ASSIMILATION AND CONVERSION P4.2

Question 1

Stance

Answer 1

Embraced emancipation

Question 2

Supporting response

Answer 2

Assimilate which often led to intermarriage or converting to Christianity.
In wider society, being Jewish held the Jews back from becoming academics and therefore, many dropped Jewish practices.

Question 3

Reason

Answer 3

Had opportunity to be citizens and embrace opportunities previously denied to them and reduce anti semitism

Question 4

Intended outcome

Answer 4

To gain acceptance into wider society

Question 5

Supporting responses on the challenge

Answer 5

The movement was happy to pay the price of a loss of Jewish identity by converting and assimilating into wider society. Despite having a sense of integration and acceptance at the time, in France 1894, the Dreyfus affair took place where an innocent Jew was convicted of treason, an act of antisemitism demonstrating they were still not properly integrated into wider society

Question 6

Supporting responses on the religion

Answer 6

Rabbis Goldberg and Rayner discussed that in Berlin half the Jews converted to Christianity by 1823 due to the challenge of Modernity. This meant that being a Jew became a “matter of private choice” (Historians Pasachoff and Littman). Gradually, many Jews assimilated into wider society, intermarrying or choosing to convert to Christianity to gain acceptance in the wider society. This resulted in a loss of Jewish identity