Jews By Choice:A Discussion With Converts

A DISCUSSION WITH CONVERTS moment: Why don't we start with each of you briefly telling why you converted to Judaism, and perhaps also something about the nature of your current relationship to the...

...But I know that my wife would have been deeply resentful if she had not been able to have a religious ceremony...
...And I was really disturbed when so many of our Jewish friends, when they learned that I wanted to convert, said things like, "Why do you want to do that...
...She converted to Catholicism...
...It was my decision...
...She hadn't converted...
...You're not ¦ yourself...
...It's something—at least so far as I'm concerned—you've really got to feel...
...We're not thrilled with the temple we belong to, but the kids are getting exactly what they need...
...I don't think there are very many people who all of a sudden say, "I'm not happy with my religion...
...It's such a mixed up process, mentally and emotionally...
...As they learn Hebrew, so do I; as they learn about a holiday, I make sure that I have all the right things—books, candles, whatever...
...I don't remember when I was last so uncomfortable...
...But I do enjoy the holidays and going to services then...
...Do any of your in-laws feel freaked out because you're "too" Jewish...
...Susan: Yes, being a convert is difficult...
...My parents were somewhat dismayed by that...
...I feel very strongly that 1 did the right thing, and it was in no way a response to pressure...
...and our being married by a rabbi left the door open to us...
...If it could be relaxed a little bit, and be made more open to them, and if the attitude on intermarriage could be viewed not as a rebellion, not with rejection, you would have a much, much better chance as far as the kids are concerned...
...Still, when it came time to make the decision, her parents were really against our getting married, and they put us through a lot of pressure...
...Otherwise they would have had to convert eventually...
...In some cases, it reflects the Jewish sense of hazard...
...And I didn't understand, but she explained that she had raised us not to make distinctions among people...
...We joined about three years ago, and I had to miss the first meeting...
...But the rabbi absolutely didn't want to do it, and when he did, he made it clear that it was against his better judgment...
...Maybe I was trying to fill a gap...
...I was terrified...
...I was very uncomfortable...
...Her family is Jewish, but not religious...
...But it was strange not to feel any encouragement...
...He told us that he wasn't really doing it for our sake, but for the sake of our children...
...After the conversion, we got married again, and we joined a temple, and now I'm a member of a chavurah...
...M: Obviously, we could go on all night...
...his parents had a Christmas tree...
...And finally, Lynne's parents said that if I wanted to convert, that was okay, and if I didn't, that was okay, too...
...I think I'll go seek out Judaism, or some other religion, because I'm not satisfied...
...David: Another problem with converts is that there is no real tie between us...
...I was very interested in examining other beliefs...
...We're not active in any temple or organization...
...he was totally against every girl that I ever brought home and pointed out several that I had missed that he'd have been much happier with...
...The degree of religious observance by converts may be a way of expressing love and commitment as they go about developing a more natural ethnic style...
...And he required us to sign a paper saying that we would raise our children as Jews, and he made it clear that we were supposed to take the signing very seriously...
...I especially appreciate the fact that there was a rabbi who was willing to marry us...
...His position was that even though you can't predict what people will do...
...My husband's background wasn't observant...
...I have no real point of reference...
...He doesn't have a family that he can get a sense of feeling from...
...The reason that I converted was that even though he is a secular Jew, he feels that he is Jewish and he wants his children to be Jewish...
...I know that I felt very out of things at family get-togethers for a couple of years, and I'm very outgoing, and my wife kept saying, "What's the matter with you...
...Even though she is not heavily into Judaism, it is a gut strong belief for her...
...Those numbers of people are pretty small...
...There are so many people for whom religious expression is really a peripheral part of their lives and suddenly, on the intermarriage issue, and on the getting into the family issue, you've drilled right into the nerve...
...I was quite pregnant...
...In my family, the only time you know what religion is is on Sunday, when you go to church, or at Christmas...
...that had stopped when I was 18...
...He and my mother were brought up as Canadian Baptists, which isn't too different from Southern Baptists, and I never found very much in that religion...
...So I took a conversion course, and once I resolved that I really didn't have any hangups, I dropped out...
