Forced Child Conversions in Prussia in the 18th Century

This talk will examine the cases of two Jewish women and their infants in Berlin, Prussia towards the end of the 18^th century: Rochel bat Samuel Jacob, whose child was forcefully taken from her and baptized in 1783, and of Nechow Jacobin, whose infant suffered the same fate in 1798.

Both cases are preserved as Prussian court documents in the Prussian Privy State Archives and are hitherto unpublished. I found both while working on conversions of Jewish women to Christianity (as part of my former post doc project) and on the scope of action of Jewish women within the framework of restrictions by State authorities and society (my current publication project).

While the topic of voluntary conversions of 18th century Jews in Berlin has been thoroughly addressed by historians, the field of forced conversions as late as in the 18^th century is still a desideratum (an exception is Anna L. Staudacher’s research on forced conversions in 19^th century Vienna).

As both court cases under discussion show the same underlying pattern (Jewish mother, Christian father, unwanted pregnancy) and the authority’s ordinance to baptize the infant can be traced back to the same paragraph of the Prussian Land Law, I will show that it can be assumed that both are not singular occurrences, but constitute one of the many facets of German Jewish day-to-day life of the period.