Jewish assimilation

Jewish assimilation refers either to the gradual cultural assimilation and social integration of Jews in their surrounding culture or to an ideological program in the age of emancipation promoting conformity as a potential solution to historic Jewish marginalization.

Terminology

Modern Jewish History professor Todd Endelman (2015) used the following terms to describe various forms of Jewish assimilation:

Radical assimilation: 'an umbrella term referring to all the routes Jews traveled to lose their Jewishness, whether that was their intention or not'.

Conversion: 'the religious act of formally embracing Christianity'.

Secession: 'the act of legally withdrawing from the Jewish community—whether or not conversion to Christianity followed.' Endelman noted that secession did not become available until the late 19th century, and only in Central Europe (German Empire and Austria-Hungary).

Intermarriage: 'the union between a Christian and Jew'. Endelman excluded marriages between baptized Jews and Christians or between Jews and ex-Christians from this definition, since they were legally and religiously considered 'endogamous'.

Passing: 'the attempt to flee the Jewish community by assuming a non-Jewish identity and hiding evidence of a Jewish birth and upbringing'. According to Endelman, most people in this category never converted to Christianity, because that would have revealed they had once been Jews.

Monika Richarz (2012) argued the importance of distinguishing between assimilation ('radical adjustment, even to the point of absorption') and acculturation ('a less radical and more academic term which implies that people accept a new culture or part of it, but do not give up completely their own tradition').

She stated that the latter term was more appropriate for what Jews did in Western and (to a lesser degree) Eastern Europe in the 19th and early 20th century.