...In most of the cases I've seen, the non-Jewish family has adapted to the thing better than the Jewish family...
...I thought if they knew about me, that might color what was said—or what was not said...
...In fact, I'm probably more Jewish than anyone else I know...
...And so I got started...
...And he was quite open...
...it's not onesided, you know...
...When Lynne and I started dating and thinking of marriage, we talked about religion, and my feeling was that it's not so important what religion you take so long as you both have the same religion...
...And I'm at a loss, because I don't know how to be a model for someone else when I'm devoid of background myself...
...M: What about your old friends...
...They knew I wasn't Catholic...
...And if they decide to have children, the children will be brought up with nothing, and they won't know where they stand, and, eventually, they may have to choose between their parents, and I think that's totally wrong...
...I think my father was quite anti-Semitic, but his frame of mind changed quite drastically once he got to know Lynne, and realized that all Jews don't have horns...
...Betty: My father came from Ireland—an Irish Catholic—and he married my mother, who was a Lutheran...
...I started having problems with some of the concepts of Catholicism—1 was attending a parochial school—and for about a year and a half...
...So I'm in the thick of it...
...I find it difficult enough identifying with being Jewish, but along with the package I got, I got a Jewish family...
...I was very turned off by the nuns, who engaged in a great deal of physical abuse...
...He was the rabbi of the congregation where my husband grew up, and my husband's parents were founding members...
...My mother does what she's always done, and I know it means a lot to her...
...It was a very appealing thing...
...M: Yes, those of us who were born Jewish, and who think a great deal : about our Jewishness, do realize that if one is at all serious about it, being Jewish is very hard...
...And I took a conversion course, even though I had made no commitment to convert...
...But we have to stop now, and I think this was marvelous...
...And when it was my turn, and I said, "My father came from Ireland," that said it all...
...Bob: People don't understand...
...What are they going through...
...I lack the identity, the day-to-day feeling I see in Lynne's family...
...The rejection, and the unfair decisions that are placed on them make it pretty tough for them to come back into the temple when their kids are five or six years old...
...And my wife was quite uneasy, "How's Jackie going to take this...
...If I want to be a Jew, I should have that opportunity, and not have Jews telling me I can't be until I've gone through a test...
...Susan: I went to a wedding of a high school friend...
...So I made a very specific break from the Church, and I was quite comfortable with that...
...I think that's because Linda had been so totally accepted by everybody, and because it didn't really come as a surprise...
...Until the older was a year old, we didn't do anything at home...
...I think that's unhealthy and potentially very dangerous...
...Did it matter to you that you could be married by a rabbi...
...The hidden, primitive fear of the Jewish parent whose child is marrying a non-Jew is that the grandchildren will be raised as non-Jews...
...Being Jewish is not like being Presbyterian...
...He made it clear he didn't want to marry us, and I was very resentful, and I still am...
...I felt them to be my own values...
...We've been married for ten years, and it's only the last two years that he's started sending us Chanukah presents instead of Christmas presents...
...Michael: Someone who converts can become very accepting and comfortable with what is considered ethnic in Judaism, and even develop a great love for it...
...When I told her that I was going to marry my husband, she smiled very complacently and said, "I didn't fail...
...Bob: We hear them say that they won't accept us, but why won't they accept us...
...That reason alone would have been enough...
...Still, she wanted a religious ceremony...
...So I had to make the decision, and I didn't have anyone to copy, and when I asked the people that I'd met what they did, I found that they didn't do anything either...
...my parents were basically non-religious...
...Can we talk a bit about whether or not the unchurched—not the intermarried—would be interested in conversion...
...Peggy: The main difficulty I find is creating a lifestyle...
...Betty: I think they're surprised, and very pleased...
...And the most important reason was that I did not want my children, in shaping a sense of identity, to have any feelings of conflict...
...I was not excited about the idea of a mohel...
...And I guess that it was really very easy for me to convert...
...They would not perform a ritual circumcision...
...Did you resent the difficulties you encountered in finding a rabbi...
...Because our children are required to attend at least one Friday night service a month, we go to temple, and I'm very happy about that...
