INFORMATION TO USERS

This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer.

The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy subm itted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction.

In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion.

Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand corner and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps.

Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6” x 9" black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order.

ProQuest Information and Leaming 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 USA 800-521-0600 UMI*

SOULS IN TRANSITION: THE PSYCHOSOCIAL PROCESS OF CONVERSION TO JUDAISM

DISSERTATION

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for

The Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate

School of The Ohio State University

By

Diane M. Centolella, B.S.S.W., M.S.W. *****

The Ohio State University 2001

Dissertation Committee:

Dr. Patrick McKenry, Adviser Approved by:

Dr. H. Eugene Folden, Jr.

Dr. Amy Zaharlick Advisor, a /' College of Human Ecology Dr. fCimberlee Whaley UMI Number: 3022458

Copyright 2001 by Centolella, Diane M.

All rights reserved.

UMI

UMI Microform 3022458 Copyright 2001 by Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code.

Bell & Howell Information and Leaming Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Copyright by

Diane Marie Centolella

2001 ABSTRACT

Other research on conversion to Judaism has investigated who converts, why they

do so, and what the outcome of conversion is in terms of religious observance, Jewish

identity, ethnicity, and success in forming Jewish family life. This qualitative project

focused on the “process” of conversion and what that experience is like for the convert.

The goal was to answer three research questions: (I) What is the experience like for people who convert to Judaism? (2) How does conversion to Judaism occur? (3) Is there a pattern of experiences or stages that can be identified that takes place during the conversion process?

Use of in-depth semi-structured interviews helped to give a “voice” to ten people who converted to Judaism. As they told their stories from their own viewpoints, this author tried to better understand their subjective experiences and the meaning they ascribed to these experiences, thus enlightening our understanding of the conversion process.

A six-stage process is proposed and tasks that one must complete at each step are outlined. The steps are (I) Lack of Connection with Childhood Religion; (2)

Questioning of Beliefs; (3) Exploration and “Discovery” of Judaism; (4) Commitment;

(5) Adjustment to Jewish Life; and (6) Jewish Identity. This process is compared with models on how immigrants adjust to a new culture, and models on the “coming out” experiences of gay and lesbian individuals. In addition, the experiences of people who convert primarily for religious reasons are compared with people who convert primarily

for marital and/or family reasons. The latter had a more difficult adjustment.

Theories on developmental stages of adulthood and identity formation are utilized

to help understand and “make sense” of these findings. Age at conversion clustered around two developmental stages. One was the early twenties which coincides with

Erikson’s “Identity v. diffusion” crisis and the “Intimacy v. isolation” crisis. A second cluster was the late thirties, which is the beginning of the mid-life stage. It is suggested that conversion at these times assisted with resolution of developmental tasks for the research participants.

Ill ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A project like this cannot be accomplished without the assistance of others. First,

I would like to thank my dissertation committee, which consisted of Patrick McKenry,

Kim Whaley, Amy Zaharlick, and H. Eugene Folden for their time, their conunents, and their ideas. Also thanks to Barbara Newman for helping me get started.

I would also like to thank the ten people I interviewed for sharing their stories and experiences with me. This project could not have happened without them.

My thanks also to Micki Seltzer for much help with this project. Also thanks to

Herb Mirels, Gary Huber, Nancy Barton, Ernesto Vasquez, and Paul Centolella for their comments and support. Also thanks to Kelly Centolella, David Frye, Martha Vasquez,

Diana Leigh, Barbara Krumsee, Barbara House, Ann Reves, Jane Lesley-Tecklenburg,

Leslie Meyer, my mom and 3 sisters, my class and teachers at the Melton Adult Mini-

School, and my Torah study group. These and many others were supportive by sharing their interest and enthusiasm for this project, by listening to me “kvetch” and encouraging me, and by occasionally feeding me when I got so engrossed in writing that I forgot to eat. Thank you, my friends and family.

IV VITA

March 20, 1948 ...... Bom — Mount Vernon. Ohio

197 5 ...... B.S.S.W., The Ohio State University

197 6...... M.S.W., The Ohio State University

1977 — 1982 ...... Clinical Social Worker, North Central Mental Health, Columbus, Ohio

1982 — present ...... Clinical Social Worker and Clinical Counselor, Private Practice

PUBLICATIONS

Fristad, M. A., Gavazzi, S. M.. Centolella, D. M., Soldano, K. W. (1996). Psychoeducation: A promising intervention strategy for families of children and adolescents with mood disorders. Contemporarv Familv Therapv: An International Journal. 18 (31.371-384.

FIELDS OF STUDY

Major Field: College of Human Ecology, Department of Human Development and Family Sciences

Minor Field: Psychology TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page Abstract...... ü

Acknowledgments i v

Vita...... V

List of Tables...... ix

List of Figures...... x

Chapters:

1. Introduction ...... I

I. L Background of the Present Study ...... I 1.2 Historical/political context of conversion ...... 3 1.2.1 Europe and the Middle East ...... 3 1.2.2 America...... 4 1.3 Importance of this study ...... 6 1.3.1 Limitations of the current research ...... 7 1.4 Research Questions ...... 10 1.5 Background of the researcher ...... 10 1.6 Definitions ...... 13

2. Review of the literature ...... 15 2.1 Background of religious conversion studies ...... 15 2.2 Studies ...... 17 2.3 Conversion to Judaism studies ...... 27 2.3.1 Demographics...... 29 2.3.1.1 Gender ...... 29 2.3.1.2 Age...... 29 2.3.1.3 Education ...... 30 2.3.1.4 Occupation ...... 30 2.3.1.5 Income levels ...... 30 2.3.1.6 Marital status...... 31 2.3.1.7 Background ...... 31 2.3.1.8 Reasons for conversion ...... 33 2.3.1.9 Partners of converts ...... 35 2.3.2 Religious observance among converts ...... 36 vi 2.3.3 Ethnicity and/or joining the Jewish people ...... 39 2.3.4 Jewish identity ...... 41 2.3.5 Adult children of interfaith marriages ...... 42 2.3.6 Summary and discussion ...... 44

3. Methodology ...... 50 3.1 Rationale for methodology ...... 53 3.2 Procedures ...... 54 3.2.1 Framing the research question...... 54 3.2.2 Deconstruction ...... 55 3.2.3 Capture...... 55 3.2.3.1 Location ...... 55 3.2.3.2 Selection of participants ...... 56 3.2.3.3 Data collection ...... 56 3.2.4 Bracketing...... 59 3.2.5 Construction ...... 60 3.2.6 Contextualization ...... 60 3.2.7 Trustworthiness ...... 61 3.3 Limitations of the methodology ...... 66

