List of converts to Christianity from Judaism

This is a list of notable converts to Christianity from Judaism.

The Jewish Encyclopedia gives some statistics on conversion of Jews to Protestantism, to Roman Catholicism, and to Orthodox Christianity (which it calls erroneously Greek Catholicism; Greek or Byzantine Catholics are under the See of Rome, not in the Orthodox Church).^[1] Some 2,000 European Jews converted to Christianity every year during the 19th century, but in the 1890s the number was running closer to 3,000 per year—1,000 in Austria Hungary (Galizian Poland), 1,000 in Russia (Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, and Lithuania), 500 in Germany (Posen), and the remainder in the English world.

The 19th century saw at least 250,000 Jews convert to Christianity according to existing records of various societies.^[2] Data from the Pew Research Center that as of 2013, about 1.6 million adult Americans of Jewish background identify themselves as Christians, most are Protestant.^[3][4][5] According to same data most of the Americans of Jewish background who identify themselves as some sort of Christian (1.6 million) were raised as Jews or are Jews by ancestry.^[4] According to 2012 study 17% of Jews in Russia identify themselves as Christians.^[6][7] According to Heman in , "Real-Encyc." (x. 114), the number of converts during the 19th century exceeded 100,000. Salmon, in his Handbuch der Mission (1893, p. 48) claims 130,000; others^[8] claim as many as 250,000. For Russia alone 40,000 are claimed as having been converted from 1836 to 1875^[9] while for England, up to 1875, the estimate is 50,000.^[10]

Modern conversions mainly occurred en masse and at critical periods. In England there was a large secession when individuals from the chief Sephardic families, the Bernals, Furtados, Ricardos, Disraelis, Ximenes, Lopez's, , and others, joined the Church (see Picciotto, "Sketches of Anglo-Jewish History"). Germany had three of these periods. The Mendelssohnian era was marked by numerous conversions. In 1811, David Friedlander handed Prussian State Chancellor Hardenberg a list of 32 Jewish families and 18 unmarried Jews who had recently abandoned their ancestral faith (Rabbi Abraham Geiger, "Vor Hundert Jahren," Brunswick, 1899). In the reign of Frederick William III., about 2,200 Jews were baptized (1822–1840), most of these being residents of the larger cities. The 3rd and longest period of secession was the anti-Semitic, beginning with the year 1880. During this time the other German states, besides Austria and France, had an equal share in the number of those who obtained high stations and large revenues as the price for renouncing Judaism. The following is a list of the more prominent modern converts, the rarity of French names in which is probably because conversion was not necessary to a public career in that country.

A[]

Mortimer Adler

• Abd-al-Masih (martyr) (? – died 390 AD) – convert martyred for his faith^[11]
• Abraham Abramson (1754, Potsdam – 1811) – Prussian coiner and medallist. Born into a Jewish family, he later converted to Christianity.^[12]
• Felix Aderca – Romanian novelist, playwright, poet, journalist and critic, noted as a representative of rebellious modernism in the context of Romanian literature.^[13]
• Mortimer J. Adler – American philosopher, educator, and popular author. He was a convert to Catholicism.
• Michael Solomon Alexander – first Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem^[14]
• Petrus Alphonsi – physician in ordinary to King Alfonso VI of Castile^[15]
• David Assing (1787, Königsberg – 1842, Hamburg), German physician and poet, member of the Assing family
• Lovisa Augusti – opera singer and actress.^[16]

B[]

Rachel Sassoon Beer

• Friedrich Daniel Bach (1756, Potsdam – 1830) – German painter
• Juan Alfonso de Baena – medieval Castilian troubadour^[17]
• Michael Balint – Hungarian psychoanalyst who spent most of his adult life in England. He was a proponent of the Object Relations school.
• David Baron – Jewish convert to Christianity. He began the Hebrew Christian Testimony to Israel missionary organization.
• Jakob (Salomon) Bartholdy, born: Jakob Salomon (1779, Berlin – 1825) – Prussian diplomatist
• Giovanni Giuda Giona Battista, agent for the king of Poland in the 16th century. Born Jewish and later converted to Roman Catholicism.^[18]
• Rachel Beer Sassoon – Indian-born British newspaper editor. She was editor-in-chief of The Observer and The Sunday Times. She converted to Christianity.^[19]
• Bo Belinsky – American left-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball.
• Franz Friedrich Benary, aka Franz (Simon) Ferdinand Benary (1805, Kassel – 1860), German philologist^[20]
• Karl Albert Benary, aka Karl Albert Agathon Benary, Agathon Benary (1807, Kassel – 1860), German classical scholar
• Eduard Bendemann (1811, Berlin – 1845) – German painter^[21]
• Sir Julius Benedict (1804, Stuttgart – 1885) – English composer^[21]
• Theodor Benfey (1809, Nörten-Hardenberg – 1881)– German philologist^[21]

