Don’t Let Yourself Be Treated Like a Second Class Citizen

A black girl converting to Judaism says some Jews in the community call her “schvartza”. I said that’s not ok. I told her you shouldn’t tolerate that.She said it doesn’t bother me. I think it does bother her. She just doesn’t want to say anything and upset any Jews in the community.

I understand that some converts do everything they can to fit in. But just because you are a convert, doesn’t mean you should let people walk all over you and be totally disrespectful.

I told my friend this story and she said “It’s like when someone falls in love, you can’t talk sense into them.”

As an ex-Muslim Jewish convert with three Muslim kids I get lots of Islamophobia and disrespectful comments. And I get a lot of convert-shaming. Telling a convert they aren’t Jewish is like telling someone with a PhD that they aren’t a doctor. It’s very disrespectful when both those people worked very hard to get to where they are. They earned it. And they are “certified.”

I myself don’t tolerate disrespect. If I am at a Shabbat table, synagogue or communal gathering where people aren’t being kind to me I don’t return.

But I find that some converts tolerate too much. They don’t want to disagree, voice certain opinions of theirs or argue out of fear that the community won’t accept them or will question their Jewishness.

As a convert, I think this is the wrong approach. There’s over 15 million Jews in the world. If some Jews aren’t kind to you, don’t tolerate it and suffer in silence. Find the ones that are kind to you and treat you like an equal. Just because you converted to Judaism, doesn’t mean you should allow yourself to be treated like or be satisfied with being a second class citizen.

As converts, we don’t have to constantly prove our Jewishness, our loyalty to the Jewish community or our love for Judaism. We did that for our conversions. And the Rabbis (who are much wiser than these random Jews) said we passed the test.

So if you are a convert and a Jew or Jewish institution doesn’t value you or treat you with dignity, go elsewhere. Don’t tolerate abuse.