Document Type
Journal Article
Date of this Version
12-2015
Publication Source
Jewish Historical Studies
Volume
47
Issue
1
Start Page
48
Last Page
69
DOI
10.14324/111.444.jhs.2016v47.007
Abstract
We live in a time of prolific scholarly output on the history of Jews and Judaism where most inhibitions about what are appropriate subjects for study and what are not have disappeared. This is especially apparent with regard to the study of converts who opted to leave the Jewish faith and community both in the pre-modern and modern eras. Labelled disparagingly in the Jewish tradition as meshumadim (apostates), many earlier Jewish scholars treated them in a negative light or generally ignored them as not properly belonging any longer to the community and its historical legacy. When they were mentioned in historical accounts, they were often seen as self-hating Jews who had become adversaries of their former co-religionists or simply as dishonorable individuals who were notorious in attempting to escape the burden of their Jewish particularity. This situation has radically changed in recent years with an outpouring of new studies on converts in a variety of times and places, culminating perhaps in the most recent synthesis of Todd Endelman, one of the pioneers in the study of converts in the modern era.1
Copyright/Permission Statement
This article is published under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 International license (CC BY 3.0).
Recommended Citation
Ruderman, D. B. (2015). Towards a Preliminary Portrait of an Evangelical Missionary to the Jews: The Many Faces of Alexander McCaul (1799-1863). Jewish Historical Studies, 47 (1), 48-69. http://dx.doi.org/10.14324/111.444.jhs.2016v47.007
Included in
Cultural History Commons, History of Religion Commons, Jewish Studies Commons, Missions and World Christianity Commons, Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Commons
Date Posted: 02 August 2017
This document has been peer reviewed.