Max Born

• Michael Bernays (1834, Hamburg – 1897) – professor of literature at Munich
• Boris Berezovsky – Russian business oligarch, government official, engineer and mathematician; converted to the Eastern Orthodox Church in 1990.^[22]
• David Berkowitz – American serial killer^[23]
• , exactly: , (1799–1866) – German professor of music^[24]
• Michael Bernays – German professor of literature^[21]
• Gottfried Bernhardy (1800, Gorzów Wielkopolski – 1875) – German philologist and literary historian^[21]
• Marianne Beth – Jewish Austrian lawyer and feminist. She converted from Judaism to Protestantism.^[25]
•  [de], aka , Hungarian: , (1815, Inócz – 1891) – Hungarian professor of ecclesiastical history^[26]
• Max Born – German physicist and mathematician, he won the 1954 Nobel Prize in Physics. Although baptized a Lutheran, he was a deist throughout his life.^[27]
• Ludwig Börne (1786, Frankfurter Judengasse – 1837) – German political writer and satirist^[21]
• John Braham (tenor) (1774, London – 1856) – English tenor opera star^[21]
• Moritz Wilhelm August Breidenbach (1796, Offenbach am Main – 1856) – German jurist^[21]
•  [de] (1828, Kassel – 1902, Vienna) – German-Austrian historian, professor of history at Vienna

C[]

Gerty Cori

• Abraham Capadose (1795, Amsterdam – 1874) – Dutch physician and writer; friend of Isaac da Costa^[21]
• Carl Paul Caspari (1814, Dessau – 1892) – Norwegian theologian^[21]
• Paulus (Stephanus) Cassel (1821, Głogów – 1892) – German writer and preacher
• Karl Friedrich Cerf (1782–1845) – German theatrical manager in Berlin
• Jason Chaffetz – former U.S. Representative for Utah's 3rd congressional district from 2009 until his retirement in 2017. He chaired the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform from 2015 until 2017. Chaffetz was raised Jewish, but converted to Mormonism during his time as an undergrad at Brigham Young University.
• Daniel Chwolson – Russian-Jewish orientalist. He embraced Christianity later.
• Leo de Benedicto Christiano – medieval financier^[28]
• Hermann Cohen (Carmelite) (1821–1871) – German Jewish pianist to Carmelite friar
• Ludwig Cohn (1834–1871) – German historian
• Julius Friedrich Cohnheim (1839–1884) – German pathologist^[21]
• Michael Coren – British-Canadian columnist, author, public speaker, radio host and television talk show host. He converted to Roman Catholicism in his early twenties.
• Gerty Cori – Czech-American biochemist who became the third woman—and first American woman—to win a Nobel Prize in science, and the first woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.^[29][30]
• Isaac da Costa (1798–1860) – Dutch language poet^[21]
• Theodor Creizenach (1818–1877) – German professor of literature
• Jehuda Cresques – Catalan cartographer^[31]
• Károly Csemegi – Hungarian judge who was instrumental in the creation of the first criminal code of Hungary. Born Jewish and later converted to Christianity.^[32][33]
• Pablo Christiani – Spanish Dominican friar who used his position as a New Christian to try to convert other Spanish Jews to Roman Catholicism.

