Transforming Identity: The Ritual Transition from Gentile to Jew - Structure and Meaning »

Of all Judaic rituals, that of giyyur is arguably the most radical: it turns a Gentile into a Jew - once and for all and irrevocably. The very possibility of such a transformation is anomalous according to Jewish tradition, which regards Jewishness as an ascriptive status entered through birth to a Jewish mother.

In our times, the meaning of Jewish identity is a core issue, directly affecting the public debate regarding the relative weight of religion, nationality and kinship in determining basic aspects of Jewish life throughout the world. This book constitutes a seminal contribution to this ongoing discussion: it enables access to a wealth of halakhic sources previously accessible only to rabbinic scholars, fleshes out their meanings and implications within the cultural history of halakhah, and in so doing situates halakhah at the nexus of contemporary cultural discourse.

About the Author:
Professor Avi Sagi is the founder and director of Bar-Ilan University's Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Hermeneutics and Cultural Studies, and a Senior Research Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute, Israel

About the Author:
Professor Zvi Zohar is Chauncey Stillman Professor of Sephardic Law and Ethics at Bar-Ilan University and a Senior Research Fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute, Israel

Introduction     1
The proselyte's motivation as a factor in giyyur     5
Introduction     7
The proselyte's motivation in Talmudic sources     9
The proselyte's motivation in post-Talmudic sources up to the sixteenth century     19
The motivation for giyyur in modern halakhic sources: adaptivist positions     37
The motivation for giyyur in modern halakhic sources: rejectionist and transformationist positions     74
The giyyur ritual     105
Introduction     107
Giyyur as a voluntaristic normative commitment in Talmudic literature     108
Giyyur as a bodily ritual in Talmudic literature     116
The canonical formulation of the ritual of giyyur     141
The Yevamot paradigm in mediaeval halakhah     158
The ritual of giyyur: aspects of the Demai Paradigm in mediaeval halakhah     177
The two paradigms of giyyur - from the Arba'ah Turim to the Shulhan Arukh     196
The hermeneutical controversy regarding Rabbi Caro's position - and its significance     208
The polyphonic meaning of acceptance of the commandments in halakhic literature     219
Introduction     221
Acceptance of the commandments as an objective act     223
Acceptance of the commandments assubjective intent     233
Ex post facto annulment of giyyur     252
The meaning of giyyur     265
Introduction     267
15 Giyyur and Jewish identity     268
Bibliography     297
Index     307