...I had my religion, and that was an identity in a way, but this was a whole way of life, and I just couldn't comprehend why they were so opposed to this marriage when they weren't religious at all...
...It isn't like going to school for a semester and taking the final in order to earn three credits...
...Michael: That just shows you what good Jews we've all become...
...And once I realized that it didn't matter to them, in terms of their ability to accept me, I knew the decision was mine to make freely...
...David: We split the holidays...
...He wanted them to have every chance for Judaism they could...
...M: Maybe it's a terrible fear that your grandchildren are going to be anti-Semites...
...I never had another ounce of problem with my father from the day I married her— for some reason, I had grown up in his eyes by accepting her...
...And when I met my wife—we decided very early in our relationship that we were going to be married—I saw a problem regarding religion...
...I guess the real problem was that I believed what they had taught me—that if you don't believe, you're not a Catholic...
...to feel it...
...that wouldn't fit our lifestyle...
...Okay...
...Susan: I converted because in all the abstract conversation my husband and I had before we were married, he said that our children would be Jewish—period...
...However...
...He's decided that Jews make terrific husbands, and I'll never starve—a kind of reverse anti-Semitism...
...It's rough getting it from both sides, from Jews and from non-Jews...
...Or people who say, "Oh, you're Jewish—that's why you're so bright...
...And that may be difficult for Jews to comprehend...
...But I also know that that part of my life is gone...
...he was against my brother's marriage, fought it right through the reception after the wedding by not speaking to the bride's father, even though she was a good Catholic girl who'd gone to a good Catholic high school...
...Bob: I think the unchurched, or people who don't have a religion, are basically lazy, and there has to be some kind of driving force for people who want to convert, whether it's to Judaism or to something else...
...It's been seven years now...
...As a Catholic...
...Bob: Most of our friends are mixed marriages...
...What would the relatives say...
...And I felt that it was important that our children have a religious education, and it's the mother who supplies that...
...Betty: I'm the only convert in our chavurah...
...It was an instantaneous decision...
...But Judaism isn't like that...
...Then I began to hear things like...
...And the antagonism can really build...
...They're not particularly observant...
...I have two children—one four years old, the other just a year old...
...She doesn't know that much of the theology, the philosophy or the law—just a general working knowledge, a few traditions that she carries on, not enough for me to be able to use her as a model...
...I've made such a transition...
...And when I brought Linda home, and he met her, and talked to her for three or four minutes, he accepted her totally...
...When we started dating seriously, I wasn't accepted at all...
...It was a very Waspy wedding...
...When we realized it wouldn't be easy to find a rabbi, they told us not to be concerned...
...Anne: I'd like to be accepted by Jews as a Jew, and I don't think many Jews accept converts, and that troubles me...
...From the time of that break until the time I met my wife, I was curious about various religions...
...We discussed the issue quite openly...
...We don't belong to a temple, although of course we go to High Holiday services...
...there's something missing for me...
...I think a step that could be taken would be if there could be less of an initiation for those who come with the curiosity and the desire to hear...
...Since we weren't going to be Catholic, that meant we were going to be Jewish...
...This was the first celebration we'd been to that wasn't Jewish, and I find that I'm very uncomfortable around non-Jews now...
...And when I started going, it was a long while before I said anything about my background, because I wanted to feel comfortable with these people and I wanted them to feel comfortable with me...
...And my in-laws were trying very hard, but I didn't feel a part of things, and I felt that they were j ust going through the motions...
...If you were to go to Ireland, you'd have a tough time picking up the brogue, and you might not be able to drink as much beer as a native, but you really could develop a passionate love for the country and the style—maybe even more than a native...
...And her parents wouldn't come to the wedding, even though it was performed by a rabbi, and that hurt her very much...
...It was important to me that the children be able to identify with a religion...
...I was hoping that my husband, who went, wouldn't say anything about me, because I didn't want to be revealed...
...You see, there's a big mystery among non-Jews regarding what Judaism really is...
...What about the parents of the non-Jew...
...That was not the reason for their divorce, although it probably didn't help, either...