4. Findings ...... 68 4.1 Demographics of the participants...... 68 4.2 Life histories...... 69 4.2.1 Story #1 - Terry...... 69 4.2.2 Story # 2 -K a te...... 74 4.2.3 Story #3 - Bob...... 78 4.2.4 Story #4 - Mona...... 83 4.2.5 Story #5 - Liz...... 87 4.2.6 Story #6 - Cynthia ...... 92 4.2.7 Story #7 - Susan ...... 97 4.2.8 Story#8-Dan ...... 102 4.2.9 Story #9 - Claire...... 106 4.2.10 Story #10-Jean ...... I ll 4.3 Responses to interview questions ...... 116 4.3.1 Religious background...... 117 4.3.2 First thoughts about conversion and why ...... 120 4.3.3 Conversion preparation and ceremonies ...... 124 4.3.4 Changes in relationships ...... 125 4.3.4.1 Acceptance by Jews ...... 125 4.3.4.2 Acceptance by gentiles ...... 126 4.3.4.3 The outliers...... 127 4.3.4.4 Parents ...... 128 4.3.4.5 Spouses...... 129 4.3.4.6 Children ...... 131 4.3.4.7 Other relatives ...... 131 4.3.5 Jewish identity ...... 131 vii 4.3.6 Life changes...... 134 4.3.6.1 Religious observance ...... 134 4.3.6.2 Participation in Jewish community ...... 135 4.3.6 3 Changes in attitude and feeling state ...... 136 4.3.6.4 Beliefs...... Z ...... 137

5. Discussion ...... 139 5.1 Introduction ...... 139 5.2 Comparison of participants with other study participants ...... 140 5.2.1 Demographics...... 140 5.2.1.1 Gender ...... 140 5.2.1.2 Age...... 140 5.2.1.3 Education ...... 141 5.2.1.4 Socio-economic status ...... 141 5.2.2 Reasons for con vers ion ...... 142 5.2.3 Level of participation ...... 144 5.2.4 Summary ...... 147 5.3 Family issues ...... 148 5.4 Process of Conversion ...... 153 5.4.1 Lack of Connection to Childhood Religion ...... 153 5.4.2 Questioning Beliefs ...... 155 5.4.3 Exploration and "Discovery” of Judaism ...... 157 5.4.4 Commitment ...... 164 5.4.5 Adjustment to life as a Jew ...... 165 5.4.6 Jewish Identity ...... 170 5.4.7 Variations in the process and comparisons with other models... 174 5.5 Human development and identity ...... 176 5.6 Conclusions ...... 184 5.7 Implications for policy ...... 189 5.8 Future Research ...... 190

Epilogue...... 194

Appendix A: Glossary of Jewish terms ...... 196

Appendix B: The two-minute speech that took 34 years to write ...... 198

Appendix C: Guide for research questions ...... 200

References ...... 201

VIII LIST OF TABLES

Table Page

5.1 Highest college degree participants have attained...... 141

5.2 Parental reaction to conversion and religiosity of parents ...... 149

5.3 Age at time of conversion and deaths experienced by that time ...... 182

IX LIST OF FIGURES

Figures Page

5.1 The “shape” of Jewish communal participation among converts ...... 145 CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Present Study

On the evening of November 27, 1998, the Jewish population of Columbus, Ohio increased by one. It was me. I converted. After 35 years of intermittently considering it, reading about it, and talking to ftiends about it, I finally officially became a Jew.

On that day I joined what was estimated in 1995 to be between 180,000 and

200,000 people in the U. S. who have converted to Judaism (Mayer, 1995). My conversion was to the Reform branch of Judaism, which is the branch that does the most conversions annually. It is difficult to know exactly how many people convert to

Judaism each year in the United States; estimates range from 3,000-4,000 (Mayer, 1995) to 10,000-12,000 (Montgomery, 1991). In a call to the Union of American Hebrew

Congregations (UAHC — central organization for Reform Judaism) outreach office in

New York, I was told by Cassie Kahn, “We have no idea!” It was further explained to me that, though rabbis are supposed to send copies of conversion certificates to the regional offices, few actually do so as some believe it is dangerous to send around lists of

Jews. The National Jewish Population Survey 2000 results are supposed to be made available sometime this year and the UAHC office is hoping to get some statistics from that. Ms. Kahn said several rabbis have told her they are doing twice the conversions

they did in the past and conversion seems to be particularly popular among Catholics.

There has been some research (almost all of it quantitative and descriptive)

conducted on converts to Judaism, commonly referred to as Jews-by-Choice (JBC).

Mayer (1995) estimates that nearly 90% of conversions take place in the context of

marriage between a Jew and a Gentile and about 80% of those who convert are female.

These people, for the most part, are very highly educated and come from mainly upper

middle class backgrounds (Foster & Tabachnik, 1991; Huberman, 1978, 1982; Mayer,

1987; Montgomery, 1991). Unfortunately, there is little known about the psychological

and social process they go through when they convert to Judaism both as a religion and as

an ethnic community (Foster & Tabachnik, 1991; Huberman, 1978, 1982; Mayer &

Avgar, 1987; Montgomery, 1991 ). Existing studies are mainly focused on whether or not the converts are achieving the religious and ethnic standards the Jewish community would like them to achieve; that is, they are measuring outcome rather than looking at the process. This is especially tme in studies of intermarriage which often seem designed to give a report card for converts on how successful they are at providing Jewish homes and raising children to have a Jewish identity. While these are important questions, there are very few, if any, studies related to what the conversion experience is like personally for converts. Equally important, there appears to be no research that focuses specifically on the approximately ten percent of converts who convert just because they want to do so and not because of marriage to a bom Jew; there is little information available about this group. Recently there have been a few autobiographies of JBC s published (Dubner,

1998; Fink. 1997; Lester, 1988; Patterson. 1993), some collections o f stories (Homolka,

Jacob, & Seidel. 1997; Lamm. 1991; Myrowitz, 1995) and several guidebooks to conversion (Diamant. 1997; Epstein. 1994; Kukoff. 1981; Lamm. 1991). However, no one has done an in-depth qualitative analysis of the stories and experiences of Jews-by-

Choice. which Mayer estimates will comprise from seven to ten percent of the American

Jewish population by 2010. Using ethnographic interviews and qualitative techniques, this study analyzed the stories and experiences of ten people who have converted to

Judaism. The purpose of this study was to more clearly understand the experience of conversion to Judaism and the psychosocial process that occurs as people "turn Jewish.”

The Historical/Political Context of Conversion

In order to understand the experiences o f human beings it is necessary to understand the historical, sociological, and political context within which those experiences take place (Denzin. 1989a. p. 28). As this is also true of conversion to

Judaism, this section of the paper gives a brief synopsis of the history of conversion and the socio-political context within which it takes place today and in the recent past.

Europe and the Middle East

Though there is some debate about how actively converts were sought out. there are some writers who believe that in early Judaism, proselytes were quite actively pursued (Goodman, 1995; Mayer, 1995; Prager, 1995; Schindler, 1995). Epstein (1994) reports that during the years 323 B.C.E. to 70 C.E. there were many conversions to

Judaism and, in some isolated instances, there were even some forced conversions (the

Idumeans in 125 B.C.E., for instance). There has always been some ambivalent feeling in Judaism about conversions but Telushkin (1994) points out that “of the more than

thirty statements on the subject in rabbinic literature, four are negative and the rest

positive” (p. 375). It has never been a belief of Judaism that everyone must convert to

Judaism to be “saved” or to get into heaven as it is in Christian denominations.

