal moral code for humanity. Sometimes the Noachide laws are propagated as a kind of alternative or ‘third way’ for those people, who have lost the connection with institutional Christianity and do not want to become full proselytes in the synagogue. By accepting the Noachide commandments they could establish an ‘ethical foundation’ for their values and norms in life.[13] But liberal Christians, who feel themselves attracted  to many elements in the content of the Noachide law, are not so pleased by the clear prohibition of homosexual practice in one of the commandments.[14] It is argued that a special statute should be created for those, who do not feel at home in the Church anymore but could find orientation for their lives in ideas originating in Judaism. In practice there is the danger that these ‘Noachides’ end up in a kind of ‘no man’s land’ between Church and synagogue.
Still others search within the Christian tradition to support acceptance of the Jewish offer of the Noachide commandments. If any historical connection could be supposed between Acts 15 and the later Noachide commandments, then this would, at least, mean a serious need to reflect theologically on the significance of the Torah for Christians. This approach could perhaps help to liberate Christians from their inherited anti-Judaism, so that they would find access to a kind of simchat mitsvah. It is one of the achievements of Jewish-Christian dialogue, that many Christians have discovered that Jesus was during the whole of his life faithful to the Torah. This means a challenge for those Christians, who claim that they want to follow this Jewish Jesus.[15] Especially the German theologian Marquardt has developed his thinking along those lines. In his volume on eschatology he writes extensively on the Noachide commandments, which he regards as an invitation from the Jewish side to find places of hope for morality in the modern world, as a viable way to the future. He wants theological thinking and Christian practice to accept the outreached hand of Judaism to the Gentile peoples, implied in the Noachide commandments.[16]

 2. Converts to Judaism

In official dialogue between Jews and Christians the subject of conversion, in either direction, is rarely discussed. It is regarded as an area so full of pitfalls, that it is mostly avoided, so not to disturb the still-fragile relationship. In the book of Christian-Jewish history many black pages have been written by the words and deeds of Christians. And Jews remember very well the aggressive nature of the Christian mission to the Jews. In the beginning of the new encounter between Christians and Jews everybody tried to work scrupulously round these obstacles. In a dialogue situation, in which reciprocal trust has grown, it must be possible to discuss frankly the touchy issue of mutual conversions. There has been much research on the Christian mission to the Jews, and on the status of converted Jews in the Church. But not much is written on those non-Jews who decided to join the Jewish people, mainly former Christians, for whom the status of Noachides was not enough. They wanted to do everything, to become ‘full-fledged’ converts. In Jewish terms they took ‘refuge under the wings of the Shekhinah’. The great paradigm for them was not Noah but Abraham.
            We will here investigate some questions related to joining the Jewish people and conversion to Judaism: Is there a solid historical basis for the widely-held view that there was a strong Jewish mission in the first century CE and was there a common view in the Talmudic era on the attitude towards winning proselytes for Judaism? (2.1) What were the motivations of some individual Christians to convert to Judaism in the course of centuries? (2.2) Are there any signs that Judaism in modern times is becoming a missionising religion? (2.3)

 2.1 In Antiquity and the Talmudic Period

In Old Testament times it was possible ‘to take refuge under the wings of the God of Israel’ (cf. Ruth 2: 12), for example as a ‘foreign’ wife of an Israelite husband. Many ‘strangers and sojourners’ lived on the soil of Israel, and it was expected that they would adhere to the laws of the country. The Israelite ‘tribal religion’ developed, in a centuries-long process after the period of the Babylonian exile, into Rabbinic Judaism. In the course of this development the option of joining the Jewish people changed.[17] Those who asked for accession, were called ‘proselytes’.
     There were remarkable conversions in Antiquity, even by whole nations and royal dynasties.[18] Flavius Josephus describes the peculiar event when John Hyrcanus (135-104 BCE) forced the people of the Idumaeans by violence to convert to Judaism.[19] The political justification for forced conversions was probably to cement the loyalty of the population to the enlarged Judean state. Josephus recounts further the special story of the conversion of Helena, the queen of Adiabene, and her son Izates, at the beginning of the first century CE. Adiabene was under Helena only a vassal kingdom within the Parthian Empire, but Izates was granted a much bigger territory. Josephus tells how ‘they changed their course of life, and embraced the Jewish customs’.[20] He describes how Helena made a pilgrimage to the city of Jerusalem and supported the inhabitants generously, during a severe famine.
     Among scholars opinions always differed whether Jews showed an active missionary attitude in Roman times. As one of the strongest proofs of Jewish missionary zeal a text from the New Testament is often quoted. In Matthew 23:15 the evangelist puts this strong rebuke in the mouth of Jesus: ‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you traverse sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.’ This text is very much debated. For some scholars it is obvious that this text states that Pharasaic Jews were aggressively missionary in the first century. For others the text only shows that there was a serious competition in the first century between, on the one side, the attractiveness of Judaism, and, on the other side, Christian missionary efforts.
     Newer research tends to the conclusion, that there was little or no deliberate Jewish missionary activity in the period of Early Judaism before 70 CE. Borderlines between ‘Judaism’ and ‘Christianity’ were still fluid.[21] It is argued that the phenomenon of the ‘Godfearer’ around the synagogues in the diaspora was not so widespread as was commonly accepted.[22] Historically it is clear that the Bar Kokhba revolt led the Romans under Hadrian in 131 CE to prohibit the circumcision of non-Jews. This meant implicitly that it became very difficult for Jews to admit proselytes openly into their communities. Nevertheless, there were always some non-Jews, who sought refuge ‘under the wings of the Shekhinah’. Only at the end of the third century some Tannaitic rabbis stood up for a stronger missionary attitude.

