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Can an Amalekite convert to Judaism? The Mechilta says no:

Rabbi Eliezer says: The Lord swore by His throne of glory: If a gentile comes to convert to Judaism, he will be accepted. But Amalek and his household will not be accepted. [Mechilta d'Rabbi Yishmael 17:16]

But the Talmud seems to say yes:

The descendants of the wicked Haman studied Torah in Bnei-Brak. [Gittin 57b].

Someone (who?) said that a descendant of Haman must have raped a Jewish woman, and she had sons who are therefore Jewish, and this is who the Talmud refers to.

Would they be Jewish? I know we are not able to recognize Amalekites today, but since a good five centuries or so passed between the injunction to wipe out Amalek and King Saul (almost) doing that, surely there were cases of men born of a Jewish woman and an Amalekite man.

Would they have been considered 100% Jewish back then (with no asterisk), or Amalekites?

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    Your own highly related question. Some of the sources cited in the answer are relevant to this question as well.
    – Alex
    Commented Feb 9, 2020 at 1:51
  • @Alex -- Are you saying I am getting old? :-) But, in fairness to me (!), my other question is about conversion to Judaism, and this one is about the matter of the son of a Jewish mother and an Amalekite father. [Need one-bit answer: Is he Jewish or not?]
    – Maurice Mizrahi
    Commented Feb 9, 2020 at 1:57
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    A child of a Jewish woman and a nonJewish man is 100% Jewish but does not belong to his mother's tribe. An example of this is the blasphemer in the desert who was Jewish but had not been accepted in his mother's tribe (Dan)
    – sabbahillel
    Commented Feb 9, 2020 at 4:41
  • There's that ger Amaleki that claimed to have killed King Shaul in the beginning of 2 Shmuel 1 and was subsequently killed by David.
    – Harel13
    Commented Feb 9, 2020 at 6:44
  • The torah forbids the conversion of a Moabit or Amomi man and says Egyptians must wait three generations for full convertdion. Noonr else is forbidden to be accepted as a convert.
    – sabbahillel
    Commented Feb 9, 2020 at 12:15

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