In 315 C.E. Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire and

conversion to Judaism became an offense that was punishable by death for the convert.

In 403 C.E. the law was expanded to include death for the members of the Jewish Court

who accepted the person for conversion (Foster & Tabachnik, 1991). Of course this had

a dampening effect on Jewish missionizing activities. The idea of missionizing became

distasteful to Jews, not only because they were in danger of execution for it, but also because they were so often targeted and sometimes forced to convert to Christianity.

With a few exceptions, conversions to Judaism were rare for many centuries beginning during the Roman Empire and continuing until recently, while Jews were expelled, persecuted, and forced to live in ghettos throughout Europe and the Middle East.

With the French Revolution in 1789, ghetto walls began to crumble in some parts of Europe and Jews began to participate once again in the larger outside society and to have more contact with Gentiles. In the nineteenth century, the Reform Jewish movement began to welcome converts. Then pogrom in s' Eastern Europe and Nazi persecution of the Jewish people in World War II greatly slowed conversion activities.

America

Jewish people have been in the United States since the beginning of the country, but there was a particularly large influx of Eastern European Jewish immigrants

' Organized massacre, particularly o f Jews. beginning in the late 19'*’ century. Though there continue to be anti-Semitic sentiments expressed among some people, there is much contact between Jews and Gentiles in

America. Jews and Gentiles often go to school together, work together, and live in the same neighborhoods. This increased contact has led to much higher rates of intermarriage. Figures showing growth in the numbers of intermarriages and figures showing growHh in the numbers of conversions are closely tied to one another and both began to rise in 1965 (Mayer, 1995). According to Mayer (1995) the 1990 National

Jewish Population Study (NJPS) showed that over half of Jews who married between

1985 and 1990 married someone who was not bom Jewish. Since Jews comprise only

2.5% of the American population, this statistic causes fear in the Jewish community that

Jews will be assimilated into non-existence.

Approximately 30% of Gentiles who marry Jews convert to Judaism (Mayer &

Avgar, 1987). Many leaders in the Reform and. to a lesser extent, in the Conser\^ative movement are suggesting that “opening the gates” to converts, especially Gentiles who are married to bora Jews, is one way of combating the dwindling percentage of Jews in

America. So instead of losing the Jew and his/her offspring from the Jewish community, the conversion of the Gentile would bring another person into the community. This would also lead to providing a totally Jewish home and a less ambiguous Jewish identity for the children.

The Orthodox community is generally less open to the idea of conversion and still maintains stricter rules pertaining to acceptance of converts. They also require longer periods of study and have more stringent standards for religious observance. Often,

Orthodox rabbis will not accept converts who have converted through non-Orthodox

5 rabbis and there have been attempts (so far, unsuccessful) by the Orthodox in Israel to change the requirements so that the Law of Return" does not pertain to non-Orthodox converts.

Critics (Sama, 1995) of increasing conversion point to statistics that 80 percent of converts and their spouses say that they will not be too unhappy if their children marry non-Jews. Sama (1995) refers to these people as "one-generation Jews.” He also points to studies alleging that converts, though they score about the same or higher on religious observance measures, are less committed to the Jewish people and to Israel and sometimes they do not fully understand ethnic and'or cultural issues in Judaism. Sama

(1995) suggests we drop the term Jews-by-Choice and instead call converts Jews-by-

Adoption or Jews-by-Conversion or Jews-by-Transformation (Sama, 1995) to emphasize the permanence of conversion. Thus, the topic of conversion emerges as a very controversial and, oftentimes, very emotional debate in America and in Israel.

Importance o f this Study

Samet (1995) and Grossman (1987) argue that a question as basic as “Who is a

Jew?” is not good for the Jewish community. The differences between Reform and

Orthodox Judaism are very large and include patrilineal descent'’ and Jewish status, observance of Kashrut (Jewish dietary laws), men and women sitting together in services, modesty and dress, performance o f homosexual commitment ceremonies, proper observance of the Jewish Sabbath, understanding of Torah, intermarriage, and conversion. When my rabbi explained to me that I would not be accepted as a Jew by

' Allows everyone who is Jewish to immigrate to Israel. This is an attempt to keep Jews out of the situation that occurred during WWII when many wanted to escape the Nazis but. because o f immigration quotas for Jews, they had nowhere to go. some in the Orthodox community, he said it was because of him, not because of me.

Because of a disagreement that began in the early 1800’s when the Reform movement of

Judaism started, some Orthodox people today would not accept him as a rabbi because of

his Reform affiliation and, therefore, would not accept the conversions that he performs

either. It would seem that this schism could be quite damaging to the Jewish community

if it got too big and, ultimately, could result in a split.

On the other hand, it would seem that this controversy could be good for Judaism.

For example, the findings that converts do not understand enough about Jewish

peoplehood and ethnicity could be used to redesign outreach programs so there is more

emphasis on that facet of conversion. Growth could come from examining what it means

to be Jewish. I like the idea of changing the term from Jew-by-Choice to Jew-by-

Adoption. In fact, that is what my rabbi said at the end of my conversion ceremony,

which took place in front of the congregation, *‘I feel like we just adopted you. Welcome

to the family!”

Limitations of the Current Research

Although some of the earlier research on religious conversion (mainly on

conversion to Christianity) was qualitative in nature, all of the research done so far on

conversion to Judaism has been quantitative and mainly descriptive. That is, it has been

done with large subject pools and has focused on discovering sociological trends in the population. My own reaction to the findings is one of curiosity about the stories behind the statistics. Fishman, Medding, Rimor, and Robin (1991) write:

■’ Reform says you can be Jewish if your father is Jewish and your mother is not and you have been raised Jewishly. Orthodox says your mother must be Jewish or you must convert. 7 Further research is crucial in this area. We need to know the answers to questions such as: do conversionary families feel “at home” in synagogues? What could bring them into the Jewish communal world earlier and more actively? How does informal education work to increase levels of Jewish identification, and how can it be most effectively employed? (p. 123).

Most of the research done to date on conversion to Judaism has also been

atheoretical. Often it seems the purpose of the research was to help various organizations

and Jewish community leaders make policy decisions and determine resource allocations.

Of the seven studies detailed in this paper, only one had a theoretical base. Montgomery

(1991) tried to determine if ±eories about how immigrants become assimilated into their

host communities would apply to converts entering the Jewish community. As shown

later, parts of it did and parts of it did not.

