Abstract
The status of Jewish identity in cases of conversion to another religion is a contentious issue and was brought to the forefront of public attention with the 1962 court case of Oswald Rufeisen, a Jewish convert to Christianity known as Br. Daniel, which led to a shift in the way that the state of Israel defines Jewish identity for the purposes of citizenship. At the same time, however, another test case in conflicting interpretations of Jewish identity after conversion was playing out in Rufeisen’s own monastery, hidden to the public eye. Of the fifteen monks who lived together in the Stella Maris Monastery in Haifa, two were Jewish converts, both of whom converted during the Second World War and later immigrated to Israel. Both outspoken advocates for their own understanding of Jewish identity, Rufeisen and his fellow Carmelite Fr. Elias Friedman expressed interpretations of Jewish-Christian religious identity that are polarized and even antagonistically oppositional at times. This paper argues that the intimately related histories and opposing interpretations of Rufeisen and Friedman parallel the historical contestation between Judaism and Christianity. It investigates their overlapping and yet divergent views, which magnify questions of Jewish identity, Catholic interpretations of Judaism, Zionism, Holocaust narratives, and proselytism.
Highlights
The status of Jewish identity in cases of conversion to another religion is a contentious issue and was brought to the forefront of public attention with the 1962 court case of Oswald Rufeisen, a Jewish convert to Christianity known as Br
Cases of conversion to Christianity, long a historical adversary and yet close relative of Judaism, only heighten the tension, reflecting the history of polemics between the two traditions. This issue was brought to the forefront of public attention with the 1962 court case of Oswald Rufeisen, a Jewish convert to Christianity known popularly as Brother Daniel, whose request for Israeli citizenship through the Law of Return was taken to the Supreme
Friedman’s understanding of his Jewish identity after conversion is oppositional to Rufeisen’s; while Rufeisen saw his conversion as a Jewish move and in a sense even as a return to Judaism, Friedman saw his conversion as an intentional departure from Judaism
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. The views that Rufeisen and Friedman argued for, while over-lapping, are marked far more by dissent than by compatibility, demonstrating the unreconciled tensions surrounding formulations of Jewish identity after conversion to Christianity. Their formulations of their religious identities are polarized, and as this paper demonstrates, at times even antagonistically opposed. The formulations of Jewish-Christian identity that Rufeisen and Friedman each enunciated reflect this historical tension, and their very different perspectives and conclusions bring aspects of this historical drama into the present, replayed in the context of 20th-century Israel This paper investigates their overlapping and yet divergent views, arguing that their difference in similarity parallels the antagonistic intimacy of Judaism and Christianity. The confluence of Rufeisen and Friedman’s closely related lives and opposing interpretations magnify questions of Jewish identity, Catholic interpretations of Judaism, Zionism, Holocaust narratives, and proselytism, so tightly intertwined in their thought and legacies
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
