Secret Conversions to Judaism in Early Modern Europe (review)

This collection deals with the religious and intellectual journeys of a number of unusual Christians in early modern Europe who "against all historic probability," according to the editors, entered into an intimate relationship with the Jewish world (1). The volume's title is misleading. Some of the personalities whose careers are sketched never converted to Judaism. Others who did convert (or revert) did so openly, not in secret. The uniting theme might more accurately be described as attraction to Judaism, or what some scholars have called judeo-tropism.

Arranged in roughly chronological order, the contributions span a period of over two centuries, from the mid-sixteenth to the late eighteenth century. The first essay, by Arthur Williamson, traces the career of George Buchanan, an anticlerical refugee from the British Isles who gravitated to academic circles in France and Portugal. While New Christians were prominent in these circles, no evidence is offered that they were crypto-Jews. Moreover, there is no evidence that Buchanan was a crypto-Jew. It is true that he was arrested by the Portuguese Inquisition in 1550 on charges of "judaizing" (though he was released in 1552). But he was also known to have expressed "poisonously anti-Judaic" sentiments (31) — which Williamson rather cavalierly dismisses as a mere vehicle for his anti-mercantile views. The conclusion that Buchanan "had no difficulty becoming part of an unmistakably crypto-Jewish community" (32) seems unwarranted.

Richard Popkin, the doyen of studies in early modern heterodoxy, revisits a personality he has discussed elsewhere, the English millenarian John Dury. Dury was an advocate of Jewish-Christian reconciliation — on distinctly Christian terms, some would say. (He was not a convert to Judaism.) Popkin here publishes a fascinating memorandum by Dury exploring the question of whether a practicing Jew could at the same time be a true Christian. Dury concludes that the answer is yes, and he wishes this to be made public "as a meanes to draw the unconverted Jewes to Christ" (50).

Elisheva Carlebach's contribution differs from the others in that she deals not with a personality but with a phenomenon — that of the migration of baptized Jews and other Christians to Amsterdam to convert (or revert) to Judaism. Her essay draws together material from a wide variety of sources, and highlights that fact that Amsterdam's tolerant policies made possible the conversion of Christians to Judaism in early modern Europe.

The following essay, by Allison Coudert, lucidly explores the career of Johann Peter Späth, who converted to Judaism in Amsterdam in 1696 (an event discussed in the previous essay). Coudert shows that Späth's conversion was driven by a series of spiritual crises (including a rejection of Christian kabbalism and a reaction against Christian slander of the Jews) that ended in a radical break with Christianity and the adoption of a personal form of Judaism. Coudert analyzes and publishes (in German and in English translation) a revealing letter from Späth, who was now known as Moses Germanus, to Francis Mercury van Helmont.

Martin Mulsow's compelling essay on Aaron d'Antan traces a career that is, the author writes, "surprisingly similar" to that of Späth (139). The essay grew out of Mulsow's recent discovery of two lengthy letters in French, which are published at the end of his essay. D'Antan sent these letters to a learned confidante around 1710. They justify his conversion in Amsterdam some years earlier to Judaism. As with Späth, the fundamentals of Judaism offered d'Anton a highly individual solution to philosophical problems of faith.

In the final essay, Marsha Keith Schuchard sketches the life of Lord George Gordon, a complex figure who embraced Freemasonry and radical political activity as well as a kind of "Judaism." Unfortunately, the essay's recitation of events is more puzzling than illuminating. Gordon was attracted to the sabbatian kabbalist and...