D[]

Marcel Dassault

• Ferdinand David (1810–1873) – German virtuoso violinist and composer, raised Jewish and later converted to Christianity.^[21]
• Marcel Dassault – French aircraft industrialist. He converted to Roman Catholicism in 1950.^[34]
• Ludwig Dessoir (1810–1874)– German actor^[21]
• Mendel Diness – Jewish watchmaker in 19th-century Jerusalem.^[35] Diness later converted to Christianity.^[36]

Benjamin Disraeli

• Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) – British Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party in the 19th century^[37]
• Leopold Ritter von Dittel (1815–1898) – Austrian surgeon
• Alfred Döblin – German expressionist novelist, essayist, and doctor.^[38]
• David Paul Drach (1791-1865) – became librarian of the Propaganda in Rome.
• Bob Dylan – popular musician who converted to Christianity in 1979.^[39] He later began studying with Chabad, a branch of Hasidic Judaism,^[40] though his current religious affiliation is uncertain. See also information on Dylan's conversion to Christianity, born-again period and religious beliefs.
• Helen Joy Davidman (18 April 1915 – 13 July 1960) – American poet and writer. Her final years of life and marriage to the christian author C.S. Lewis was partially told in the movie “Shadowlands”.

E[]

• Alfred Edersheim (1825–1889) – Biblical scholar^[21]
• Peter Engel – American television producer who is best known for his teenage sitcoms which appeared on TNBC, he was raised Jewish, and has converted to Christianity.^[41]
• (1802–1874) – German divine^[42]

F[]

Julius Friedländer, 1833

• Hans Feibusch – German painter and sculptor of Jewish heritage, He converted to Christianity and was baptized and confirmed into the Church of England in 1965.
• Charles L. Feinberg (1909–1995) – American biblical scholar and professor of Semitics and Old Testament. In 1930, he converted from Judaism to Christianity through the ministry of Chosen People Ministries.^[43]
• Rachel Felix (1820–1858) – French actress
• Pero Ferrús – Castilian poet^[44]
• Ilya Fondaminsky – Jewish Russian author (writing under the pseudonym Bunakov) and political activist, he adopted Christianity and was christened a Russian Orthodox.^[45]
• Achille Fould (1800–1867) – French financier and politician^[21]
• Wilhelm Fraknoi (1843–1924) – Hungarian bishop; president of Hungarian Academy of Science
• Jacob Frank – 18th-century Jewish reformer who claimed to be the reincarnation of the self-proclaimed messiah Sabbatai Zevi. He later converted to Christianity in Poland in 1759.^[46]
• Wilhelm Frankl – World War I fighter ace credited with 20 aerial victories, converted to Christianity.^[47]
• Giles Fraser – Christian minister and former Canon Chancellor of St Paul's Cathedral
• Emil Albert von Friedberg (1837–1910) – German professor
• Heinrich von Friedberg (1813–1895) – German jurist and statesman^[48]
• Rudolf Friedenthal (1827–1890) – German deputy
• Ludwig Friedländer (1824–1909) – German philologist who later converted to Protestantism.^[21]
• Julius Friedländer – German numismatist, Friedländer's entire family embraced Christianity in 1820.
• Max Friedlander (1829–1872) – German-Austrian journalist

G[]

• Dennis Gabor – Hungarian-British electrical engineer and physicist, he later received the 1971 Nobel Prize in Physics. In 1918, his family converted to Lutheranism, but he became an agnostic later in life.^[49]
• Eduard Gans (1798–1839) – German philosopher and jurist, exponent of the conservative Right Hegelians^[50]
• Hermann Mayer Salomon Goldschmidt (1802–1866) – German astronomer and painter^[21]

H[]

Fritz Haber

• Fritz Haber – German chemist and Nobel laureate in Chemistry^[51]
• Heinrich Heine (1799–1856) – German writer^[21]
• Friedrich Gustav Jakob Henle (1809–1885) – German physician, pathologist and anatomist^[21]
• August Wilhelm (Eduard Theodor) Henschel (1790, Breslau – 1856, Breslau) – professor of botany (1824–1837) at Breslau^[52]
• Henriette Herz (1764–1803) – German author
• Ferdinand (von) Hiller (1811, Frankfurt am Main – 1886) – German musical composer
• Siegfried Hirsch (1816–1860) – professor of history, Halle
• Theodor Hirsch (1806–1881) – professor of history, Greifswald

I[]

• Abram Ioffe – prominent Russian/Soviet physicist. In 1911 he converted to Lutheranism.^[53]
• Jorge Isaacs – Colombian writer, politician and soldier^[54]

J[]

• Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi (1804–1857) – professor of mathematics, Berlin
• Heinrich Jacoby – German educator^[21]
•  [de] (1826, Königsberg – 1890) – professor of medicine, Berlin^[55]
• (1815–1864) – professor of Greek, Königsberg^[56]
• Philipp Jaffé (1819–1870) – professor of history, Berlin
• Georg Jellinek – German legal philosopher^[57]
• Paul S. L. Johnson – American scholar and pastor^[58]