Another limitation in the research on this topic is that it has explored the

beginning and what was assumed to be the outcome of the process of conversion but not what happens in between these two points in time. So we now have some information about who converts to Judaism and, to a lesser extent, why they do so. At the other end, the outcome of conversion is examined regarding religious observance, ethnic issues, and/or Jewish identity. Little attention has been paid to how long it has been since the conversion took place and studies treat the data as if it were the end, when it could very well be that some people are still undergoing the process. Since there is so little known about the actual changes that take place in between the beginning and the end, it is difficult, if not impossible, to determine where in the process the research participants might actually be. The kind of information that can be gained using qualitative research techniques can be particularly helpful in building theories (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). In the current study, information gained in qualitative interviews was used to suggest a six-

8 stage process showing how conversion to Judaism takes place psychologically and emotionally and also how it affects relationships. Theories related to human developmental stages and identity formation were utilized to help "‘make sense” of the data. Further qualitative and quantitative research could be used to refine and test this process and to test the suggested relationship to developmental theory.

Large sociological studies are important because information about population trends is very useful. However, these studies are even more useful when they are combined with information gained in qualitative studies such as the current study. There are certain kinds of information that people may not divulge on questionnaires and there may be certain questions that designers of questiormaires will not think to ask. Some of these issues would emerge in an unstructured or semi-structured interview where participants are asked to talk about what is important to them. It is useful to have more detailed and personal information on the conversion experience that individuals go through; this project provided a way for converts to exercise their “voices” through telling about their experiences. The information gained through listening to these stories could perhaps be used to fine-tune conversion programs, thus helping to change this controversy into a positive force, both for the Jewish people and for the people who join them by conversion. But change is something that affects everyone at all stages of life and it affects all families and all human relations. In a more generic sense, this project can help to understand how people cope with changes that can be immensely far-reaching and that can include social, familial, personal, cultural, ethnic, and spiritual issues. Research Questions

The three major research questions of this study were: ( I ) What is the experience like for people who convert to Judaism? (2) How does conversion to Judaism occur? (3)

Is there a pattern of experiences or stages that can be identified that takes place during the conversion process? Use of in-depth semi-structured interviews helped to give a "voice” to people who have converted. As they told their stories from their own viewpoints, this author tried to better understand their subjective experiences and the meaning they ascribed to these experiences, thus enlightening our understanding of the conversion process.

Background of the Researcher

One of the assumptions in qualitative research is that no research is totally objective (Denzin, 1989a: Emerson. Fretz, & Shaw, 1995). Gender, training, values, beliefs, and the political and historical time in which they live are among the factors that affect researchers and it is impossible to totally divorce one's thoughts and behaviors from these factors. Often, qualitative researchers state their background up front so that readers can keep this information in their minds as they contemplate and evaluate the findings (Denzin, 1989a; Seidman. 1991).

This researcher is a 53-year-old white female who has been a clinical social worker/clinical counselor for 24 years, full time for the first five years and part-time after that. Gestalt, Object Relations/Attachment, and Feminist Theories have particularly influenced my work as a clinician. Undoubtedly, these theories will also influence my work as a researcher and my analysis and understanding of these results. I have two children: a 33-year-old son and a 17-year-old daughter. My non-Jewish husband has

10 been an attorney and an economist, but is cumently employed as a consultant for information technology. His religious background was Episcopalian, though he is currently exploring Judaism and has been declared an “honorary Jew” by our rabbi. Both of our children were raised in an almost totally secular fashion. This project was completed as part of a Doctoral program in the Department of Human Development and

Family Sciences at The Ohio State University.

When I was a teen-ager, my father told me that he was an atheist. My memory was that he was also somewhat anti-religious; my mother was at least partially Christian.

She sent my sister and me to a Methodist Church Sunday school for a while. I remember that about the age of ten or eleven. I refused to go to Confirmation classes and to join the

Church and become a Christian and my mother didn’t make us go to Church after that. I first became interested in Judaism at the age of 16 when a high school teacher loaned me a Jewish History book. I read, thought, saw movies, and talked to others about Judaism intermittently for 34 years before I finally "officially” converted at the age of 50. That was two and one half years ago. Since then I have been very active in synagogue activities and also in programs outside of the synagogue in the larger Jewish community.

My own conversion took place rather quickly from the time I finally contacted a rabbi. I had such a long list of things that I had already read that the rabbi accepted me for conversion after about six weeks. My conversion ceremony was in two parts. The first part took place in a synagogue during the Friday evening Sabbath service. I was called to the ft-ont where I read some affirmations, and I gave a speech (Appendix B) introducing myself and talking about my journey to Judaism. I also made five pledges:

(1)1 was doing this of my own free will; (2) I accepted Judaism to the exclusion of all

11 other religions; (3) I pledged loyalty to Judaism and the Jewish people under all circumstances; (4) I would establish a Jewish home and participate actively in synagogue and Jewish community life; (5) I committed myself to continue studying Judaism. The rabbi said some prayers over me and gave me my Hebrew name. It was my choice to have a public ceremony: I could have had a private ceremony in the rabbi's office. Some friends honored me with a dinner that night at their house to celebrate. The second part of the ceremony took place at an Orthodox synagogue where I used a mikvah.

Afterwards my rabbi and 1 read from the book of Ruth together. It seemed to me that the first ceremony was where 1 joined the Jewish people and the second one was the spiritual ceremony, which was related to God in some way that 1 can’t explain. I have had a positive experience with conversion.

As I look back over my own experience, I can see what might be called a pattern of stages that 1 have experienced so far. First is discomfort with Christianity which didn’t

’’make sense” or “feel right” to me. I know it is a religion that a great many people believe in but it just never fit for me and I would not pretend that it did. This was followed by many years of exploration. During this exploration period I described myself as agnostic and humanist, though as time went on, 1 added that “in my heart of hearts I was becoming Jewish.” My interest was sometimes very strong and sometimes weaker though the general movement was towards increasing involvement. I read about and explored Judaism and talked to people about it. Then one day, I mentioned to a fnend that I had often thought about converting and, for the first time, someone suggested that I should go talk to his rabbi. My first reaction was to tell him that I wasn't ready to do that yet. I went home and thought about it and called my friend an hour later and asked for the rabbi’s name and telephone number so I could call him.

After so many years of being without religion and without a religious community, my pent-up energy came forth. 1 began to gather together my Jewish library and to study more seriously. I discovered that my intuitions were correct and that, indeed, Judaism was the religion for me. I was also, of course, joining a community so I had many new" relationships to negotiate. If 1 had to define my attitude here it would be ’Try everything and see what fits for me.”

Currently I am in a different stage. 1 feel more secure with my identity as a Jew.

I am still experimenting with different levels of observance though not nearly as much as before as I have settled in with a level that seems to fit me at this stage of my life. I have gained enough confidence that 1 am coordinating a Jewish Book Club discussion group and I speak up more in Adult Education activities than I used to. though I sometimes still get shy if there are too many people present. Watching myself go through this process has been really interesting to me; this is how I became curious about what this experience is like for others. This is how this research project grew out of my own experiences.

