Converts to Judaism are inferior to "native"
Jews.... they're like "a sore on the
skin".... they're not to be trusted.... and
they're a hindrance to the messiah's arrival
"Halevi (12th century Jewish poet & "philosopher") meets the problem of conversion by arguing that converts are indeed not the equals of native Jews and that only after many generations, so it would seem, can their descendants be fully amalgamated into the Jewish people. To adopt a brilliant and amusing metaphor of Daniel J. Lasker's, just as IBM PC clones may run the same software as original IBM hardware, but are still not the real thing; so, too, converts may believe what native Jews believe, and act as they do (software), they are still not the same as native Jews (hardware)."
Maimonides on Judaism & the Jewish People (1991)
Menachem Marc Kellner page
5
"the Midrash remarks: "do not trust the convert,
even after the 22nd generation" (according to
another source, for 7 generations a convert cannot
be trusted not to
have returned to his old ways).
"(converts are also a hindrance to the coming of the
MessiahY)
his tendency to lapse is considered a
liability to Israel, which explains Rabbi Helbo's
well-known saying: "converts are as difficult to
Israel as leprosy". The Babylonian Talmud treats the
converts with suspicion: it wonders whether their
motives were indeed sincere, and why they waited so
long to convert; it also suspects them of acting out
of fear rather than out of love. If a convert is
suspected of (transgressing) a single commandment,
he must be suspected of (transgressing) the whole
Torah."
Jewish Identity in Early Rabbinic Writings
By Sacha Stern page
94
Jews listed in order of importance (most to
least)
"In certain contexts the convert is distinguished
from the Jewish-born as having inferior status. In
the liturgy, he cannot refer to the Patriarchs as
"our forefathers". More importantly, his lineage is
inferior to that of most Jewish-born, as according
to the mishnaic scale of lineages (yohasin):
1. Priest (cohen)
2. Levite
3. Israel (ordinary Jews)
4. Impaired priest (descendent of a cohen who'd broken the marriage rules)
5. Convert
6. Freedman (former slave)
5. Bastard
6. Natin (Gibeonite) (Jews forbidden to marry ordinary Jews)
7. Silent (of unknown fatherhood)
8. Foundling (abandoned as a child)"
6. Freedman (former slave)
5. Bastard
6. Natin (Gibeonite) (Jews forbidden to marry ordinary Jews)
7. Silent (of unknown fatherhood)
8. Foundling (abandoned as a child)"
Jewish Identity in Early Rabbinic Writings
By Sacha Stern source
The Zohar, the bible of the Kabbalah equates
converts to boils:
See also: Non-Jews
are dogs
