"Konwertycka gorączka“ z początku XX wieku: teksty, autorzy, metahistorie
Early 20th Century “Conversion Fever”: Texts, Authors, Metahistory

Summary/Abstract: At the beginning of the 20th century, about a dozen volumes were written in Polish, Yiddish and Hebrew in Poland about the converts from the Judaic to Christian faith. This subject united representatives of three milieux whose customary contacts used to bee limited to ideological wars and fierce battles fought in the press: (1) the promotors of Jewish ethnic movements and culture autonomy, (2) the so-called “assimilators”, and also (3) Polish anti-Semites. The objective of this article is to discuss the main theses concerning Jewish converts and the conversion process, published during the “conversion fever” in the years 1904-1938; and, first of all, to define the metahistory represented by each of the three groups and their legacy in contemporary historiography. As I am going to demonstrate in this article, the converts in these texts are like a litmus paper testing and contesting the limits of ethnic identity, both Jewish and Polish. The emotions they aroused a century ago stemmed precisely from the fact that they proved to be a challenge to the perception of these boundaries as rigid, clearly defined and inviolable.

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