‘Princess8888888’ is thinking of converting to Judaism But

princess8888888 writes that she is thinking of converting to Judaism. “I have been looking into Jewish conversion for a while and everyone keeps saying Jews will never consider you a Jew – I have never found this to be the case. So there’s something that I really wanted to get off my chest, and that is that I have been looking into Judaism since I was a child. I’m currently 28 years old, female, based in London. I was born into a Muslim family.

“Obviously the Muslims around me are constantly telling me that, Oh, you can convert to Judaism as much as you want. You can be as Orthodox as you want. You can run away from your culture as much as you want, but the Jews are never going to consider you as one of their own. They’re never going to consider you a Jew. You’re always going to be a second-class citizen, even if you make aliyah and you move to Israel, you’ll be a second-class citizen, and all sorts of things, okay?

“And then they’ll go into, like, basically racial stuff, as in, Oh, you’ll always be the ethnicity that you are. You’re never going to be considered a Jew. But the thing is, there are so many Jews of different ethnicities from all over the world. Like, not all Jews are Ashkenazi.

“So there’s obviously this issue from the Muslims, and then when you tell the white people, they also be like, Oh, they will never consider you a Jew anyway. The same things as what they say, that you’ll always be a second-class citizen. But this is completely different from my actual lived experience of visiting shuls and visiting Chabads, because every time I’ve been to a Chabad, nobody’s even asked me, Are you Sephardi? Are you Ashkenazi? Are you Mizrahi? Nobody’s asked me anything like that.

“Whereas at churches I have always been asked “what are you?” Technically I look very ambiguous so it’s hard to place me. I’ve just always felt at home, and nobody’s even ever asked me if I even am Jewish. Like, they just assume that I am Jewish. So I’ve never felt like a second-class citizen. In fact, I felt more second-class citizen among the people I’ve grown up with in London, among my own people from my own community.

“So I’ve always felt like I don’t belong neither here nor there. But with the Jewish people, I felt like I found my home. I felt like I found my people, and that’s a big reason for why I want to convert, is that not only I found a theology that appeals to me, and all the Muslims say that you should stay a Muslim, and the Christians say that, Oh, you should become a Catholic. But the thing is, I don’t believe that Jesus, a human being, was God.

“I don’t understand how a human can be a God. I think he was just a Jewish man who taught the law of Moses. I can never convert to a religion that says that a man was God, and I can’t be a Muslim because I don’t believe that Muhammad was a prophet. So where does that leave me?

“That leaves me with the original, which is Judaism. And Catholicism actually started as apocalyptic Judaism, and then that branched out into different denominations of Christianity, and then came Islam 600 years after Jesus. So I do not understand how or why they keep on telling me to prescribe to ideologies that make absolutely no sense, and then telling me that you’re never going to be accepted as a Jew. But I’ve never had that experience with Jews.

“My friend, who’s also converting, has actually been around Jews much longer than me, and she’s never been made to feel like an outsider either. She’s always said that she’s always felt at home with the Jews and that they’ve always been so lovely and welcoming, and she’s never felt like a second-class citizen around the Jews.

“Continuing from this point, as I said when a person undergoes an Orthodox Jewish conversion, they are 100% Jewish. Any children that you have are halachically Jewish, and the thing about lineage is the fact that they keep on saying that, oh, they’ll never consider you Jewish. I don’t understand. I think these people are just stupid racist people, because lineage in Judaism comes from the father, and being halachically Jewish comes from the mother. If a mother has undergone

“Orthodox conversion, she is completely Jewish, and her child will be as Jewish halachically as a child born to a mother who was Jewish because she was born to a Jewish mother. And every child born after that on the maternal line will be as halachically Jewish as someone who was just born to a Jewish mother.

“So I think people don’t understand how Judaism is a tribal religion, how it’s not just theology and that it is an ethno-religion. It’s a people. It’s not just prescribing to a set list of rules and scriptures. You are joining a people. So when we say Am Yisrael Chai we are celebrating our peoplehood.”

