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A black Orthodox Jew and hip-hop artist creates rhymes from the

My first encounter with anything Jewish was at age seven. I saw a TV commercial that said “Happy from your friends at Channel 2,” and I said, “Mommy, I want to be Jewish.” I drew six-pointed stars on everything in the house. And that was that. It was instinctive. The next day, my mother talked to a woman she worked with—I can’t imagine what their conversation actually entailed—but the woman invited us to attend my first Seder. I lived in a good working-class east Baltimore neighborhood surrounded by two “bad” neighborhoods, which were segregated, but I found . There was a Brazilian Jewish girl who lived a couple of blocks away and the kid in second grade who I gave my lunch money to so i Q cc O he’d teach me Hebrew.

< X Initially, my mother thought I would grow out of it. She would say things like, o >- LU “Jewish boys eat their vegetables” and CC ZD O “Jewish boys clean their rooms.” As I got <_>

32 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2009 older, she saw it wasn’t going away. At age for 11 months; everywhere I heard Philly, the crown prince of Swaziland 14,1 happened to be cutting across Johns “schwartze.” Once at the , kids and a bunch of Ethiopian Jews. Racism Hopkins University’s campus and saw a made jokes about me to the point that didn’t disappear. After a student used billboard promoting a Jewish student- I had to leave. No one can tell me that the n-word, one yeshiva pointed sponsored lecture and I went. Recognizing schwartze isn’t the equivalent of the to the offender and said, “That young me from the neighborhood, someone n-word. Racism happened more in the man is a baby and an idiot and he’s the asked, “What are you doing Friday night?” modern orthodox community than in reason the messiah’s not here.” Racism That’s how I started going to shul. the Hasidic world—that was one of the wasn’t tolerated. As soon as I discovered Shabbat, I reasons why I converted Hasidic. I find In , I also became a rapper. bought a and a yarmulke, which that the degree to which a Jewish person Everything musical was from becoming I began to wear every day. As I started defines himself as a white American is Jewish. At the yeshiva, my first study to do more, conflict began. My mother the degree to which he’ll identify with partner, , a white Jewish MC started saying things like, “Give it up from Long Island, and I would now; they’ll never accept you in the freestyle as a way to learn Talmud Jewish community.” She’s Catholic, I saw a TV better. In 2001, when I returned to the although we never went to church, so it U.S., David and I happened to be in wasn’t concern about religion but about commercial that Manhattan at the Orange Bear, and we social issues and racism. said “Happy took the open mike for two hours. Our At the same time, being a teenager, only rhymes were the stuff we made up I was into the punk rock scene. I was Passover from during yeshiva; they were in Aramaic wearing flannel shirts with safety pins about and Talmud. Nobody and boots with spikes when attending your friends at understood us, but they loved it. The shul. I didn’t really have any problems. Channel 2,” and club owner asked us to play every People were curious as to why I was Thursday night. That’s how my hip- there, but nice and accommodating. I I said, “Mommy, hop career started. used to lie to my mother and tell her Now when I rhyme, it’s more about I was going to a club on Friday nights I want to be Jewish content and ethics. I did two because it was better if she thought I was Jewish.” I drew videos for Obama and being pro-Obama going to a rave than shul. was a rarity in the Orthodox world. I’m I went to the rabbi at Johns Hopkins six-pointed stars kind of the voice of opposition. Some University to ask about conversion; he people don’t like that I’m a rapper; some said I had to be 18.1 continued learning on everything in people don’t mind that I’m a rapper but through high school, but started falling can’t stand that I’m so left-wing. They off in observance during two years in the house. And can’t stand that I have such progressive college, hitting spiritual rock bottom. that was that. It views, that I’m out there making music It was 1999, I was 21, and I said to with a Palestinian MC, that I’m out there myself, “You call yourself Jewish, why was instinctive. trying to build bridges where no one else don’t you see what the Torah has to say?” will, talking about social justice. I searched the Internet; at the bottom One woman on a Chabad website of every page I learned from, I’d see, asked why do I subject children to such “Copyright Brooklyn, New York.” So I types of music, and I replied, “Why don’t moved there and found a rabbi who was you have mercy on the people you would kind of impressed when we first met. He white American racism. The Hasidic deprive of hearing such positive music?” asked me if I read Hebrew, and I said, “Well experience is still tied to Europe and life We encounter a lot of opposition on a enough to pray from a siddur, but we don’t before . whole bunch of fronts. Even my rabbi have time to talk now because it’s time for Six weeks after getting out of the told me to stop focusing so much on mincha.” And then he goes, “Whoa, OK!” mikvah, I went to Israel in 2000 for racism and trying to mobilize Jews of Thirteen months later, I converted. more study at Ohr Somayach, a yeshiva color, but he’s really on the same page as In New York, problems with racism exclusively for converts. I wasn’t the I am; he just tells me to focus more on started. No one rented me an apartment only black; there was a black guy from human trafficking.