...And I happened to fall in love with someone who is Jewish, and I thought it was important that we be the same...
...And I felt like crawling under the rug...
...But the reward is this extraordinary sense of community with other Jews which, on the evidence here tonight, is not all that available to people who have converted to Judaism, who are still : caused to feel left out in the cold...
...I've become my own role model...
...Maybe we make more out of it I than it really is...
...Lynne: But that's not confined to people who have converted...
...Susan wanted to raise our children as Jews, and since I wasn't a practicing Catholic, and didn't want to put my children through what I experienced as a Catholic, that seemed very reasonable to me...
...She came from a small town in Maine that didn't even have its own rabbi...
...And to choose to do it out of conviction alone, perhaps you do need to be a little mad...
...Anne: I converted four years ago, just after Frank and I were married...
...So I've gone from a non-practicing Catholic to a non-practicing Jew, with every intention, once the children are old enough, of becoming involved...
...Almost all of our friends are Jewish, and it's been that way ever since we started dating...
...I spent a lot of time talking to one of the priests, trying to resolve the things I didn't believe...
...He was never so happy with anyone that he'd ever met...
...Buy maybe someday I'll get into it more actively...
...we don't have children yet...
...But there's no way of formally converting to Jewish ethnicity...
...Lynne: Yes, but I'd say she's more of an ethnic Jew...
...The fact is that I learned more in the conversion class—we took it together—than I learned in all my lifetime before that...
...Judaism asks questions...
...And I wanted to be absolutely sure that any differences we had weren't going to cause conflict in the family...
...And one thing that Judaism does not do is to supply the answers...
...My father converted to Catholicism before he married my mother...
...And I find that the more things you celebrate, the more you can get into being Jewish...
...By then, we were all close enough so that they valued me because I had such a different perspective...
...My husband was divorced, and he had married someone who was Catholic...
...The only people left in my family now are my sister and my brother, and we realized when it became Christmas time—that's when the family has traditionally gotten together from all over the country—that we hadn't told anybody I'd converted...
...She wasn't a practicing Jew at all...
...My father was a teacher at a Congregational school, and he studied Christian Science for a while...
...She was very pleased...
...There were three things that made it possible for me to convert...
...The one that stands out in my mind is a situation where he is a Catholic and she is a Jew, and neither has accepted the other's religion in any way...
...My father did convert to Catholicism...
...I didn't want to convert because of pressure, just for the sake of converting so that my future in-laws could say their daughter had married a Jew and everything was just fine...
...If there is going to be an appeal and attraction to Judaism based on reason, one is going to have to seek it out...
...By that I mean a very high standard of morality, a sense of justice and compassion, a concern for social problems...
...The most he would promise was not to discourage me...
...Bob: Lynne and I have been married for about five years...
...It was a very personal thing...
...I don't trust them...
...Now, of course, they're surprised and pleased...
...We certainly have gone all over the lot, and I'm surprised and pleased at the wide range of opinions you've offered...
...They may like their son or daughter-in-law, think they're lovely people, but the children will be raised as nothing, and a generation later, from nothing they will become Christians and from Christians become anti-Semites...
...Susan: I'd like to go back for a minute to the question of reaching out to the unchurched...
...The first time around, my mother-in-law was almost ready to commit suicide, so she'd been through that, and the second time, she decided that if he'd found someone who was right, she wasn't going to get hung up about it...
...And you can't believe it until you've heard it from people in the 25 to 35 age group...
...Every new step the kids take is a new motivation for us...
...Susan: My mother may have been a bit unusual...
...It's really a complete educational process, and my wife is involved, too, because her learning as a child involved being dragged to school until she was twelve...
...It was really my gift to my mother-in-law...
...My father will never really understand...
...And my husband is a secular Jew, with no interest or involvement or affiliation or connection with any synagogue or Jewish organization...
...I still don't know, and I am convinced that I won't know until I become more active...
...My husband is a cantor now— which is something he wasn't even planning when we married...
...As we walked in the door, she said, "My daddy converted...
...Bob: I encountered some of that...
...And that's the key thing, the thing that everybody's worried about...
