Conversion in the Work of Jakub Goldberg

The subject of Jewish conversion to Christianity first appeared in Jakub Goldberg's work at the beginning of the 1980s. Before then few scholars had dealt directly with the issue. The greatest number of books on the subject appeared in inter-war Poland—most of them, however, not the work of professional historians—including ones by the well-known antisemitic writer Teodor Jeske-Choiński;¹ the medical doctor Ludwik Piotrowski (1904–88), who published under the pseudonym L. Korwin;² Stanisław Didier;³ and the linguist Mateusz Mieses (1885–1945).⁴ Worthy of special attention too is an article by the Lwów-born historian Natan Michael Gelber (1891–1966), which appeared in the journal Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums, the organ of the Society for the Support of Jewish Studies (Der Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaft des Judentums) published in Frankfurt am Main.⁵

Goldberg became more deeply interested in the issue of Jewish converts after reading Stefania Kowalska-Glikman's 'Mixed Marriages in the Kingdom of Poland', which appeared in Kwartalnik Historyczny in 1977. In it the writer attempted to establish the nature of the barriers between specific national and religious groups in the Kingdom of Poland between 1815 and 1870, using the issue of mixed marriages between Polish Catholics and Jews, Protestants, and Orthodox Christians.⁶ Goldberg sent a letter to the editor of the journal, in which he took issue with Kowalska-Glikman's contention that marriage between converts and born Catholics was proof of the high degree of their social integration and assimilation into the (Catholic) Polish population. He argued that marriages between Jewish converts and born Catholics were not only the result of social integration but also a consequence of other factors, above all of the missionary activity of the Catholic Church. Goldberg referred to the principles for treating converted Jews established by the archbishop of Milan, Carlo Borromeo (1538–84), that were still in force in the nineteenth century, according to which the clergy were ordered to encourage marriages between converts and born Catholics, since these would link Jewish converts permanently with their new religion. In the eighteenth century the bishop of Kraków, Jan Aleksander Lipski, and the bishop of Lwów, Wacław Sierakowski, were among those issuing recommendations in line with these principles.⁷ Goldberg also did not agree with Kowalska-Glikman's opinion that Jewish converts were rejected by their former community and were never able to return to Judaism. He quoted as proof the talmudic principle: 'even if you have sinned, you are still a Jew'.⁸

Kowalska-Glikman replied to Goldberg, claiming that he had given no examples from the nineteenth century.⁹ In response, Goldberg referred to an article that he had since published in a German academic journal, in which he provided examples of marriages between Catholics and Jewish converts in the first half of the nineteenth century.¹⁰ He referred also to the studies of the impermanence of matrimonial ties between Jewish converts and born Catholics in the eighteenth century by Emanuel Ringelblum which Kowalska-Glikman had ignored. Goldberg attached great importance to the Church's choice of godparents for Jewish converts, who usually came from the upper classes and in pre-partition Poland-Lithuania had supplied dowries to converted women. He also drew attention to the difficulties of finding sources on the influence of religious orders and the clergy in arranging marriages between converts and Catholics, information which ought in principle to be found in memoirs and private correspondence. The Church's main involvement in missionary activity was through the religious order of Mariavites, founded in 1737 by Father Szczepan Turczynowicz, which continued into the first half of the nineteenth century. He also noted that for many moderately wealthy or poor converts a major challenge was finding employment, since before their baptism this had been conditional on permission to work being granted by the Jewish kehilot. In contrast, wealthy Jews from families such as the Kronenbergs or Bergsons often benefited financially from conversion...