K[]

David Kalisch

• David Kalisch (1820, Breslau – 1872) – German playwright and humorist^[21]
• , aka  [sv] (1803, Stockholm – 1886), Swedish writer and divine, father of  [da]
• Felix Philipp Kanitz – Austro-Hungarian naturalist, geographer, ethnographer, archaeologist and author of travel notes^[59]
• Andrew Klavan – filmmaker and novelist^[60]
• Julius Leopold Klein (1810, Miskolc – 1876) – Hungarian-German litterateur
• , born: Heumann Coschmann (1813, – 1836, Karlsruhe) – German mathematician^[61]
• Leopold Kronecker (1823, Liegnitz – 1891) – German mathematician and logician^[21]

L[]

Shia LaBeouf

• Shia LaBeouf – Hollywood actor who decided to leave Judaism and become a Christian while playing a Christian character in the movie Fury (2014).^[62][63] He had previously contributed to a book entitled I am Jewish in 2004.^[64]
• Karl Landsteiner – Austrian biologist and physician, In 1930 he received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. converted from Judaism to Roman Catholicism in 1890^[65]
• Hermann Lebert (1813–1878) – German physician^[21]
• Karl Lehrs (1802–1878) – German classical scholar^[66]
• Osip Mikhailovich Lerner – 19th-century Russian intellectual and lawyer^[67]
• Daniel Lessmann (1794–1831) – 19th-century historian and poet^[68]
• Rahel Levin – German social leader
• Fanny Lewald (1811–1889) – German author^[21]
• Francois Libermann (1802–1852) – French Jewish convert to Catholicism. He found the Congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary which merged with the Congregation of the Holy Spirit (Spiritans). He was declared venerable in the Roman Catholic Church (1876) by Pope Pius IX.
• Luis Ramírez de Lucena – Spanish chess player who published the first still-existing chess book. He is from a family of Jews who converted to Roman Catholicism.^[69]
• Jean-Marie Lustiger – cardinal, former Archbishop of Paris^[70]

M[]

Gustav Mahler

• Eduard Magnus (1799–1872) – professor of arts, Berlin
• Heinrich Gustav Magnus (1802–1870) – German chemist and physicist^[21]
• Ludwig Immanuel Magnus – German mathematician^[21]
• Gustav Mahler (1860–1911) – composer^[71]
• Moses Margoliouth (1818–1881) – Jewish historian, uncle of David Samuel Margoliouth
• Karl Marx (1818–1883) – German socialist
• Lise Meitner – Austrian physicist who worked on radioactivity and nuclear physics. She converted to Christianity, following Lutheranism,^[72][73] and was baptized in 1908.^[74]
• Alexander Men – Russian priest, Orthodox theologian and author (assassinated 1990)^[75]
• Moritz Her. Ed. Meier – professor of philosophy, Halle
• Dorothea Mendelssohn (1769–1839) – German social leader
• Felix Mendelssohn (1809–1847) – composer^[21]
• Hugh Montefiore – Anglican Bishop of Birmingham from 1977 to 1987^[76]
• Robert Moses – politician and "master builder" of 20th-century New York City^[77]

N[]

John von Neumann

• (Johann) August Wilhelm Neander, born: David Mendel (1789, Göttingen – 1850) – professor of ecclesiastical history, Berlin
• John von Neumann – Hungarian-American pure and applied mathematician, physicist, inventor, computer scientist, and polymath. He was baptized a Catholic in 1930.^[78]
• Karl Friedrich Neumann (1793, , Schlüsselfeld – 1870) – German orientalist^[21]
• Robert Novak – raised in secular Jewish culture,^[79] he converted to Catholicism in May 1998 after his prolific career as a journalist, columnist, and political commentator.^[80]

O[]

• Harry Frederick Oppenheimer – South African businessman^[81]
• Jacques Offenbach – French German composer

P[]

