It’s interesting how many commentators on Marx’s relationship to Judaism focus on his father’s conversion to Christianity. Marx’s mother also converted to Christianity, and from what we know, hers was a more bitter and forced conversion than his father’s.

Marx’s father converted entirely for professional reasons: he would no longer be able to practice as a lawyer if he hadn’t). But Marx’s father wasn’t that bothered by any residual attachment to Judaism or Jewishness, despite the fact that his father and then his brother were the chief rabbis of Trier.

Marx’s mother, however, resisted conversion for as long as possible. She insisted on waiting till her father died (she, like her husband, came from a long line of rabbis), and it was only when her children, including Marx, were going to be baptized, that she finally did it. From what we know, Marx’s mother was far more attached to Judaism and her family of origin than Marx’s father was. She probably experienced the conversion as much more of a betrayal of her family and tradition than her husband did.

Marx did have far warmer and closer feelings for his father than for his mother, whom he mostly fought with about his inheritance after his father died. Even so, if you’re going to try to construct a family romance around the question of conversion, it seems like starting with his mother is the way to do it.