title: Hibernate: switch from core API to JPA API without rewriting mapping
body: <p>Is it possible to use a hbm xml Hibernate configuration to build an EntityManagerFactory and EntityManager in a JPA 2.0-compliant manner? The documentation seems to indicate this isn't possible: </p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>"The previous tutorials used the Hibernate-specific hibernate.cfg.xml configuration file. JPA, however, defines a different bootstrap process that uses its own configuration file named persistence.xml."
    —<a href="http://docs.jboss.org/hibernate/orm/4.1/quickstart/en-US/html/ch04.html" rel="nofollow">Chapter 4</a></p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>My hbm xml configuration is many thousands of lines long and works; I'd rather not have to rewrite by hand as orm.xml and persistence.xml. I also don't have write access to the data model to add Hibernate or JPA annotations. For my purposes I only need the JPA API, not the JPA configuration. </p>
  
  <p>Is there any way to accomplish this?</p>