The first to the sixth century CE is generally considered to be the Talmudic period. Although it is debatable whether Judaism has ever known periods of open and intentional mission among non-Jews, it is generally recognized that the majority of the rabbis in the Talmudic period advocated an open attitude towards non-Jews, who expressed interest in the precepts and practices of Judaism. Sometimes political  circumstances caused the rabbis to be reluctant to receive proselytes, but officially the attitude towards potential converts remained open-minded. The following text in the Babylonian Talmud is regarded as the classic reference concerning the admission of proselytes:
 
‘The Rabbis say: If anyone comes at the present time, and desires to become a proselyte, they say to him: “Why do you want to become a proselyte? Do you not know that the Israelites at the present time are persecuted and oppressed, despised, harassed, and overcome by afflictions?” If he replies, “I know it and yet  am unworthy”, they receive him at once, and they explain to him  some of the lighter and some of the heavier commandments. (…) They do not, however, tell him too much, or enter into too many details. If he assents to all, they circumcise him at once, and when he is healed, they baptise him, and two scholars stand by, and tell him of some of the light and some of the heavy laws. When he has been baptised, he is regarded in all respects as an Israelite.’[23]

This text clearly shows that converts sometimes paid a heavy price in persecution and suffering, when they decided to come over to the Jewish people. It was supposed that the converts should be aware of the possible consequences of their ‘coming out’, as it is called in religious language.
     There are no reliable indications that the number of converts declined after the Bar Kochba revolt. Rabbinic sources seldom mention converts by name. Some information on the size of Jewish proselytism can possibly be deduced from Roman laws and from the writings of the Church Fathers. These sources must be weighed carefully, however, because Roman laws do not always reflect the actual situation, and the writings of Church Fathers were generally very polemical towards the Jews. A series of  Roman laws in the fourth and fifth centuries prohibited conversion to Judaism, particularly by Christians. In 329 Constantine made it punishable ‘to join the Jewish assemblies’. In 353 Constantius II decided that the property of Christians, who converted to Judaism, would be confiscated. Several times these laws were reiterated and enacted again, which means probably that conversion to Judaism was not an infrequent phenomenon at that time. Honorius issued a law in 409, in which was stated: ‘Some people, moreover, oblivious of their life and their position, dare to transgress the law to such an extent, that they force some to cease being Christian and adopt the abominable and vile name of the Jews’[24].
     The writings of the Church Fathers show a very dark picture of Jewish proselytism. They supposed that the Jews in their time were just as missionary as the ‘zealous Pharisees’, depicted in Matthew 23:15. The statements in this respect of the Church Fathers tell us less about history and more about their own pre-conceptions about the Jews. They do not give real historical information on the situation of that time. Church-leaders were afraid of the strong attraction that Judaism exerted on many Christians, who attended Jewish holidays and were therefore accused of ‘Judaising’. For example, at the end of the fourth century John Chrysostom in Antioch found it necessary to warn his flock in fiery sermons not to fraternize with the Jews by adopting their customs, nor to attend the services in their synagogues. This does not prove  that Jews were strongly missionary-minded at that time towards Christians, but only that there were many Christians who were attracted to Jewish customs and perhaps even to the Jewish faith.
     In general it can be said, that the Talmudic rabbis assumed that it was a good thing for Jews to advise Gentiles to become monotheists. In the mid-second century Rabbi Yose ben Halafta even attempted to explain Salomon’s polygamy and love for foreign women as a pious means to bring as many as possible Gentile women under the wings of the Shekhinah.[25] But it was only in the third century, as a reaction to the success of Christianity in winning pagans away from idolatry, that some rabbis began to assume the desirability to proselytise. Although most  rabbis were at that time open in their attitude towards proselytes, there were also ambivalent and negative voices, who opposed receiving them into the Jewish community. A notorious example is Rabbi Helbo, who declared that ‘proselytes are injurious to Israel as a scab’.[26] Perhaps he was referring to idolatrous habits that converts brought into Judaism. Helbo argued that proselytes actually delay the coming of the Messiah, and should  therefore be turned away.[27]
     Although sometimes Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, is mentioned as a ‘model’ figure for a proselyte, Abraham is generally regarded as the father of all proselytes.[28] Many of them even received the name of ‘Abraham’ after their conversion. Because Abraham is seen as the father to all Gentiles who convert to Judaism, these ‘new’ Jews are allowed to say in their prayers ‘God of our fathers’.[29] Abraham is portrayed as the outstanding paradigm of hospitality towards proselytes: he received strangers generously in his house and ‘created’ them proselytes.[30] Both Abraham and Sarah brought them under the wings of the Shekhinah. Because it was praiseworthy what they did, all Jews should try to follow suit.

