The Jewish Apostate and the American Expatriate: Leave-Taking in the Early American Republic

This essay argues that the complexities and ambiguities of the religious identity that emerge in the story of the apostasy of the Jew turned Christian missionary, Joseph Samuel Christian Frederick Frey—specifically his contested leave—taking from Judaism, his seemingly unshakeable affiliation with his original faith, and the uncertain nature of his identity as a Christian long after his apostasy-provide new insights about civic allegiance and expatriation in early America. Departing from the Protestant model that has dominated discussions of religious belonging in the early republic, the essay recovers a current of Jewish thinking as a means of deepening our understanding of civic and religious belonging in the period as a whole.