In 1391, the escalating persecution suffered by Iberian Jewry led to mass conversions, which continued as the Jews’ situation worsened. The presence of large populations of former Jews, and the return of some of their descendants to Judaism in subsequent generations, challenged the way both Jews and Gentiles understood Jewish identity. David Graizbord explains how:

Last month, David Miller, a sociology professor at Bristol University, attracted the attention of the Anglo-Jewish press with a rant about the supposed danger posed to civic and campus life by Zionists. Such rhetoric is nothing new for Miller, who has argued—in his academic work as well as in other contexts—that campus Jewish societies are in the employ of a nefarious “Israel lobby,” and that interfaith activities involving Jewish and Muslim communities are “a Trojan horse for normalizing Zionism.” He is likewise convinced that Bashar al-Assad’s mass slaughter of his own people is a hoax perpetrated by a similarly nefarious conspiracy. Unsurprisingly, David Hirsh observes, Miller also believes complaints of anti-Semitism are Isra made in bad faith.