Boris Pasternak

• Francis Palgrave (1788, London – 1861) – English historian^[21]
• Dave Pasch – sports announcer
• Boris Pasternak – Russian poet, novelist, and literary translator. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1958. He converted to Eastern Orthodoxy from Judaism.^[82]
• Paul the Apostle – early Christian leader and author of many New Testament epistles.^[83]
• Corey Pavin – PGA golfer^[84]
• Johannes Pfefferkorn – German theologian and writer^[21]
• Friedrich Adolf Philippi (1809, Berlin – 1882, Rostock) – German Lutheran theologian^[21]
• Howard Phillips – prominent American conservative leader and former presidential candidate
• Lorenzo Da Ponte (1749, Ceneda – 1839) – Italian librettist^[21]

R[]

Paul Reuter

• Marie-Alphonse Ratisbonne – French Jew who converted to Christianity in 1842 after seeing an apparition of the Virgin Mary. He later became a priest. He moved to Jerusalem and founded the Convent of Ecce Homo and the Ratisbonne Monastery.^{[85][circular reference]}
• Harry Reems – adult film actor^[86]
• Paul Reuter – German entrepreneur, and the founder of Reuters News Agency. On 16 November 1845, he converted to Christianity, in a ceremony at St. George's German Lutheran Chapel in London.^[87]
• David Ricardo (1772, London – 1823) – English political economist^[21]
• Gillian Rose – British philosopher and sociologist^[88]
• Johann Georg Rosenhain (1816, Königsberg – 1887) – German professor of mathematics
• Moishe Rosen – founder of Jews for Jesus^[89]
• Sid Roth (Sydney Rothbaum) – American televangelist^[90]
• , aka , (1799, Fritzlar – 1864, Marburg) – German professor of history, historian of law, Marburg^[91]
• Anton G. Rubinstein (1829, Ofatinţi – 1889) – Russian musician

S[]

Arnold Schoenberg

Edith Stein

• Joseph d'Aguilar Samuda (1813, London – 1885) – English shipbuilder and Member of Parliament
• Adolph Saphir (1831–1891) – Hungarian-born missionary and Presbyterian minister
• Tsaritsa Sarah-Theodora of Bulgaria – wife of tsar Ivan Alexander, tsaritsa in the late Second Bulgarian Empire
• Joseph Schereschewsky – Episcopal Bishop of Shanghai, founder of Saint John's University, Shanghai, Bible translator^[92]
• Arnold Schoenberg – composer who converted to Christianity in 1898 but returned to Judaism in 1933^[93]
• Eduard von Simson (1810, Königsberg – 1899) – German jurist and politician^[21]
• Otto Spiegelberg (1830, Peine – 1881) – German professor of medicine, Breslau
• Dan Spitz – lead guitarist of the heavy metal band Anthrax^[94]
• Friedrich Julius Stahl (1802, Munich – 1861) – Prussian jurist and conservative thinker^[21]
• Aurel Stein (1862–1943) – Hungarian-British orientalist, archaeologist and historian
• Edith Stein (1891–1942) – nun, martyr, saint^[95]
• Bethel Henry Strousberg (1823, Nidzica – 1884) – German financier
• Irena Szewińska (1946 – 2018) – Polish athlete

T[]

• Siegbert Tarrasch – challenger for the World Chess Championship^[96]

V[]

• Mordechai Vanunu – considered a whistle-blower on Israel's nuclear program who was subsequently kidnapped, tried and imprisoned by Israel.^[97]
• Rahel Varnhagen (born Rahel Levin) – writer and saloniste^[98]

W[]

• Simone Weil – French philosopher and activist^[99]
• Otto Weininger – Austrian philosopher^[100]
• Eugene Wigner – Hungarian American theoretical physicist and mathematician. He received half of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963. Although his family converted to Lutheranism for political reasons, he was an atheist.^[101]
• Joseph Wolff (1795–1862) – German missionary^[21]

X[]

• Morris Ximenes (1762–1837) – 18th-century English merchant^[21]

Y[]

• David Levy Yulee – United States Senator from Florida^[102]

Z[]

Efrem Zimbalist Jr.

• Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. – American actor^{[103][104][105]}
• Israel Zolli – former Chief Rabbi of Rome^[106]

See also[]

• Apostasy in Judaism
• Haskalah
• Hebrew Catholics
• Jewish assimilation
• Isaak Markus Jost
• Messianic Judaism
• Who is a Jew?

References[]

Bibliography[]

• Richard Gottheil, Kaufmann Kohler, Isaac Broydé. "Converts to Christianity, Modern" in Jewish Encyclopedia. http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=759&letter=C