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2009 / MOMENT 33 My final break with Mormonism came During that same period, I had been in my early 20s when I decided to make my researching my birth parents, hoping that KAREN home in Salt Lake City, a liberal island with they might have been Jewish but found NIELSEN-ANSON a thriving gay community in a Republican that they came from hand-cart Mormon state. My Mormon bishop asked that I pioneers. I discovered that my birth name report incidents of my lesbian roommate’s was Debra. So in a way, I returned to my inappropriate behavior. That was the last name. Later, we named our daughter he saw of me. I left the church. Devora in Hebrew and Deborah in English. I grew up in the San Francisco Bay area People mistakenly call me Debra, and I say, and my dearest friends were Jews. My first “No mistake, that’s my Hebrew name.” love was Jewish. I also noticed that my When we married in 1998, my adopted Jewish friends seemed more well-rounded mother was too sick to attend. She had and happier than my Mormon friends. loved David. When I told her that I was From high school through college, I acted converting to , I thought she three times in Fiddler on the Roof. The would say, “What about your savior?” experience of being Fruma probably Instead, she said, “At least you’re going lit the fire. But I didn’t know for years that to be religious.” The most tension comes I wanted to convert. That happened when, from my deeply observant Mormon at age 33,1 met David, probably the only relatives. I get the feeling that they’re single Jewish male in Salt Lake City. still praying that I will eventually come I had just been floating, acting profes­ back to the fold. But they attended our sionally in Salt Lake City for 10 years wedding and uffruf. A “MoJew” who co­ along with taking other jobs. Then I got Mormons put in an incredible number leads services at her a master’s in social work at the University of hours doing volunteer work. That’s of Utah and found David working at the in me. I look at the insane amount of and feels at same mental health agency where I was volunteering that I do in the synagogue; home with Mormons employed. We hit it off. It was like “Wow, people think I’m crazy. For example, I am I really love Jewish men. Are you really co-leading services tonight, co-leading Jewish? Where have you been hiding?” services tomorrow night, and We were dating seriously when, playing Sarah in this open tent greeting When I was young, I was at home in unbeknownst to David, I called the rabbi. I for our Sunday religious school. the Mormon Church, but as I grew older left a message. I called a second time, then I get around a group of Mormons, I became less comfortable. The lack of a third and he finally called. It was like the and I feel at home. It’s not only the egalitarianism (women aren’t allowed in : You’re turned away three times. volunteering, there’s also the work the priesthood) was distasteful. You were At his Introduction to Judaism class, I ethic and “Jello.” Mormons believe that also more or less told from age three to was like a starving person who couldn’t they are cousins to Jews, that they are have faith and to not ask questions. get enough to eat. One of my biggest descended from the tribe of Ephraim, A quintessential moment occurred loves about Judaism is that everything is one of Joseph’s brothers. Mormons also during my farewell talk to a community up for debate. I sift through everything pay 10 percent in tithing to the church, of missionaries when I was departing that comes before me so I can decide which derives from the Jewish tradition. for a private Mormon college. I can’t what makes sense to my mind, my heart, Mormons as a whole have a strange remember the topic, but I remember my soul, my body and not feel that I’m love affair with Jews. My neighbor was saying that I couldn’t say that I knew the abdicating any part of myself. bom a Jew but raised Mormon, then left z 0 true church. You could have heard a pin David attended class with me because the church. We call ourselves “Mojews.” CO z drop. However, I added that I was certain he had stopped his after In a way, the more deeply Jewish I 1CO UJ that if Christ were alive, I’d probably want bar mitzvah. When class ended in 1996, become, the more I realize that a part z z : cn to hang out with him. This did not go over I had my “new age” conversion in the of me is always going to be Mormon. u_2 O well with the family who had adopted me, mikvah with four friends; we blessed the It’s like looking at a beautiful fabric and UJ particularly my mother, a dyed-in-the- four ends of the earth. seeing that that yellow strand is always oc =3 o wool Mormon. And I got my Hebrew name, Debra. going to be next to the blue.

