A01=Miriam Bodian
academic press
anti-semite
anti-semitic
antisemite
antisemitic
Author_Miriam Bodian
Category=JBSR
Category=QRAX
Category=QRJ
Category=QRJP
conversion
cultural identity
culture
diaspora
ebook
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eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
Gentile
hardcover
hebrew
history
history of religion
identity
israel
jew
jewish
jewish history
jewish identity
jewish practice
jewish studies
jewish world
judaism
key words in jewish studies
Miriam Bodian
paperback
rabbi
religion
religious history
rituals and practices
rutgers
rutgers university
rutgers university press
social science
socioreligious boundaries
world conflicts
world history
world religion
yiddish
zionism
zionist
Product details
- ISBN 9781978834989
- Weight: 254g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 11 Nov 2025
- Publisher: Rutgers University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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In Conversion, Miriam Bodian considers the now-universalized term "conversion" in a Jewish context as broadly as possible, as an act of socioreligious boundary crossing. It charts how, across the long arc of Jewish history from biblical times to the present, patterns of boundary crossing have developed and shifted, whether of Gentiles entering Jewish life or of Jews exiting from it. It analyzes the biblical passages that have informed Jewish thinking about what is required to become a Jew before turning to the early rabbis’ institution of a ritualized process of conversion. It then considers the protean ways in which Gentiles have become Jews and Jews have joined other religious communities from medieval to modern times. A further section is devoted to the complexities of conversion in the contemporary Jewish world, where conversions are not necessarily recognized across denominations, where substantial intermarriage has eroded the traditional boundaries between Jew and Gentile, and where the modern state of Israel plays a role that reaches beyond its borders in determining who is a Jew.
Miriam Bodian is professor of history emerita at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the author of Hebrews of the Portuguese Nation: Conversos and Community in Early Modern Amsterdam and Dying in the Law of Moses: Crypto-Jewish Martyrdom in the Iberian World.
