Abstract
‘Apostasy’, a historian once observed, ‘endangered the sanctity of the most hallowed relationships in the community—between parent and child, husband and wife, rabbi and disciple.’¹ Yet, this most fundamental aspect of conversion has been largely overlooked in the historiography, partly because of assumptions that the east European Jewish family and community simply severed all contacts with converts.² As Shmuel Leib Tsitron remarked, the apostate ‘immediately became the enemy of the entire Jewish people’.³ While this assertion may have described popular sentiments well, it nonetheless raises some vexing questions. Were family relations so easily torn asunder by the decision to