As a Reform (Liberal) Rabbi I offer a response to princess8888888. You have already joined our peoplehood because you said “So when we say Am Yisrael Chai we are celebrating our peoplehood with two ‘we’s. Go to a Conservative or Reform synagogue for a year or two and you will be one of us.

Four decades ago I met a recent Russian immigrant who had started an introduction to Judaism class in Boston. She had to leave the class to move to L.A. with her husband for his new job. She was six months pregnant and wanted to be Jewish before the baby was born, because she was the child of a mixed marriage in the Soviet Union, and she did not want her child to have a similar experience.

She told me that at age18 everyone in the USSR had to get an identity card. Since her father was Jewish, and her mother was Russian, the government official told her she could pick either one for her identity card, but she could not change it once it was issued. She said she wanted her identity card to read: Jewish. The official, and then his boss, spent over a half an hour arguing with her that this was a very bad decision. She insisted and it was done.

When I heard her, I told her that in my eyes she had already become Jewish by that act alone. I was ready to convert her next month. I did. And I was at the circumcision of her son two months later. The family joined my congregation, and were members for several years, until they moved to another part of town.

I would even welcome potential non-Jews who have had a unseemly past. This lesson should be applied by rabbis today whenever they encounter a potential convert, especially a problematic one. An example of a Talmudic sage who followed Hillel’s guideline concerning problematic potential converts is Rabbi Hiya; who decided to convert a well known harlot who wanted to marry one of his students.

This student of Rabbi Hiya had heard about a harlot in a faraway city who charged four hundred gold coins for her services. He sent her the exorbitant fee and set an appointed time to meet her. When, after many days of difficult travel, the lust filled student arrived at the appointed time …the prostitute unclothed herself and sat on a king size bed. The student of Rabbi Hiya joined her on the bed. As he was undressing himself, his talit tzitzit slapped his face. He fell off the bed on to the floor, where he was joined by the woman. “I swear by the Roman Caesar,” the harlot exclaimed, “I will not let you go until you reveal to me what flaw you have found in me!”

“I swear,” the student replied, “that I have never seen a woman as beautiful as you. However, there is a mitzvah commanded by our God, called tzitzit. Concerning this mitzvah it says, ‘Look at them and remember all the Mitsvot’”. (When I saw the tzitzit I knew I should not do this. Keep the money and let me go.)

“I will not let you go,” the prostitute said, “until you provide me with your name, the names of your city, rabbi and the school in which you study Torah.” He wrote down all she asked for; handed it to her, and left. The woman sold all her possessions. A third of the money she gave to the government (to pay her taxes, or so they would allow her to convert to Judaism), a third she handed out to the poor, and the remaining third she took with her – and she proceeded to the school the rabbinical student had named; the Yeshivah of Rabbi Hiya. “Rabbi,” she said to Rabbi Hiya, “I would like to convert to Judaism.”

“Perhaps,” Rabbi Hiya responded, “you desire to convert because you want a Jewish man?” The woman took out the piece of paper with the information and told the rabbi what happened. “Go and claim that which is rightfully yours.” Rabbi Hiya proclaimed. (Talmud Menahot 44a)

Most Rabbis would push away a woman who wanted to convert because she was interested in a Jewish man. But Rabbi Hiya did not push her away. Most Rabbis would push away a woman who had gone astray as a prostitute, but Rabbi Hiya did not push her away. Rabbi Hiya knew that when the two spies that Joshua sent to Jericho were in danger of arrest, a prostitute named Rahav hid them from the police, and then helped them escape.

According to the rabbis (Pesikta Rabbati 40, Seder Eliyahu Zuta 22, 37), Joshua later married Rahav, and among her descendants was the prophet Jeremiah. So Rabbi Hiya welcomed a seemingly reformed harlot for herself, and for her righteous descendants. God Bless You!