3 4 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2009 consistently told me that if I could find Rob was casual in his Jewish identity. a way to make my tradition work for me, I was the one who knew prayers and was JULIE spiritually and intellectually, I should more interested in practicing Judaism as GALAMBUSH stay within it. a religion in addition to my Christianity. I was a liberal Baptist. Some people That dual identity became increasingly consider that an oxymoron, but then uncomfortable. Rob had two daughters they realize that Martin Luther King, with his first wife, a secular Jew. It was Jr. was one. The strong liberal Baptist at our house that my stepdaughters ex­ tradition is Bible-based, but social jus­ perienced Jewish religious practice such tice oriented. Baptists focus tradition­ as lighting Shabbat candles. Modeling a ally on interpreting the scriptures for sense of Jewish identity for them soon themselves, so when I did not necessar­ came to feel like play-acting. It became ily fully accept concepts like the Trinity, inauthentic for me to straddle both tra­ I was still within the Christian spectrum ditions as a stepmother. So at that point, and could bring full commitment to my I realized that I had a calling to join my ordination and ministry. family and become a Jew. After receiving a masters in divinity I was also pregnant and decided to at Yale, I served for three years as an as­ complete my conversion before the sociate pastor—the first female pastor baby’s birth so he would be born a Jew. in the Granville, Ohio, church. I left be­ In May 1994, at age 38, I went to the cause I decided that my calling was for mikvah, and in June the baby was born. teaching rather than preaching. I loved My mother was sad initially because A Baptist minister leading prayer and counseling, but the she thought she had lost me. The pillar who always nurtured emotional burden of preaching with the of her church, she wasn’t worried about expectation that my words should be my going to hell. My siblings range the Jewish side profoundly moving just did me in. from Pentecostal to agnostic Christian, of her Christian identity Looking back, my next decision to and their attitudes range from accep­ do a Ph.D. at Emory University in tance to affirming. It turns out that of Old Testament studies was as close her five children, I am the one who al­ as I could then come to converting. I ways goes to celebrate Christmas with Even as a young child, I was a little had continued to go home to my col­ her. She has come to see our religious frustrated that the church wasn’t Jewish lege roommate’s family for Passover lives as something we share rather than any more. Even if I believed that Jesus and was also going to Hillel services at something that separates us. was resurrected, I didn’t see how that Emory for the High Holy Days. I was And it’s been a joy. The unexpected meant starting a different religion. I was just nurturing the Jewish side of my plus: The life-changing aspect is that a bit baffled by the break between the Christian identity. after conversion I have spent much two traditions. I went to teach at the Lutheran St. time explaining Christianity to Jews and As a Yale undergraduate, I was on the Olaf’s College and was also a chapel Judaism to Christians. After giving one council of the university chapel and an preacher in 1989. Rob re-entered my of my seminars, a Maryland synagogue occasional Shabbas goy for Hillel. Most of life the following year. Our summer group urged me to write a book that my close friends were either not religious romance 10 years previously had ended became The Reluctant Parting to introduce or Jewish. And by my sophomore year, I because he was born Jewish and I was the New Testament to Jewish readers. began a personal tradition of visiting my getting ready for seminary. We started I have been overwhelmed with the Jewish roommate’s home for Passover. dating in 1990 but didn’t marry until affirmation and acceptance from the o My view of Judaism was grounded 1993 when I became a professor at W il­ Jewish community, although I have -X)c liam and Mary in Williamsburg, Vir­ had few encounters with the Orthodox C/5 in wanting to be like Jesus and doing O what the Bible prescribed. Back then I ginia, and he took a job in Washington, community. It may be that when people wouldn’t have known how to convert. DC. I then made the liberal Christian learn that I was a minister, there’s more commitment to keep a Jewish house­ respect because they see that I made a > All my religious structures were Chris­

