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German "JUDEN UND DISSIDENT" baptism/christening certificates for Jews? #germany

Wesetx@...
 

I've noticed this prevalent in 19th century birth certificates for German Jews. What is the reason for listing a "baptism/christening" for them in place of a birth certificate, or am I misunderstanding something?
EdrieAnne Broughton
 

Before the 20th Century often the prevalent church was the recorder of births, deaths and marriages...mainly because one church was 'official' and all other religions were dissident..so it wasn't just Jews who were singled out...many Christian sects were also labeled dissident.
                              EdrieAnne Broughton
Barbara Mannlein <bsmannlein@...>
 

Check the dates carefully. Often, the brit milahs were recorded as baptisms…. If the ‘baptism’ occurred 8 days after birth it was the brit.

Barbara Mannlein
Tucson, AZ


On Apr 9, 2020, at 2:05 PM, EdrieAnne Broughton <edrieanne@...> wrote:
Before the 20th Century often the prevalent church was the recorder of births, deaths and marriages...mainly because one church was 'official' and all other religions were dissident..so it wasn't just Jews who were singled out...many Christian sects were also labeled dissident.
Rodney Eisfelder
 

Wesetx,
There are two parts to your question. In Germany, religions were funded by a proportion of taxes. Everyone was a member of the religion into which they were born - unless they formally renounced their membership, becoming either a member of another recognized religion or becoming a dissident. For some places - especially Berlin, the registers of Jews and Dissidents are filed together.
As to the other part of your question, some collections of genealogical records treat births and baptism /christening records as being the same thing. This is due to the biases of the orginizations that have created the collections.
You have to take each record on its merits, and examine it to see what it really is. Personally, I find it offensive when a Beschneidung (circumcision) register is grouped with baptisms and christenings, but I have to get over it and take the records for what they really are. And often, a Beschneidung register is really a birth register - one date column is left blank for the girls.

And lastly, sometimes there really are collections of baptisms/christening of Jews - those are conversions.       I hope this helps a little.

Rodney Eisfelder,    Melbourne, Australia
Gerald and Margaret
 

There were also many "baptisms " for pragmatic reasons.  An aunt of mine has described to me how in the 1930s in E Hungary her father was denied promotion in a Bank until he and his family converted to the prevalent Christian denomination, Calvinism.  She  remembers that because she was over six years old, she had to attend an interview with a Rabbi to ensure that she was doing this willingly.  Her brother was too young for this, so his conversion was part of the family package.  For the next two terms, she had private tuition, “to indoctrinate her into Calvinism”.  She describes that this was effective, as she remained very committed to Calvinism until the events of 1944. 
There were also those in Nazi occupied areas who hoped they could avoid the increasing discrimination by having the piece of paper to show that they were legitimate Christians.
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