Definitions

Convert — In this study, a convert is one who was not bom Jewish but who undergoes a formal religious conversion to Judaism. Oftentimes I find I have much in common with

Jews who were bom and raised secularly Jewish but not religiously Jewish and who are discovering Judaism as a religion (Hendler, 1998; Petsonk, 1996; Schifftnan, 1999).

There are differences though in that someone bom Jewish will probably have some

Jewish identity and ethnic features while someone who is converting from a Christian or

13 no religious background will presumably experience more of an identity and ethnic shift along with the religious change. The early studies on conversion were all on Christianity and defined conversion as someone who was bom Christian but who makes a change to a deeper commitment to practice Christianity.

Conversionarv marriage - A marriage between someone who was bom Jewish and someone who has converted to Judaism.

Intermarriage or Exogamous marriage — A marriage between someone who was bom

Jewish and someone who was not bom Jewish, whether or not the latter has converted.

Inmarriage or Endogamous marriage — A marriage between two people who were both bom Jewish.

Jew — Someone who is Jewish either by birth or by conversion.

Jew bv Birth — Someone who was born Jewish.

Jew bv Choice — Someone who was not bom Jewish but has chosen to be Jewish and has had a religious conversion to Judaism.

Mixed marriage — A marriage between someone who was bom Jewish and a Gentile who has not chosen to convert.

14 CHAPTER 2

REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE

Background of Religious Conversion Studies

In their review of the issues involved in conversion research Snow and Machalek

( 1984) wrote that it is important to understand how conversion is conceptualized. They pointed out that many studies have focused on whether conversions were sudden or gradual and on a comparison of people who fit into these categories. Snow and Machalek discussed Travisano’s (1970) suggestion that the definition of a true conversion must include a complete disruption of the person converting; otherwise it is merely an alteration not a conversion. Alterations are reversible and the changes that take place in an alteration are not as comprehensive as they are in a conversion. Snow and Machalek

(1984) pointed out that it is not clear exactly where to draw the line on the continuum to identify which changes are conversions and which are alterations. They then discussed the empirical indicators of conversion which they say are changes in membership status, changes in public demonstration events, and changes in rhetorical indicators (i.e., changes in speech and reasoning).

Snow and Machalek (1984) also suggested that it is important that subjects’ accounts should be subjected to analysis and not accepted at face value as these accounts can be “socially constructed” to please the reference group, they can vary over time, and

15 they are usually retrospective. Another difficulty in analyzing these accounts is that there can be unconscious forces at work that might be hard to define (James, 1902/1961).

Snow and Machalek (1984) also reviewed what they call three waves of types of

research on religious conversion. The first wave took place early in the twentieth century and investigated theological and psychological explanations of conversion. The second wave of studies was inspired by the Korean War and explored possible coercive and brainwashing elements in conversion. Snow and Machalek (1984) believe the second wave of studies, while popular with the lay population, was based on premises and collection techniques that made them unacceptable to social scientists. They pointed out that most conversions are “voluntary and occur in the absence of the sort of confinement and stress experienced by those whose ordeals inspired the model’* (Snow and Machalek.

1984, p. 179). They also pointed out that the findings are based primarily on information gained from people who have been “deprogrammed” and that these people tend to be hostile to and to blame their former religious group.

The third wave of studies, which began in the late 60’s are more influenced by sociological thinking. They suggested that all three waves of research explore psychophysiological responses to coercion and induced stress, predisposing personality traits, and cognitive orientations, tension-producing situational factors, social attributes and structural availability of converts and social influence; thus, different waves emphasize certain issues more than others.

It should be noted that the first two waves of conversion studies in America and

England were almost totally on the subject of conversions to Christianity. Almost all dealt with participants’ deepening and strengthening their commitments to religion that

16 they had been bom into rather than with people who change religions. Prejudice against

Jews and, of course, the Holocaust plus Jewish community pressure against exogamous marriage were factors that kept the intermarriage rate and the conversion to Judaism rate at very low levels during this time.

Studies

The next section of this paper will briefly present some of the more important early studies on the topic of religious conversion. This is not a comprehensive listing of studies on Christian conversion as that would be beyond the scope of this paper but is intended to portray some of the background of this topic and to provide a context within which to view the studies on conversion to Judaism which are presented later. The studies on conversion to Judaism would fit the third wave as described by Snow and

Machalek (1984); they are mainly focused on sociological themes of the family and the community though there are some psychological issues discussed as well.

Starbuck (1897, 1900) did some of the earliest studies on religious conversion.

He was the first to connect religious conversion with adolescents and their developmental issues. In a study done on undergraduate students who had experienced sudden conversions (with half of them taking place in a revival context), he found two peaks for both males and females. The first peak at 12-13 years of age for females and 15 for males coincided with onset of puberty. Starbuck ( 1900) suggested that the storm and stress of puberty with rapid physical growth and hormonal changes are elements affecting conversion. Depression, anxiety, and a sense of sin were common emotional states preceding conversion, and these subjective forces are particularly motivating forces for the males while social pressures and imitation of others were stronger motivating forces

17 for females. Starbuck (1900) then reported a second peak was at age 16 for females and

between 18 and 19 for males. He suggested this peak is related to intellectual development. Starbuck (1900) reported a relapse rate of 6%; his explanation was that after the initial enthusiasm dies down, old habits resurface and religion is dropped. He

WTOte that religious conversion is the opening up of possibilities which, to be sustained, must be grown into, maintained, and developed.

William James (1902/1961 ), in a series of lectures given at the University of

Edinburgh around 1900 and later published under the title The varieties of religious experience, defined conversion as "the process, gradual or sudden, by which a self hitherto divided, and consciously wrong, inferior and unhappy, becomes unified and consciously right, superior and happy, in consequence of its firmer hold upon religious realities." He referred to converts as the "tAvice-bom.” James (1902/1961) believed that there are often unconscious forces at work in religious conversion as well as conscious ones. He distinguished between sudden and gradual conversion and suggested there were more unconscious and emotional forces at work in sudden ones and that they were more often focused on dealing with painful feelings. At some point the person gives up in exhaustion from dealing with the pain and at that point the conversion takes place and the unwanted feelings are replaced with emotions that are more welcome. For example, anger might be replaced with love, depression with joy.

Freud (1923/1961) reported a clinical case related to religious conversion and he also believed that unconscious forces are at work in conversion. Freud (1923/1961) had received a letter from a medical student who had experienced a sudden religious conversion. The student had seen the body of “a sweet-faced dear old woman” being

18 taken to a dissecting room and felt angry with God for letting such things happen. Freud

(1923/1961) explained the conversion by saying that an Oedipal crisis was triggered in

the student who felt his longing for his own lost mother. The anger at God (the Father)

was hatred that the student really felt for his own father and which he displaced onto

God. Freud (1923/1961 ) saw: the religious conversion as a defensive reaction to this

hatred and a way to keep from feeling it.

