Coming and Going
Why People Change Religions

An exhibition of the Jewish Museums in Hohenems, Frankfurt am Main, and Munich

The right to convert, i.e. to become a member of a different religious community, is—like religious freedom itself – a human right.

For a long time changing religion was associated with coercion, social pressure, and forced assimilation. And that was not only true for those converting from Judaism to Christianity. Nowadays, changing religion is a free decision, although conversions are by no means without conflict even in the present age, sometimes touching on new taboos and unanswered questions.

The exhibition at the Jewish Museum Munich outlines the ways different religions deal with the subject of conversion, the multitude of individual motives, the rituals, converts and their dramatic situations – right throughout the history of Europe and across the continent. We hear of the experience made by well-known personalities such as Heinrich Heine, Edith Stein, and Gustav Mahler, or by Nahida Lazarus and Leopold Weiss/Muhammad Asad, as well as unknown individuals, whose exemplary tales draw attention to the everyday and unspectacular dimension during the long history of conversion.