RELV202SEM/RELV302SEM. Theme description spring 2026: "Conversion to Judaism"

Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism are known for their desire to convert others. But what about other religious traditions? In this course we will explore the history of conversion to one such non-missionary religion: Judaism.

We will travel through Jewish history and discover the dramatic changes (often camouflaged as traditional or going back to an earlier ‘truer’ tradition) of converting to Judaism has undergone, and the way Jews and others have conceptualized – or invented – the difference between themselves and the Other, the Gentile. Can a non-Jew in fact become a Jew? Was there hope for the 17th-century German convert candidate who during his painful circumcision screamed “Jesus, help me”?

We will look at conversion from Biblical times to the modern period, where we focus on the State of Israel’s messy state of conversion and on the recent emergence in the most surprising corners of the world of groups who claim to be a Lost Tribe or descend from Jews forced to convert to another religion.

Together, we will in 8 seminars analyze primary texts, look at case studies of famous and unknown converts, read scholarly analyses, watch film footage, and read a well-written journalistic book about the long journey to Judaism of the Indigenous Peruvian Segundo Villanueva and the followers he collected.