Salzman (1953) wrote that there are two major types of conversion. The progressive type is related to maturation and integration and occurs “after a reasoned,

thoughtful search, [someone] adopts new values and goals” (p. 179). This type occurs

with normal people and is mostly on a conscious level. The regressive or psychopathological type of conversion is a highly emotional experience and often

involves an attempt to deal with extremely difficult conflicts and emotional pain. He

presented three cases that were of the second type and suggested these types of conversions often happen in religions that are more authoritarian in style and often

involve looking for an ideal figure to replace their real father whom they hate. The hatred they felt toward their father then gets channeled towurds others the person feels it

is acceptable to hate, such as “sinners.” This is similar to Freud’s theory (1923/1961 ) but the difference is that, in Freud’s case, the anger was displaced onto God while according to Salzman’s theory (1953), the anger is placed onto other people while God is seen as a helper and/or protector. Salzman (1953) wrote that this is only a “pseudo-solution” as the

“peace is often temporary” and “often involves overt cruelties and hatreds” to others.

Salzman (1953) also briefly mentioned conversions that occur when people change

19 religions and he wrote that "such conversions occur in different circumstances, in different ways, and with different outcomes from those I have described” (p. 187).

Several studies explored differences between sudden and gradual religious conversions. Sudden conversions often take place in revival type meetings. They appear to be very emotional experiences and involve people going to the front of the service to accept Jesus into their hearts in order to be "saved.” Again, these are usually situations where the person converting is deepening their religious convictions rather than changing from one religion to another. Gradual conversions are just what they sound like; the change is gradual and can involve study and/or contemplation over a period of time that leads to a deepening of conviction and/or commitment to a religion.

Kildahl (1965) compared 20 seminary students who experienced sudden conversion with 20 who experienced gradual religious development. He found those with sudden conversions were less intelligent as measured by the American Council of

Education Psychological Examination for College Freshmen, though both groups scored in the superior range (74‘*’ percentile compared to 87‘'') and more hysterical as measured on the MMPI. Freud’s (1923/1961) idea of a relationship between Oedipal difficulties and sudden conversions was not supported by the findings on these particular subjects, though Kildahl (1965) wrote that he continued to believe in Freud’s (1923/1961) Oedipal explanation of sudden conversions because he had seen that pattern many times in his clinical practice. Sudden converts were not found to differ in authoritarianism, depression, humanitarianism, conservatism, or tendency to perceive authority figures as threatening.

20 Roberts (1965) compared students aged 21-29 years at a conservative evangelical

theological college. Twenty-three had experienced sudden conversions and 17 had

experienced gradual conversions, some into the same denomination of Christianity as their parents and some into a denomination that was different from their parents’ religion.

Those with sudden conversions that involved deepening their convictions into the same faith that their parents had were higher on the MMPI neurotic scale. Roberts (1965) said these conversions were usually dramatic and regressive in nature, and he suggested these students were experiencing difficulty emancipating themselves from their parents. He wrote that those students who had converted to a faith that was different from their parents’ faith were mature and non-neurotic and he suggested these were progressive or maturational conversions.

Allison (1969) compared 20 Methodist divinity students, 7 with an intense conversion experience, 7 with a weaker conversion, and 6 without a conversion experience. He found that converts show “striking tension between strength and weakness.” Those with intense experiences were more likely to have fathers who were adulterers, alcoholics, or who had committed suicide. These students also had a "special closeness” with their mothers. Allison (1969) suggested they were looking for a lost father figure to protect them and to help them differentiate from their mothers. He stated religious conversion did not entirely resolve their psychological problems but that it did help them to at least partially resolve their developmental impasse and move from adolescence into adulthood.

In yet another study that explored a possible relationship between emotional difficulties and sudden conversion, Spellman, Baskett, and Byrne (1971) compared the

21 scores of three groups of 20 participants each on the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale. The

people in group one had experienced gradual religious development, the people in group

two were non-religious, and those in group three had experienced sudden conversion.

Group one and two did not differ but the people in group three were significantly higher

on anxiety than the other two groups combined. Spellman et al. (1971) wrote that their

findings support Salzman’s theory that sudden converts are less healthy and that their

conversions are “pseudo-solutions;” they also wrote that there is much backsliding when

the converts find out that their solution does not solve their emotional difficulties.

In a case presentation of a 25-year-old student minister. Bragan (1977) found that while conversion can be psychologically helpful it can also increase rigidity and repression, which can lead to later problems. This case also involved a person who was overly close to his mother and who had a very distant father. Bragan suggested that it may be true that “religious conversion always needs to be followed by therapeutic experience, professionally conducted or otherwise, if rigidity and crippling regressions are to be overcome” (p. 179).

A study by Paloutzian (1981) explored possible changes in values and purpose in life that may occur after conversion. Paloutzian administered the Purpose in Life Test and Value Survey to 91 male and female college students which he split into four groups based on how much time had passed since their conversions (less then one week; one month; six months; over six months); he also administered the test to a control group of

51 students who had not experienced a conversion. He found scores right after conversion were much higher than control group scores. The scores of the one-month group had dropped to the level of the control group and, for the people who had converted six months ago and also for those who had converted more than six months

ago, the scores rose again and stabilized at an intermediately high level.

All of these conversion studies mentioned so far fit into the first wave of studies

as described by Snow and Machalek (1984) and they are all focused on Christian

conversions where the change is in a deepening of the commitment to religion rather than

a change from one type of religion to another. While they may from time to time

mention sociological issues, they were mainly focused on psychological andy'or

theological explanations of conversion. Also, most of them focused on sudden

conversions that are very emotional.

The next studies begin to deal with issues about people who are converting to

Judaism. In many ways, this type of conversion is the opposite of the sudden type

mentioned above. The people in studies on conversion to Judaism are usually changing

from one religion to another rather than simply deepening their commitment to the religion they already belonged to or making a change from one denomination to another within the same religion. In these studies the people were formerly Christian or were formerly without any religion before the conversion. Another difference from conversions to Christianity is that conversions to Judaism are almost never sudden conversions. The period of study required to convert to Judaism is anywhere from several months to several years. While there are certainly some emotional factors in this type of conversion, the emphasis in Judaic conversions is on intellectual study and understanding. Usually study meetings with the rabbi are required along with classes and readings. Another difference is that in traditional Judaism it is required that the rabbi discourage and turn away the prospective convert three times before they are accepted. It is not seen as Judaism’s mission to bring everyone in to this religion unlike Christianity where it is seen that the job is to bring everyone to an acceptance of Jesus so that the messianic era can begin. The next two studies presented have elements of the first wave of research though one difference is that they involve, at least partially, Judaic conversions.

The first study (Ullman, 1989) reviewed in this paper that involves conversion to

Judaism explored the conversion experiences of 40 people. Ten people converted to

Orthodox Judaism, ten to Pentecostal Catholicism, ten to Hare Krishna, and ten to Baha'i.