 2.2 Some ex-Christian converts

In this context only a few examples of individuals can be mentioned, who made the extraordinary decision to leave the Christian majority and to join the often persecuted Jewish minority. ­­In 614 Antiochus the Monk wrote about a confrere in the Sinai desert, who by an ecstatic dream converted to Judaism.[31] There is the famous conversion of a court clerk of Louis the Pious, named Bodo, who under the pretext of making a pilgrimage to Rome joined the Jewish people in Spain and took the name of Elazar.[32] When Archbishop Andreas of Bari changed his religion in the eleventh century, it caused an enormous shock in the Christian world. The story is found in the document Megillat Obadyah, discovered in the Geniza of Cairo, written by another convert to Judaism, Obadiyah the Norman.[33] Even in times of severe persecutions of Jews by Christians in the Middle Ages there were individuals, who joined out of conviction the Jewish people. A quotation on an unknown convert from a Jewish chronicle of martyrs in Weissenburg, Elzas, can illustrate, what it could mean in the Middle Ages to join the harassed Jewish people. In this chronicle is mentioned:

‘...rabbi Abraham, son of our ancestor Abraham from Augsburg, who has left Christianity and joined the Jewish people, and who was cruelly tortured and is burned at the stake on Friday the day of the New Moon (Nov. 12, 1265) because of his faith’.[34]
    
In the Baroque period in the seventeenth century there co-existed in Christian attitudes both a strong aversion to Judaism as well as a tendency to idealise the Jewish faith. This phenomenon is known under the name ‘philosemitism’.[35] Some Christians were convinced that the fate of the Jewish people was linked to the fulfilment of Christian-eschatological hopes. Only a few individuals went so far in their sympathy for the Jewish people, that they converted to Judaism. One of the most famous is the former Catholic Johann Peter Spaeth (1642/45-1701), who after his conversion called himself Moses Germanus. Spaeth’s religious odyssey led him via Lutheranism and later entry into a Carmelite order in Frankfurt, to circumcision and proselyte-baptism in Amsterdam in 1697. Just like some other proselytes his grave can be found on the Sephardic burial place in Ouderkerk aan de Amstel. The Dane Olliger Pauli endeavoured to get the ‘Great Hosannah’, written by Moses Germanus, published in Amsterdam in 1701, in which he called the Godhead of Jesus a lie and described Israel as the first and only beloved Son of God and as the suffering Servant of the Lord.
     Spaeth or Moses Germanus was not the only one in his time. The Protestant Conrad Vietor from Marburg, who called himself later Moses Pardo, could be mentioned here. Sometimes searching minds kept moving between Judaism and Christianity and tried to create a kind of synthesis. An example for this attitude could be found in a  letter of Benedikt Sebastian Sperling, who came originally from Hamburg, but lived in Amsterdam after his conversion under the name Israel Benedeti. In 1682 he wrote a letter to his mother , in which he shared with her his peculiar spiritual insights. He regards the three angels in the book of Revelation as Luther, Calvin and Jesus and is convinced that Lutherans and Calvinists will bring the Jewish people to the restored Sion. His vision has even a role for Islam, but the Church of Rome will in his opinion be destroyed because of its idolatry and whoring.[36] After the Enlightenment in the nineteenth century, when baptism functioned as the entry ticket to full integration in society, many Jews took the step in the opposite direction and became members of the Church, though not always out of sympathy for Christianity. Still, during that time and indeed to the present day, some individual Christians converted to Judaism.

