In this engaging book, Hungarian historian Miklós Konrád has attempted both to explain the underlying causes for widespread Jewish conversion to Christianity in Liberal Hungary (1867–1914) as well as to paint a vivid picture of the dilemmas faced by these converts as they attempted to fully integrate into Hungarian society. Based on wide reading of the Jewish and general press and writings by and about prominent converts, as well as statistical analysis of Jewish conversions in Calvinist, Catholic, and Jewish records, Jewishness and Beyond presents a convincing analysis of why so many Jews in Hungary chose to abandon Judaism in favor of the religions of the majority of Hungarians.

Konrád argues that the pre-condition for Jewish apostasy was growing disaffection from and indifference toward the Jewish religion, typical of many Jews who had modernized in the nineteenth century. Hungary, after all, contained two types of Jews in that period: modernized Jews who had abandoned the Yiddish language and traditional Jewish life and adopted first German and then the Magyar language, and ultra-Orthodox Jews who remained attached to traditional Jewish culture. Most of the former lived in Budapest or other cities, while most of the latter, none of whom contemplated conversion, lived in the northeast and remained attached to the mystical, Hasidic movement. It was a desire to integrate fully into Hungarian society, even to the point (for intellectuals) of becoming spokesmen for the Hungarian nation that induced modern Jews, already indifferent to Judaism, to convert. Such a desire, of course, encountered resistance in the form of antisemitic prejudice. Although the political elite of liberal Hungary opposed overt antisemitism and antisemitic movements, informal discrimination persisted, Konrád argues. Many aspiring (Jewish) civil servants, university professors, high school teachers, and others realized that a baptismal certificate enabled them to get the jobs they sought, and so they, along with many university students, converted for the sake of their careers. Others, who sought entrance into the nobility and its glittering social organizations like the National Casino, converted to be ennobled, although many professing Jews received patents of nobility. In addition, those who wanted to marry non-Jews, especially aristocrats, converted in order to do so. Although in 1895, Hungary (unlike Cisleithanian Austria) legalized civil marriage between Jews and Christians, most aristocrats would only marry Jews if they converted. Thus, most Jews who converted did so to enhance their careers or social standing or to marry. Interestingly, the total number of converts—about 9,000 between 1896 when the Hungarian government began to publish statistics and 1914—was a smaller fraction of the total Jewish population than in Austria or Germany, yet a significant percentage of Hungary’s richest and culturally active Jews, especially in Budapest, converted to Christianity. As a result, conversion was a visible phenomenon. The Jewish desire to become totally Hungarian, Konrád notes, was what impelled most of the conversions. Antisemitism also played an important role. After all, between 1918 and 1920, when anti-Jewish violence erupted, 10,000 Jews converted, and 25,000 did so in the face of anti-Jewish legislation between 1938 and 1942.

Most of the Jews who became Christians in nineteenth century Hungary succeeded in obtaining the jobs or marriage partners they sought, and they achieved fame in Hungarian society. While some converts became hostile to Jews and Judaism, most continued to socialize with Jewish friends and family members, participate in social and philanthropic organizations with other Jews, and remain positive about their Jewish origins. They often married each other.

Konrád’s book has some problems. He should have explained the role of the aristocracy in Hungarian society more fully, as well as Neolog Judaism and Neolog intellectuals. He also mistakenly says that the Orthodox Jews of western Hungary were not as religiously fervent as the Hasidic Jews of northeast Hungary. They were indeed fervently Orthodox, even if a bit more open to learning German and Hungarian than the Hasidim. Most importantly, Konrád needed to explain why so many Hungarians and Hungarian Jews assumed that baptism was necessary for full inclusion in Hungarian society. Why did so many Hungarians exclude professing Jews from their concept of Hungarian national identity? Perhaps this exclusion explains why Jewish ethnicity—which according to Konrád’s description of Hungarian Jewry still persisted—did not inoculate Jews from the need to convert in order to be fully Hungarian.

Nevertheless, Beyond Jewishness is a sensitive and important treatment of the role of conversion among Jews in the nineteenth century. Addressing this issue adds much to our understanding of Hungary and its Jews.