Half were male and half were female and all except five of the Jewish converts had changed at least their denomination if not their religion. Ullman (1982, 1989) was not able to find ten people who had converted to Orthodox Judaism so half of her Jewish conversion sample were made up of Baal T'shuvah.^ These five were Yeshiva students in Jerusalem; all of the other subjects were residing in and around the Boston area. There was also a control group made up of 15 Catholics and 15 Orthodox Jews who had not converted but were otherwise similar in age (20 to 40 years), gender, and educational level (at least high school).

Ullman (1989) summarized her findings by saying that the conversion quest "is best understood in the context of a search for relief from emotional distress” (1989, p.

24). People who converted were more likely than were non-converts to report unhappy and stressful childhoods (47.4% vs. 13.3%) and troubles during adolescence (65% vs.

6.7%). Thirty-five percent of converts reported psychiatric difficulties versus 6.6 % of the non-converts and 80% described much difficulty and stress in the two-year period

■' Jewish terms are in Glossary, Appendix A, which begins on page 196. 24 preceding conversion. The converts to Catholicism and to Judaism were more likely to

report that their problems were caused by a “particular disruptive event” like a car

accident or a violent crime. They were more successful in their adjustment to

mainstream culture than the converts to Baha'i or Hare Krishna and they were more

likely to have sought outpatient therapy for their problems. They did not differ in their

tendency to report unhappy childhood experiences.

Ullman (1989) found that converts were more likely to be rigid about their new

beliefs than non-converts were and their “vehement religiosity is significantly correlated

with the degree of stress and unhappiness experienced throughout the pre-conversion

life” (1989, p. 23). She suggested that converts may be using religion as a defense mechanism. Emotionalism played a much larger role in the decision to convert than objective intellectual reasons. In short, a “pursuit of sanity and stability was more urgent than a pursuit of a truth or a vision” (1989, P. 25).

It is very possible that Ullman’s findings were skewed by her choice of religious denominations. Use of Pentecostal Catholicism and Orthodox Judaism to represent

“mainstream” religions is questionable. Only about six percent of Jews in the U.S. are affiliated with Orthodoxy (Kertzer & Hoffman, 1993) and some of her subjects were

Chasidic, an ultra-orthodox sect that is even less representative of America’s total Jewish population. Pentecostal Catholicism is quite controversial and Hare Krishna and Baha’i are even further away from mainstream religions in the U.S.

A study by Buchbinder, Bilu, and Witztum (1997) straddled the fence between first wave and third wave studies as it explores both individual psychological issues and sociological and cultural issues. The study sample was made up of sixty-one religiously

25 observant Orthodox Jews who were patients at a mental health clinic in Jerusalem. The

definition of conversion is the same as the definition in the studies mentioned earlier that

dealt with conversion to Cliristianity. These 52 men and 9 women had been bom Jewish

but had not been practicing their religion for a time, then had returned to it. In Judaism

this is usually referred to as "‘f shuvah” (repentance) rather than as conversion. The time

since these “conversions” had occurred ranged from two months to 21 years.

Forty of these respondents were classified as Sephardic (coming from Jewish

populations in Southern Europe and North Africa) and 21 were Ashkenazi (coming from

Jewish populations in Northern and Eastern Europe) and these two groups were

compared as to the factors that motivated them to recommit to religion. There is much

more value placed on intellectual activities by Ashkenazi Jews, according to these authors; therefore it was expected that the Ashkenazi Jews would list more intellectual reasons for “conversion” than the Sephardic Jews and this was found to be true with this sample.

The authors also concluded that “among Jews the classical, sudden conversion experience is quite rare” (p. 1199) as only one person had experienced a “sudden, mystically involved conversion” (p. 1199) like the type described earlier in the revival type conversions to Christianity.

Overall, 82% of subjects mentioned emotional factors contributing to their conversions while only 30% mentioned intellectual factors like a “spiritual quest” and/or a “search for meaning” (p. 1197). As in studies mentioned previously, these converts evidenced some difficulties with their fathers; 62% “reported particularly problematic relationships with their fathers” consisting of physical absence, psychological absence, or

2 6 hostility (p. 1196). Thirty-three percent reported problems with their mothers.

Buchbinder, et al. (1997) suggested these patients were using God as a replacement

figure for their fathers in a way that is similar to the subjects in a study on attachment

theory and religion by Kirkpatrick and Shaver (1990) where participants used their

relationship to God to make up for deficits in their relationships they had with their

parents.

Buchbinder et al. (1997) “do not hasten to embrace Freud’s (1923/1961) psychopathe logical view of religion” (p. 1197) and instead "view religion as a potentially adaptive, compensating, and ordering system for those buffeted by problematic emotional histories or for those searching for a value system and behavior code to guide them through this confusing, anxiety-provoking modem era” (p. 1198). The authors also warned against generalizing their findings as they point out that all of these study participants were having significant emotional difficulties.

Conversion to Judaism Studies

As stated earlier it was the mid-sixties when conversion to Judaism rates and intermarriage started to rise in the United States. Mayer (1995) estimates there were fewer than 1000 conversions per year to Judaism before 1965. That rose to 1,800 by

1974, 3,200 by 1984, and 3,600 by the early 90’s. Others estimate higher numbers (10-

12,000 per year Montgomery, 1991, p. 15).

In this section, research is presented on conversion to Judaism; most of the findings are from seven studies. Three of these studies focused mainly on individuals who converted (Foster & Tabachnik, 1991; Huberman, 1978; Montgomery, 1991). The other four studies explored conversion as it is related to intermarriage. One compared

27 spouses who had married a Jew by birth (JBB) in an attempt to define the differences

between those who converted to Judaism against those who did not (Mayer & Avgar,

1987). Two presented data from eight studies^ comparing conversionary marriages to

mixed marriages to inmarried couples (Fishman, Medding, Rimor, & Tobin, 1991;

Medding, Tobin, Fishman, & Rimor, 1992). One compared the adult outcomes of children raised in conversionary marriages against those raised in mixed marriages

(Mayer, 1983).

First, some demographic information is presented about who is converting to

Judaism and why; this includes information about their religious and family backgrounds and, if the conversion is related to marriage, who are the partners they are marrying.

Second, findings are presented on levels of religious observance among converts compared to individuals who were bom Jewish. Included will be information comparing couples in conversionary marriages with those in mixed marriages and with couples who are inmarried. Third, explorations of ethnicity issues are presented. Fourth is a look at the ability of converts to achieve a Jewish social identity. The fifth section focuses on findings related to the question “how successful are convert mothers (80% of converts are woman) at raising Jewish children?” A study comparing the adult outcomes of people raised in conversionary marriages with those raised in mixed marriages is discussed here. This question is important for the issue of Jewish continuity. The sixth and last section will be a summary and discussion of all of these topics.

® Data were gathered between 1985 and 1988 in Baltimore, Boston, Essex, and Morris counties in New 28 Demographics

Four studies present demographic information about who converts to Judaism

(Foster & Tabachnik, 1991; Huberman, 1978; Mayer & Avgar, 1987; Montgomery.

1991). These are their findings.