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2009 / MOMENT 35 or marry a Jew, it had never occurred to governments to meet at the crossroads of me to convert on my own. tolerance and understanding. TINAMARIE For more than a year I studied with My second husband, an Israeli, and I BERNARD two , immersed myself in the Jewish each had been married for nine years to community, attended synagogue, joined a non-Jews before we met three years ago. single parents’ havurah, and experienced My father-in-law is a Holocaust survi­ Jewish life cycle events. I called myself a vor, and my beloved and I now have a goy-between. I needed a playful sense of young daughter, so imagine this: In two irreverence to keep me grounded in find­ generations, two families inextricably ing myself between my adopted Jewish linked by horror are now linked by mar­ culture and mottled German heritage. riage, love and a baby. Each day I affirm The more I experienced, the more I be­ my connections to Judaism. Our family came poignantly aware that I have always made in August. It certainly feels felt different in my attitudes, perspectives like coming full circle, like finding the and beliefs in a Jewish sort of way. For home I never knew I’d left. example, as a very small child I remem­ ber questioning certain beliefs inherent to Christianity: The notion of original TORANG sin seemed absurd, as did the need for some intermediary to absolve me from SHATZMILLER my wrongdoings. SEPAH Even today, when someone asks, The great- “Why did you convert?” it is difficult to granddaughter of a answer. Jews tend to want to know why I would consciously join the unlucky club, high-ranking Nazi officer, and Christians are often perplexed that she recently made aliyah I gave up Jesus. In the United States, it’s easy to feel safe as a minority. Jews have tended to run into troubled times more than most At the entrance to , you groups, yet survival seems inherent in can’t miss the grainy black and white the Jewish people’s constitution. But I photo of thousands of people standing in didn’t choose to become Jewish to prove a square facing the Fuhrer, surrounded by my survival instincts or to assuage my swastikas and hundreds of military men. guilt. I converted because Judaism just

§ The first time I saw the photo, I could fit, as if I had a Jewish neshemah all along o 2 2 not stop wet, slow, fat tears from gather­ that just needed a chance to take off. UJ Cd CO ing in embarrassment on my chin. Why? >- Sometimes I wonder if one reason can 0 X

E there. I wonder what Karl would think if their waning years, we must carry their who converted after

36 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2009 we discussed the differences in our back­ and identity: I wanted to be a part of it grounds, I felt it would be important to wholeheartedly. provide our future children with a cohe­ When Hurricane Katrina came a year HANK sive identity. Even if our families were later in 2005,1 was about six months preg­ ENG not very focused on this issue, the rest of nant and in the midst of the conversion the world would be. process. We evacuated to Houston for a My parents are secular. I speak Farsi, year with most of the people in our syna­ learned much about Persian culture and gogue and immediately formed a commu­ visited Iran twice after the revolution nity that provided amazing support during when I was 10 and 11 to see relatives. the calamity. I completed my conversion My observant grandmother follows all a week before my son was bom. It was a four pillars of Islam, but I never fasted private, emotional and meaningful event, for Ramadan or went to a mosque. My instead of what I had imagined: a big thing understanding of Islam was also never in front of many people at the temple. congruent with my political beliefs. I Interestingly, we’re more religious believe in gay rights and don’t think any than anyone in my husband’s family in branch of Islam accepts that. I’m also an Israel. His family has always been very ardent feminist. I know there are Mus­ accepting. They never put any pres­ lim feminists, but I couldn’t marry the sure on me to convert. But they were two in my mind. very happy about my conversion be­ I had many Jewish friends as an un­ cause raising our children as Jewish was dergraduate at UCLA and in New York important. His family is small since so while working for three years for Ms. many were killed in the Holocaust. A Chinese American Magazine. I went to Israel then with a My family’s concern was that we engineer who ran for friend to visit her parents. I felt cultur­ would be so religious that they wouldn’t ally part of the fabric of the country. have a place. When they visit, they par­ Congress and adopted People were open and straightforward, ticipate in Shabbat or other holidays. a Chinese daughter like Iranians; everyone had awful table They want to learn more. My Muslim manners. They were very involved with grandmother only cares that we believe friends and families and not very reli­ in one God. She and my family have al­ gious. It was just like being in Tehran. ways had Jewish friends. I was fortunate As a Chinese American, everyone as­ So I was open to exploring Judaism that they were exposed to Jews in Iran sumes that I am not Jewish. Campaign­ and started classes at New Orleans’ and America. ing for a seat in the U.S. House of Rep­ Touro Synagogue, where I was received Ironically, I’m now a Persian Jew. I resentatives in Colorado’s 6th district in with warmth and acceptance. At first, I took Ron’s last name Shatzmiller as my the last election, I sometimes asked vot­ thought, I’m in medical school and don’t middle name and retained my Iranian ers what congregation they belonged to. have time for this. Then I started looking last name. When we moved to Los An­ Then I would say, “You know, I’m Jew­ forward to classes, and Ron went with geles, the Conservative synagogue we ish, too,” and they would look again and me. He had had a bar mitzvah but didn’t joined warmly welcomed us, but some say, “You are?” And all of a sudden, I’d know much, so it became an experience Iranian Jews didn’t accept me, I guess, be a long-lost friend. that brought us closer and provided us because I wasn’t born Jewish. Typically My immigrant parents had been with a new community. they are Orthodox, and a Reform rabbi peasants in southern China and We had a mixed Persian-Jewish converted me. Initially, their rejection practiced Taoism and ancestor worship wedding, not officiated by a rabbi be­ was hard for me. In time I learned to when I was a child. They believed in cause we didn’t want to rush into con­ let that go and focus on what it means divine intervention and they became o version. Then I became pregnant and to me to be Jewish rather than on other Christian about five years before they o a died. I was never religious, although I 70 everything took on greater meaning. people’s views. I now have more Iranian co I realized that I did want to raise my Jewish friends and think of myself as believed in God. Growing up in New -no X child as Jewish. It was more than just part of the Jewish community. It’s nice York, I also had Jewish friends and > wanting to provide him with structure to marry the two cultures. neighbors. I loved knishes. I knew Jews O

