How Hebrew were the Hebrew Christians?

ABSTRACT

This article demonstrates how Hebrew Christians – or Jews who converted to Christianity but retained Jewish identity – resonated with the claims of the Zionist movement in its first decades, particularly with regard to its notion of Hebrew identity. In their espousal of Zionist ideals and their attempts to join Zionist efforts, Hebrew Christian notions of Hebrewness reflected the multivalence of Hebrew identity in the Zionist movement itself, and particularly the understanding of Hebrewness as racial, ethnic, and cultural. The influence of the Zionist movement upon Hebrew Christians was especially evident in Hebrew Christian attempts to form their own institutions. These organizations promoted Jewish national culture dissociated from Judaism, expressed assertive and even aggressive motivations (what I term “Muscle Hebrew Christianity”), and recognized the ineluctability of anti-Semitism regardless of Jewish religious beliefs. Examining the somewhat obscure movement of Hebrew Christianity can ultimately help us to better understand the ways Zionism was interpreted in its formative stages, especially in light of its own divisions and various emphases.

KEYWORDS:

• Zionism
• nationalism
• conversion
• Hebrew Christians
• Protestant

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Anne Perez received her PhD from the History department at the University of California, Davis in 2018, with a dissertation entitled “Converts and Conversion in the Zionist Movement and Early State of Israel.” She was a doctoral fellow of the Posen Society as well as the Israel Institute. Her broader research interests include the intersections of religion and nationalism, particularly in contexts of conflict and inequality, Jewish-Christian relations, and conversion and identity. Dr. Perez currently resides in Edinburgh, UK.

Notes

1 Theodor Herzl rejected the possibility of a convert joining as a shekel-paying member of the organization. (See State of Israel: the Supreme Court Judgment: High Court Application of Oswald Rufeisen v. The Minister of the Interior 1963, 41).

2 The Hebrew Christian Record was sometimes published with the title The Hebrew Christian Association Record.

3 London Society records flag pastor Chaim Jedidah “Lucky” Pollak, well known for his emphasis on retaining Jewish practices and cultural ties, as “a dangerous man owing to his Judaistic Christianity views.” See LJS Applications E, page 320, Conrad Schick Library, Christ Church, Jerusalem.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Israel Institute Doctoral Fellowship and the Posen Foundation Society of Fellows.