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INTRODUCTORY The Antecedents of Crypto-Judaism CRYPTO-JUDAISM, in one form or another, is as old as the Jew himself. In Hellenistic days, some weaklings endeavored to conceal their origin in order to escape ridicule when participating in the athletic exercises. Under the Roman rule, there was wide-spread subterfuge to avoid the payment of the special Jewish tax, the Fiscus Judaicus, which had been instituted after the fall of Jerusalem; and the historian Suetonius gives a vivid account of the indignities inflicted upon an old man of ninety in order to discover whether or no he was a Jew. The official attitude, as crystallized in the dicta of the Rabbis, was plain. A man might, and should, save his life if the occasion demanded it, by any means—murder, incest, or idolatry alone excepted. Only when the alternative was to commit one of these three offences against divine and human law was death to be preferred. However, this aphorism applied exclusively to cases where positive action was demanded: the concealment of Judaism, unaccompanied by any formality, was another matter. Rigorists indeed insisted that a man should refuse even to make a change in his garments, if it were demanded as a measure of religious oppression. Yet such stern devotion to principle could not be expected from all persons. Traditional Jewish law, in fact, made special provision for cases when observance of ceremonial practices became impossible because of compulsion 1