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2009 / MOMENT 37 had their own holidays because of their I had no religion. My parents were absence from public school. casual Protestants. We went to church Judaism entered my life when I met CHRIS when I was a child, and I remember Lindsay, a Jewish woman, in 1988 in VAN ALLSBURG getting some pleasure from ritual. Shanghai, where I was working. We When I was around 12, my family joined literally bumped into each other as we a Unitarian church, a classic white- were rounding a comer. We struck up steepled edifice in Massachusetts. I a conversation. I guess she noticed my think many times when I have gone to New York accent. We started dating religious services, whether Protestant on weekends when she came to Asia on or Jewish, that the physical setting is monthly business trips. often a potent part of the experience. I When I returned to the U.S., I enjoyed going to this beautiful, minimal celebrated my first Seder in Louisville at church and singing hymns. I remember the home of my future sister-in-law and climbing into the bell tower and gazing brother-in-law. From that time on, I began at the New England cemetery and the to understand how a religion could be ocean beyond. I suppose those kinds of passed down “unchanged” from the time of sensual experiences were closer to being to to today. I learned that spiritual than anything that I heard in it doesn’t take a leap of faith to understand my pew. But that was my last sustained and accept Judaism. One isn’t bom again. connection with a church. My religious Being an engineer, I don’t believe in experience stopped at age 13. miracles. Judaism is perhaps the first and So converting to Judaism didn’t mean only religion that is between you and God. A popular children’s turning my back on something. But I So nothing conflicted with my beliefs. didn’t take lighdy committing myself to When Lindsay and I lived in Beijing, book writer and study and actually joining a faith. I didn’t we found a Jewish community and illustrator, he sculpts think my motivation was righteous. I loved attended community-led services, and I this woman; I wanted to marry her. I didn’t learned about rituals and holidays. I was want to break her father’s heart. When comfortable participating. When we I shared my ambivalence with a Reform lived in Appleton, Wisconsin, we were rabbi, he said, “I understand.” I think he members of a Conservative synagogue in Converting to Judaism wasn’t a matter thought that even though I lacked proper Green Bay, but again, there was no push of seeking a spiritual path but rather of motivations, I had an earnest curiosity. It for me to convert. Everyone assumed that falling in love with a Jewish girl. I met Lisa was not an arduous conversion. I learned I wasn’t Jewish, but everyone was always at the University of Michigan when we a bit of Hebrew and did quite a bit of friendly. I could not be called up to say an were undergraduates. Religion was never reading, mostly Jewish literature rather aliyah since saying the prayers would not an issue between us, and I only learned of than texts about Jewish belief, and learned have the same force unless I was Jewish. her parents’ concerns when our relation­ about holidays and rituals. Fortunately, I What propelled me to formally convert ship became serious. In 1973 her father was already circumcised. to Judaism was our daughter. I had agreed said that it would break his heart if she The conversion process gave me more to raise Kendall as Jewish when we adopted married someone who is not Jewish. To insight into Judaism. I had attended my her in China. I wanted to complete my his credit, he was open-minded enough Jewish friends’ Reform confirmations conversion before her bat mitzvah in 2007, to say, “Well, if this man you love is will­ when living in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and I did. Kendall was in third grade among ing to learn about Judaism and embrace as an adolescent and later went to Jewish

CD blonde and blue-eyed children when we cn the culture insofar as he can, I can accept weddings. I didn’t know how much of what ZD GO co lived in Appleton. One day she came home that,” but he wanted his future grandchil­ I experienced had to do with religion, but < z : from school, almost in tears, and said to her dren to be Jewish. Although I think he early on I was attracted to : £ cn Cd mother, “I’m different from all the other t : believed that our marriage would never the emphasis on family and education. o O kids.” Lindsay asked, “Oh my God, what be destroyed by cultural differences, he When I saw families coming to shul, I CO LlJ did they say?” She replied, “I’m the only Cd thought Lisa would be happier married realized the power, not simply of faith, but oZ3 CJ> Jewish kid in the class.” to a man who knew about her religion. of a culture that binds families.