2.3 Sheltering under the wings of the Shekhinah

After the Shoah and the establishment of the State of Israel a self-confident Judaism exerts in recent decades a special appeal to those non-Jews, who are trying to find fulfilment in their lives and are on the search for a meaningful spirituality. In modern times, as in Antiquity, many non-Jews feel attracted to the tradition and customs of Judaism. Most of those people, interested in Judaism, are Christians, who wrestle with their identity in the modern world and are disappointed in the church as an institution. Many rabbis are confronted with potential proselytes, who have originally a Christian background and feel disenchanted with the religion of their upbringing.[37] Quite often these requests are refused in a friendly but decisive way,  because these candidates do not show in the eyes of the rabbis the appropriate motivation. It is this restrained attitude that makes a comparison difficult with Christian mission, for Christianity is, traditionally, much more missionary minded. 

Christian missionary practices have always aroused strong resentment in Judaism. Memories of the past are still vivid, and present-day behaviour of movements like Jews for Jesus only confirms the judgments of history. Various Jewish anti-missionary organizations actively seek to turn the tide, to arm Jews with counter-arguments against the missionaries. A self-assured Judaism is not only on the defence against Christian mission but also on the attack. On the web one can read a pamphlet, ‘Why not Christianity?’, in which the following proposition is explicitly defended: ‘Judaism is God-centered, and Christianity is man-centered and selfish’.[38] Some internetsites give material to respond to the most common tactics and arguments of missionaries. For example, the offered ‘Let's Get Biblical’ Tape Series is committed, in its words, ‘to respond effectively and positively to Christian missionaries who target Jews for conversion’.[39] Rabbi Tovia Singer warns of congregations that ‘are designed to appear Jewish, but are actually fundamentalist Christian churches, which use traditional Jewish symbols to lure the most vulnerable of our Jewish people into their ranks.’ It is clear that Jews abhor this type of Christian missionary practices.

Conversion to orthodox Judaism has become very difficult, and the notion that Jews would actively seek converts rarely arises in those circles. But the situation is ambiguous. Some Jewish movements, like Reform Judaism, stand for a more open attitude towards non-Jews. They do not only refer them to the Noachide commandments, but welcome those who show a real interest in Judaism. On the internet a list can be found of the Conversion to Judaism Resource Centre with more that 290 rabbis, who are ready to support aspiring converts during their transition to Judaism.[40] According to these rabbis the traditional Jewish attitude – that is, not to make deliberate efforts to win over non-Jews to Judaism - is merely the result of persecution and oppression in the past. The powerless Jewish community in the diaspora made this decision in order not to offend others, especially Christians. The minority status of Judaism produced ‘profound psychological changes, resulting in a loss of self-worth that undermined the impulse to offer Judaism to the world’.[41] In their opinion Jews should frankly welcome converts in the very different present-day situation.

Conversion is today, as it was in all times, determined by the cultural and political context of a specific society. In our time of speedy communication and the internet, religions also face the challenge of open public relations. In free and democratic countries their image constitutes a public offering on the pluralist market of spiritual opportunities. Especially in the United States Jewish organizations respond to this challenge. Because the word ‘mission’ has a very bad reputation in Jewish circles, another type of language is preferred, like ‘welcoming those who are interested’. Most Christians in the mainline churches have nowadays just the same opinion on ‘mission’. They reject any kind of coercion and proselytism, and define ‘mission’ also as showing an welcoming and open attitude to others. So, in our time the borderlines between Jewish and Christian opinions on ‘welcoming others’ is blurred. It is, though, not very likely that Judaism in the twenty-first century will develop into a full missionary religion. But it is certain that a distinct ‘missionary’ outlook will be part of a modern Judaism in a pluralistic and multi-religious society. The offered status of Noachides is not enough for all those who are interested in Judaism. ‘The wings of the Shekhina’ are, therefore, in our days sought by several people as an attractive religious refuge.

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