...I've had friends, who don't know that I converted, say things like "I could never have a friend who wasn't Jewish...
...I can't do what my mother-in-law does so easily, with things in the home or the celebration of holidays...
...until ten years later...
...I met my wife while in college, and we dated for five years before we decided to get married...
...Peggy: Did your mother celebrate the holidays...
...Michael: I'm using my children's education as a way of educating myself...
...There was something that happened when I converted that I found intriguing...
...I think the rabbi should be prepared to teach the prospective convert everything he can, and if the person wants to convert, he should be accepted— and if he doesn't want to convert, then at least he has come away with an understanding and an acceptance of Judaism, and with respect for it...
...David: It would probably be a lot easier to convert to Protestantism...
...And I also know that for couples who have been rejected, who aren't able to have a religious ceremony, it's a real hassle—not so much for the potential convert, but for the Jew, who feels as if he's been rejected by his own community...
...1 don't know what I'm doing...
...Both men, the rabbi and the minister, were as warm and understanding as people can be...
...We keep kosher, and every time I eat a meal or cook something I'm aware that I'm very Jewish—and very different...
...I keep thinking I ought to have a thicker skin to deal with the remarks that Jews make about me...
...Betty: I would think that would be a very difficult thing to do, to just say, "I don't care very much for my religion, and Judaism looks good...
...eastern Europe...
...And then, of course, there's the complexity that is involved in a conversion that is specifically religious, when it is obvious that many born Jews are not believing Jews...
...I had been a non-practicing Episcopalian...
...it was a very unattractive place, and the people were not particularly nice, and I invited no one to the ceremony...
...She was feeling some guilt, but she also knew how strong my feelings were...
...Are you crazy...
...When he comes to temple with us, he says, "What a nice church you have here...
...It was the small matter of a ritual circumcision...
...So I must have done something right...
...And we realized that we had better start doing something, because kids like the routine and pick it up very early—some things that happen each year, some things that happen each week...
...I converted six years ago...
...it takes a long time to become Jewish...
...There was nothing involved in the conversion that went against anything I believed in...
...And that's really frustrating to me...
...My husband had been a junior cantor there, and certainly wasn't unknown...
...When it became inevitable that we were going to get married, they were not really upset...
...I wanted my children to be brought up in some religion, but I knew that I had no specific religion to offer...
...Way back, my grandfather was a Mormon minister, an elder of the church, and my mother couldn't stand that...
...It would help to be able to talk to people who had similar experiences, to find out how they [ dealt with them...
...I have some feelings about Christmas, but they are not religious feelings—they have to do with the closeness people feel around that time, or remembering the happiness of the season when I was growing up...
...Although I feel a part of it, I am different...
...And it's interesting to see the way different couples handle the situation...
...I decided that if the children were going to be Jewish, it would be important for me to convert...
...M: Then there's the reverse problem...
...M: How very profound some of these feelings are...
...the blessed virgin statue will fall right off the wall...
...I don't think I was blocking it out, I just didn't see it as something that involved them...
...Betty: I found that a problem in the beginning, too...
...In my senior year in high school...
...And they were adamant...
...And there was no further discussion, no discomfort...
...And the second reason is that it was important to Frank, although he in no way demanded or even asked me to convert...
...I know how distressing it is that so many Jewish young people are being attracted to cult-type organizations, and I think one of the reasons for it is that there, they find answers...
...Susan: The rabbi who married us didn't really want to...
...Bob: I wonder how many of those I problems are our own hang-ups...
...Oh...
...I needed to be sure that I had no hidden hangups about Judaism, so that I wouldn't find the kids coming home from Hebrew school with something they'd been taught that would cause me to bite my tongue...
...And then I knew that I truly wanted to convert, because I had no religion and because I saw a lot of things in Judaism that I could identify with and that made sense...
...But we were lucky, and we did find a rabbi...
...it had been ten years since I'd seen any of the people there, and it had been a very anti-Semitic community, actually restricted until the late 1950's...
