Juifs et juifs convertis au Moyen Âge : « es-tu encore mon frère ? » - article ; n°4 ; vol.54, pg 851-874

Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales - Année 1999 - Volume 54 - Numéro 4 - Pages 851-874
Jews and Jewish converts in the Middle Ages. Are they still brothers ?
The present study examines the question of how the Jews saw those who left their group and went over to Christian society, how they defined the status of the New Christian, how they actually related to him, and on what terms they were willing to accept him back into the fold of Judaism. From the perspective of the legal definition that had already been determined and defined in a list of prescriptions and commandments in the first centuries of the Common Era, the differences between Jews and non-Jews were distinct. The sages who dealt with this problem prior to the First Crusade thought otherwise. According to eleventh-century sources, when it came to defining the status of this errant Jews, they frequently used the term brother as it is employed in the Torah. They believed that, even when a Jew converts to another religion the brotherhood remains intact and that all the commandments associated with the relationship between brothers remain unaltered. Starting from the twelfth century, in the aftermath of the First Crusade and in light of Jewish conversion to Christianity, the Jewish group chooses to turn its efforts inward. It no longer supports individuals who did not withstand the trial and left the group; instead, it prefers to invest its energies in enhancing the image of those who remained Jews despite the pressure.
24 pages
Source : Persée ; Ministère de la jeunesse, de l’éducation nationale et de la recherche, Direction de l’enseignement supérieur, Sous-direction des bibliothèques et de la documentation.