List of converts to Christianity from Judaism

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

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 American Jews identify themselves as Christians, most are Protestant.^[3][4][5] According to same data most of the Jews 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]

A

Mortimer Adler

• Abd-al-Masih (martyr) – convert martyred for his faith ^[8]
• Abraham Abramson – Prussian coiner and medallist. Born into a Jewish family, he later converted to Christianity.^[9]
• Felix Aderca – Romanian novelist, playwright, poet, journalist and critic, noted as a representative of rebellious modernism in the context of Romanian literature.^[10]
• Mortimer J. Adler – American philosopher, educator, and popular author. He was a convert to Catholicism.
• Michael Solomon Alexander – first Anglican Bishop of Jerusalem^[11]
• Petrus Alphonsi – physician in ordinary to King Alfonso VI of Castile^[12]
• Lovisa Augusti – opera singer and actress.^[13]

B

• Juan Alfonso de Baena – medieval Castilian troubadour^[14]
• Michael Balint – Hungarian psychoanalyst who spent most of his adult life in England. He was a proponent of the Object Relations school.
  

  Rachel Sassoon Beer
  David Baron – Jewish convert to Christianity. He began the Hebrew Christian Testimony to Israel missionary organization.
• Giovanni Giuda Giona Battista, agent for the king of Poland in the 16th century. Born Jewish and later converted to Roman Catholicism.^[15]
• Rachel Beer – Indian-born British newspaper editor. She was editor-in-chief of The Observer and The Sunday Times. She converted to Christianity.^[16]
• Bo Belinsky – American left-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball.
• Marianne Beth – Jewish Austrian lawyer and feminist. She converted from Judaism to Protestantism.^[17]
• Eduard Bendemann – German painter^[18]
• Sir Julius Benedict – English composer^[18]
• Theodor Benfey – German philologist^[18]
  

  Max Born
• Boris Berezovsky – Russian business oligarch, government official, engineer and mathematician. converted to the Eastern Orthodox Church in 1990.^[19]
• David Berkowitz – American serial killer ^[20]
• Michael Bernays – German professor of literature^[18]
• Gottfried Bernhardy – German philologist and literary historian^[18]
• Max Born – German physicist and mathematician, he won the 1954 Nobel Prize in Physics.^[21]
• Ludwig Börne – German political writer and satirist^[18]
• John Braham – English tenor opera star^[18]
• Moritz Wilhelm August Breidenbach – German jurist^[18]

C

Gerty Cori

• Abraham Capadose – Dutch physician and writer; friend of Isaac da Costa^[18]
• Carl Paul Caspari – Norwegian theologian^[18]
• Daniel Chwolson – Russian-Jewish orientalist. He embraced Christianity later.
• Leo de Benedicto Christiano – medieval financier^[22]
• Hermann Cohen (Carmelite) - (1821-1871) German Jewish pianist to Carmelite friar.
• Julius Friedrich Cohnheim – German pathologist^[18]
• 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.^[23][24]
• Isaac da Costa – Dutch language poet^[18]
• Jehuda Cresques – Catalan cartographer^[25]
• Károly Csemegi – Hungarian judge who was instrumental in the creation of the first criminal code of Hungary. Born Jewish and later converted to Christianity.^[26]
• 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 – German virtuoso violinist and composer, raised Jewish and later converted to Christianity.^[18]
• Marcel Dassault – French aircraft industrialist. He converted to Roman Catholicism in 1950.^[27]
• Ludwig Dessoir – German actor^[18]
• Mendel Diness – Jewish watchmaker in 19th century Jerusalem.^[28] Diness later converted to Christianity.^[29]
• Benjamin Disraeli – British Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party in the 19th century^[30]
• Alfred Döblin – German expressionist novelist^[31]
• Bob Dylan – popular musician who converted to Christianity in 1979.^[32] He later began studying with Chabad, a branch of Hasidic Judaism,^[33] though his current religious affiliation is uncertain. See also information on Dylan's conversion to Christianity, born-again period and religious beliefs.

E

• Alfred Edersheim – Biblical scholar^[18]
• 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.^[34]

F

Rachel Félix

• 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 – 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.^[35]
• Rachel Félix – French-Swiss theatre actress^[18]
• Pero Ferrús – Castilian poet^[36]
• Ilya Fondaminsky – Jewish Russian author (writing under the pseudonym Bunakov) and political activist, he adopted Christianity and was christened a Russian Orthodox.^[37]
• Achille Fould – French financier and politician^[18]
• 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.^[38]
• Wilhelm Frankl – World War I fighter ace credited with 20 aerial victories. he converted to Christianity.^[39]
• The Reverend Canon Dr Giles Fraser – Christian minister and former Canon Chancellor of St Paul's Cathedral
• Heinrich von Friedberg – German jurist and statesman^[40]
• Ludwig Friedländer – German philologist who later converted to Protestantism.^[18]
• 

  Julius Friedländer, 1833
  Julius Friedländer – German numismatist, Friedländer's entire family embraced Christianity in 1820.