...Two days before we were to be married, he called us in, together with another fifteen couples at whose weddings he was going to officiate—a really personal encounter—and we went around the room finding out the Hebrew names of everybody's parents, and when it was my turn he looked at me and said, "Oh yes, I'll talk to you later...
...I feel very much a part of Lynne's family, and I love and accept the Jewish religion...
...And for all of the people I know who have converted, the driving force was marriage and the family situation...
...I wouldn't have done it under those circumstances...
...David: The thing I have so much difficulty with is why people are discouraged from converting.Tt's almost as if it were a test of your stamina, to see whether you're strong enough to become Jewish...
...Peggy: I was brought up as a Catholic with a parochial school education...
...Do you see them...
...I never asked my parents what they thought of the whole thing...
...About six months later, I started taking classes, and I enjoyed them very much, and decided to go through with the conversion...
...it reminds me of my childhood...
...When somebody just says to you, "Now you're Jewish," you don't feel any different...
...Over the ten years, through association with my wife's family, and with the children going to Sunday school, I realized that I was quite comfortable with Judaism, and that I had really never made any effort, and that it was time for me to resolve what I wanted to do...
...Michael: My parents were a mixed marriage, he from a nondescript, non-religious northern Irish family, j she from a devout southern Irish Catholic family...
...The person who converts strictly out of principle is going to be all alone...
...We had already decided that I'd convert, but we had to wait for the classes to start, and in the meantime, we were married in a civil ceremony...
...Bob: When I told the rabbi who was going to marry us that I didn't know whether or not I was Jewish, he almost went through the roof...
...M: That's a very common response...
...I think it's a deeply ingrained fear that many people have...
...Michael: I don't think the non-Jewish spouse would resent it...
...And then, at one meeting, someone said, "Well, we probably all have similar backgrounds...
...we spend Christmas with my folks...
...there's at least a fifty-fifty chance that the children of a mixed marriage will be raised as Jews, and he performed intermarriages in order to improve the odds...
...It was the only smart thing I'd ever done, he thought, marrying this wonderful, wonderful woman...
...M: How do you feel at Christmas time...
...That, I resent...
...But I don't really feel like I'm a Jew...
...M: What about the marriage ceremony itself...
...And it's strange, because my husband's family wouldn't have minded if I hadn't converted...
...M: I know of a situation where a converted daughter-in-law will not eat in her in-laws' home because they're not kosher enough...
...But I continued until I went to college, when I stopped going to church and more or less gave up the Catholic faith...
...Her parents weren't pressing...
...David: I was brought up as a Catholic, and I went to parochial schools—the whole route, including mass, altar boy, and so forth...
...It had taken me a long time to get out of one religion, and I thought it was only right that I give a great deal of consideration to the prospect of getting into another one...
...We're not doing it because of the kids...
...I've drifted out of contact with my older friends...
...I have no idea where his total and complete acceptance of her came from...
...Here you have to find a whole new identity...
...But after a year and a half or so, when it became evident that we weren't going to forget about the whole thing, Lynne's parents began to accept the idea...
...He still has difficulty acknowledging what I did...
...And you have a tough time getting them to temple in between...
...But I assumed that everyone felt the way I did after conversion...
...Michael: My wife made the observation that she really envied Catholics that she knew because it was really very hard line, yes or no, black or white...
...There are so many hurdles, it really seems like an initiation...
...We're the ones who have added things...
...I'm Jewish by birth, and I have the same problem—which may be why Bob doesn't really feel Jewish...
...First, I felt very much at home with the values I identified with Jews...
...And in some cases, it reflects the views of assimilated Jews, who can't imagine why anyone would choose to take seriously something they themselves have chosen to neglect...
...and she sort of shows me off—"Oh, my daughter-in-law does this and she does that, and she reads Hebrew"—she thinks it's great...
...But everyone there knew what my husband's job is, and knew that I was Jewish...
...I think there are people who sincerely believe that Judaism is something you have to be born into, and that you can't convert to...
...Most of the people around us are born Jews, and we are different...
...You did it and it was good, or you did it and it was bad, and you knew it, and on Saturday you could go and get forgiven, and on Monday you could go out and do it again...