38 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2009 I had, however, rejected the idea of a Both sides of my family are hidden centuries of lack of knowledge, we deity when I was an adolescent. But that Jews. My father and mother, born in hidden Jews need to go through a doesn’t mean that I don’t appreciate the El Paso, Texas, were first cousins; their formal process. We need to learn value of others’ beliefs and the value they mothers were sisters. Their parents what Judaism means. But I see it as a have in a society. When our children were were small merchants in northern “reversion” rather than a conversion. in Sunday school, they would come home Mexico who escaped the revolution at Ralph and I were encouraged to with questions about supernatural issues. I the turn of the century by moving to explore by Rabbi Stephen Leon, tried to remain neutral and give them the Texas. a world-renowned authority on opportunity to figure it out for themselves. We’re descendants of Jews who Sephardic heritage and “crypto-Jews” Most of my writings are based on came from Spain and Portugal to the in the Southwest. We approached childhood memories that predated my New World in the 1500s. They came Rabbi Larry Bach, the Reform rabbi exposure to Judaism, but some are based with Luis Carabajal, a hidden Jew, at El Paso’s Temple Mount Sinai, in on Jewish themes. Although I began my who was able to establish a colony in June 2000, converted in March 2001, career as a sculptor, all I do now is design Nuevo Leon, far from the center of the and I had a bar mitzvah three years mezuzahs. inquisition in Mexico City but not far later at age 53 at Temple B’nai Zion, a I’m the only person in my congregation enough. The inquisition had Carabajal conservative synagogue. My first wife named Chris, but all my life I have worn a burned at the stake for Judaicizing; initially encouraged me, and my five beard, and I can look like the most Jewish the same fate befell Lucas Garcia, my adult children respected my decision. guy in a Jewish group. My selection paternal grandfather’s direct ancestor, My mother has a better son as of yarmulkes is much nicer than most in 1596. a Jew than as a Catholic. She was because my wife is always buying them. In my childhood, we were Catholics apprehensive at first because she to the umpteenth. I went to Jesuit didn’t know what conversion meant, high school in El Paso, but I knew I even though my brother David had was of Sephardic heritage. However, become Jewish through marriage. So JOHN I didn’t know what that meant. I was three of her seven children are now GARCIA around nine when my aunt told me Jewish. My mother looks at us, and and in my teens when the 1967 Israeli she’s happy because I honor her more War pushed my father to inform me. now. I had had some indication from some My second wife, a French Canadian, of my family’s customs; my relatives had converted to Judaism before we met. in Mexico covered mirrors and buried We have a kosher home, observe Shabbat their dead immediately, and males and are now pursuing an Orthodox were circumcised. When my eldest conversion. I have read that some leaders son, who is now 27, was born, I had of the Orthodox community don’t to argue with a doctor about doing a believe that we are Jews. That bothers circumcision because the procedure me a lot. We sometimes go to services wasn’t being performed routinely. at the Chabad House in El Paso. Some I didn’t know anything about ritual people look at us as a curiosity; some are circumcision, but I had to do it for my very welcoming, as is the rabbi. But I’m son. It was a family tradition. not counted in the . Our ancestry didn’t come to light I have come full circle. As a until I was a young adult. My brother Christian, it was easy to say that I could Ralph, a historian, uncovered our family be flawed but it didn’t matter because history, and it made me realize that we Jesus of Nazareth died for my sins and really had no connection to Catholicism I could obtain forgiveness. I am more A Mexican American o because of what Catholicism had done responsible for my conduct as a Jew. I oCZ —1 who sees his turn to to my ancestors. I had been doubting feel much more principled and secure cn O Judaism as a reversion, Catholic teachings for many years but with my Jewish identity. My religion o zX not a conversion couldn’t make a break until I became makes me happy; it connects me with o> o■XS familiar with Judaism. Because of Hashem and I feel more fulfilled. O >

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2009/ MOMENT 39