G

• Dennis Gabor – Hungarian-British electrical engineer and physicist, he later received the 1971 Nobel Prize in Physics. In 1918, he and his family converted to Lutheranism.^[41]
• Eduard Gans – German philosopher and jurist, exponent of the conservative Right Hegelians^[42]
• Hermann Mayer Salomon Goldschmidt – German astronomer and painter^[18]

H

Fritz Haber

• Fritz Haber – German chemist and Nobel laureate in Chemistry^[43]
• Heinrich Heine – German writer^[18]
• Friedrich Gustav Jakob Henle – German physician, pathologist and anatomist^[18]

I

• Abram Ioffe – prominent Russian/Soviet physicist. In 1911 he converted to Lutheranism.^[44]
• Jorge Isaacs – Colombian writer, politician and soldier^[45]

J

• Heinrich Jacoby – German educator^[18]
• Georg Jellinek – German legal philosopher^[46]
• Paul S. L. Johnson – American scholar and pastor^[47]

K

• David Kalisch – German playwright and humorist^[18]
• Felix Philipp Kanitz – Austro-Hungarian naturalist, geographer, ethnographer, archaeologist and author of travel notes^[48]
• Andrew Klavan – filmmaker and novelist ^[49]
• Leopold Kronecker – German mathematician and logician^[18]

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).^[50][51] He had previously contributed to a book entitled I am Jewish in 2004.^[52]
• 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^[53]

• Hermann Lebert – German physician^[18]
• Karl Lehrs – German classical scholar^[54]
• Osip Mikhailovich Lerner – 19th century Russian intellectual and lawyer^[55]
• Fanny Lewald – German author^[18]
• 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.^[56]
• Jean-Marie Lustiger – Cardinal, former Archbishop of Paris^[57]

M

Gustav Mahler

• Heinrich Gustav Magnus – German chemist and physicist^[18]
• Ludwig Immanuel Magnus – German mathematician^[18]
• Gustav Mahler – composer (1860–1911)^[58]
• Lise Meitner – Austrian physicist who worked on radioactivity and nuclear physics. She converted to Christianity, following Lutheranism,^[59][60] and was baptized in 1908.^[61]
• Alexander Men – Russian priest, Orthodox theologian and author (assassinated 1990) ^[62]
• Felix Mendelssohn – composer (1809–1847)^[18]
• Hugh Montefiore – Anglican Bishop of Birmingham from 1977 to 1987
• Robert Moses – politician and "master builder" of 20th century New York City

N

John von Neumann

• John von Neumann – Hungarian-American pure and applied mathematician, physicist, inventor, computer scientist, and polymath. He was baptized a Catholic in 1930.^[63]
• Karl Friedrich Neumann – German orientalist^[18]
• Robert Novak – raised in secular Jewish culture,^[64] he converted to Catholicism in May 1998 after his prolific career as a journalist, columnist, and political commentator.^[65]

O

• Harry Frederick Oppenheimer – South African businessman^[66]

P

Boris Pasternak

• Francis Palgrave – English historian^[18]
• 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.^[67]
• Paul the Apostle – early Christian leader and author of many New Testament epistles.^[68]
• Corey Pavin – PGA golfer^[69]
• Johannes Pfefferkorn – German theologian and writer^[18]
• Friedrich Adolf Philippi – German Lutheran theologian^[18]
• Howard Phillips – prominent American conservative leader and former presidential candidate
• Lorenzo Da Ponte – Italian librettist^[18]

R

Paul Reuter

• Harry Reems – adult film actor^[70]
• 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.^[71]
• David Ricardo – English political economist^[18]
• Gillian Rose – British philosopher and sociologist^[72]
• Moishe Rosen – founder of Jews for Jesus^[73]
• Anton Rubinstein – Russian pianist, composer, and conductor^[18]

S

Arnold Schoenberg

Edith Stein

• 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^[74]
• Arnold Schoenberg, composer who converted to Christianity in 1898 but returned to Judaism in 1933 ^[75]
• Eduard von Simson – German jurist and politician^[18]
• Dan Spitz – lead guitarist of the heavy metal band Anthrax^[76]
• Friedrich Julius Stahl – Prussian jurist and conservative thinker^[18]
• Edith Stein – nun, martyr, saint^[77]

T

• Siegbert Tarrasch – challenger for the World Chess Championship ^[78]

V

• Mordechai Vanunu – considered a whistle-blower on Israel's nuclear programme who was subsequently kidnapped, tried and imprisoned by Israel.^[79]
• Rahel Varnhagen (born Rahel Levin) – writer and saloniste^[80]

W

• Simone Weil – French philosopher and activist ^[81]
• Otto Weininger – Austrian philosopher^[82]
• Eugene Wigner – Hungarian American theoretical physicist and mathematician. He received half of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963. He and his family converted to Lutheranism.^[83]
• Joseph Wolff – German missionary^[18]

X

• Sir Moses Ximenes – 18th century English merchant^[18]

Y

• 

  Efrem Zimbalist Jr.
  David Levy Yulee – United States Senator from Florida^[84]

Z

• Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. – American actor^[85][86][87]
• Israel Zolli – former Chief Rabbi of Rome^[88]

See also

• Apostasy in Judaism
• Who is a Jew?
• Hebrew Catholics
• Jews for Jesus
• Messianic Judaism
• Modern converts to Christianity from Judaism

References