...For example, everybody's concerned about the Jewish parents whose child is to be married to a non-Jew...
...they bent over backwards to help us find some direction...
...The rabbi I spoke with was the rabbi in the town where I grew up, and we got to him through the minister of my church...
...It's test enough dealing with the family problems that you've got, let alone the organized hassle...
...Michael: My father was against my sister's marriage, even though she was marrying a good Catholic boy who has provided well for the family...
...He had said to me, "Anything you want to do is fine...
...But he is pleased that I'll be well taken care of, even if he doesn't understand the whole thing...
...My father was not religious...
...And it's a very positive feeling...
...We just keep adopting more and more traditions, and the more we adopt, the more comfortable I am...
...I'm kind of reluctant to get deeply involved...
...The Jews are a very private society, and one of the hardest things is to break through and find out what is really so different and unique...
...And everybody said...
...nothing but drinking...
...He couldn't believe that anyone who had converted could make such a statement...
...So I spoke to the rabbi, and we could find no one...
...But I'm sure that for many, if not most, of the couples who sign such papers, it's just a way of getting the in-laws off their backs...
...As to involvement with the Jewish community, I'm deeply involved—whether I want to be or not...
...I really stopped practicing when I was 17 and realized that I couldn't believe in the trinity...
...Actually, I grew up in a more Jewish community than Susan, and probably knew more about Judaism than she did...
...David: My in-laws weren't religious at all, and I had the hardest time understanding...
...And I think it would be helpful not only to the potential convert, but also to the Jews who are involved...
...But we haven't really talked about it...
...He went so far as to send my intended, when we were over in Germany while I was in the service, a letter marked personal, confidential, and just scared the living daylights out of her about what a nut I was and not really a grown-up and not yet ready to take on the responsibilities of marriage...
...But somebody ought to stop and ask about them...
...What's important is that you love him...
...Why don't we just go around the room and find out...
...Peggy: That's the way I felt about the mikvah...
...I don't want to be tested...
...Some of you converted before the ceremony, some after...
...We take part in the holidays with both sets of parents, and even Lynne's mother joins us at my parents' for Christmas...
...It's hard to get used to...
...In my case, of course, there was no problem, since I had already gone through a process of evaluation, and I was willing to make the commitment...
...It just never entered my mind...
...She married to get away from home and away from Mor-monism, and she did her best to raise us as nothing, to teach us to be accepting of everybody...
...So, you see, it can be the same for born Jews as for converts...
...We never even spoke about it...
...We belonged to a temple, but we never celebrated anything...
...How do you feel with them, or they with you...
...But my husband wasn't very helpful, because he had no commitments of his own that mattered...
...We want to accept them, and their religion, but they don't want anything to do with us...
...That was my first real exposure to Jewish identity...
...But I remember the rabbi telling me that he was not going to encourage me...
...And I think that's baloney...
...And even though I'm not very religious, I do feel very Jewish...
...That total acceptance has certainly made my life easier to live...
...he was the only person in the family who sent us cards on every Jewish holiday until the day he died...
...I converted four years ago, after we were married...
...I did look around avidly for a urologist to perform a ritual circumcision...
...And so I converted...
...They'd think that my in-laws hadn't done their job properly, if their daughter didn't marry a Jew...
...This is the first time since I've converted that I've been with a number of people who have converted, and we often have special problems...
...So, depending on what neighborhood we were in, that's where we went to church...
...they don't all live in expensive houses...
...My daughter solved the problem for us...
...Now she sees us doing it, and relating to it, in a friendly and open way...
...we can't understand that anyone would willingly expose himself to the risks that go with being Jewish...
...A DISCUSSION WITH CONVERTS moment: Why don't we start with each of you briefly telling why you converted to Judaism, and perhaps also something about the nature of your current relationship to the Jewish community...
...No food...
...If something ; were set up where converts could meet and talk together about their feelings, particularly about not feeling really accepted, it would help them feel more at home...
...That made it much more comfortable for my wife...
...So I wanted to convert, but I didn't get around to it before our marriage...

Vol. 4 • March 1979 • No. 4


 
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