Gender. Converts are usually female. In these four studies the percentages that are females range from 66% (Huberman, 1978), 80% (Foster & Tabachnik, 1991), 85%

(Montgomery, 1991), to 86% (Mayer & Avgar, 1987). Huberman's higher rate o f male converts may be partially explained by the fact that all of the converts in his study converted to Reform Judaism which tends to have a higher rate of male conversion than the other denominations since they don’t require either circumcision or Hatafat Dam Brit

(a symbolic circumcision where a drop of blood is drawn from the penis of a man who has already been medically circumcised) (Epstein, 1994). Montgomery (1991), after surveying past literature, suggested that the trend is towards increased male conversions.

Age. Huberman (1978) reported the age at which conversion took place (p. 73).

It was in the late teens (17-19) for 9% of his subjects, the twenties for 70%, the thirties for 17%, the forties for 3%, and over sixty for 1%. Eighty-nine percent o f his participants had converted 8 or fewer years ago while 11% had converted between 9 and

49 years ago.

Montgomery (1991) did not report the ages when the conversions of her subjects took place, only the ages of her study participants at the time of the study. Twenty-one percent were in their twenties, 59% in their thirties, 16% in their forties, 3% in their

Jersey. Providence, Worcester, Cleveland, Dallas, and the San Francisco Bay area. 29 fifties, and 1% was over 60. Of these 4% had converted over 20 years before the study

(1991) while 80% had converted between four and eleven years before the study.

Education. Converts to Judaism are a very highly educated group. Those having

only an undergraduate degree ranged from 28% (Huberman. 1978), 38% (Montgomery,

1991), 41% (Mayer & Avgar, 1987), to 52% (Foster & Tabachnik, 1991). The

percentages who have graduate degrees ranged from a low of 19% (Huberman. 1978),

33% (Foster & Tabachnik, 1991), 44% (Montgomery, 1991), to a high of 47% (Mayer &

Avgar, 1987).

Occupation. Different researchers used different categories of occupations so this topic is harder to compare but in every study the category of professional was the most frequent one that converts belonged to. The rates went from a high of 68%

(Montgomery. 1991) to 39% (Mayer & Avgar, 1987) to 29% (Huberman, 1978). Foster and Tabachnik (1991) just said 81% of their participants were middle class and they did not elaborate about their occupations.

Income levels. As might be expected with such high levels of education and occupation, the incomes of converts were high too. Montgomery (1991 ) found 41% making $35-75,000 and 32% over $75,000. This compared to the general Philadelphia population (including Gentiles) where only 14% made more than $35,000. Montgomery reported that her converts to Judaism were significantly higher in income, occupational status, and education than Philadelphia Jews, who also rated above the general

Philadelphia population. They were also significantly younger than Philadelphia Jews.

Mayer and Avgar (1987) found 42% of their subjects’ incomes were between $30-50,000

30 and 58% were over $50,000. The figures for Foster and Tabachnik (1991) were 57% firom $30-75,000 and 28% over $75,000. Huberman did not mention this category.

Marital Status. Though Mayer (1995) estimated that nearly 90% of conversions are related to marriage to a JBB, Montgomery (1991) found that 81% of her participants had converted in a marital context while that figure was 85% for Foster and Tabachnik

(1991). Huberman (1978) doesn’t say what percentage of his participants were converting related to marriage but 71% of them were engaged and 22% were married.

Background. Both Montgomery (1991 ) and Huberman (1978) reported Catholics were the most highly represented religious background of their study participants; the others don’t mention this topic. Eighty percent of Montgomery’s participants reported having religious mothers while 64% had religious fathers and 80% of Foster and

Tabachnik’s (1991) participants reported they came from religious homes.

The studies mentioned earlier which were mainly about conversion to Christianity were often concerned with the psychological state and possible problems in the family backgrounds of respondents. Often there were many problems reported, particularly with respondents who had experienced a sudden conversion. These studies on conversion to

Judaism, which were less psychological and more sociological in nature, did not report on the psychological status of the respondents. However, there was some mention of converts’ relationships with parents in three of the studies. Montgomery (1991) reported that 81% of her respondents came from financially stable homes with 95% of mothers and 89% of fathers present throughout childhood. Sixty-one percent characterized these homes as loving, 60% as secure, and 56% as happy. Relations with fathers were reported to be more positive than in earlier studies with 79% stating they were close to their fathers; 82% were close to their mothers. Sixteen percent reported being abused, 8%

neglected, 20% were afraid as children, and 12% reported they had loveless homes as

children. Forty-one percent of the mothers and 39% of the fathers were troubled by their

offspring marrying a Jew. Five percent of converts never told their parents about the conversion and 18% reported that family and gentile friends did not understand or approve of their conversion (p. 136).

Foster and Tabachnik’s (1991) respondents in the Chicago area came from well- educated middle class homes and 83% of these families were intact. Again, relations with fathers were not as problematic here as 67% of the converts reported good relationships with fathers and 75% reported good relationships with mothers. Although over 50% of respondents reported that their parents had Jewish friends, twenty-five percent of the fathers and 27% of the mothers of these 323 converts were opposed to their offspring marrying a Jew and 33% were opposed to conversion. Sixteen percent of these converts reported negative effects in their relationships with Christian relatives and 8% with Christian friends.

Though he doesn’t present any statistics on it, Huberman (1978) reported, in general, most parents were opposed to conversion and their offspring described them as very upset and very hurt by it. In the parents’ eyes “conversion is a traitorous act; it repudiates the value system of the convert’s parents” (Huberman, 1981, p. 317). Only

27% of the converts invited their parents to the conversion ceremony and only 18% attend. Huberman wrote it was best if they not attend as it may be too painful for them.

Many of the study participants reported their parents ultimately had no choice but to accept the situation and “as time passes, the anger, hurt, or resentment gradually begins to ease and it is the rare convert who has been completely disowned” (1981, p. 318).

Mayer and Avgar (1987). in their comparison of 109 people who converted to

Judaism who were married to JBBs and 200 people who did not convert to Judaism who were married to JBBs, found no differences in relationships with parents or with amount of contact with parents between these two groups. Those who converted were more likely to see their own parents as not at all religious or as anti-religious. In another finding related to fathers, the most significant difference between converts and non­ converts was that converts were more likely to describe their fathers as not at all religious or as anti-religious. Converts reported their parents were more accepting of their Jewish spouses than the non-converts’ parents were. Converts also had Jewish mothers-in-law who were less accepting of them than non-converts had.

Reasons for conversion. This is a difficult question to answer as there are many different levels of reasons for why someone converts; some reasons are conscious, some unconscious, some practical, some spiritual, some emotional, and some intellectual. All of these different levels could be influencing someone at the same time while at different times some levels could be more influential than at other times. With that qualification, the findings will be presented.

Huberman’s (1978) 181 graduates from the 1970-76 Introduction to Judaism

Reform program in Boston listed both family and religious reasons for their conversions.

They stated their most important (conscious) reasons were that Judaism was “more acceptable than childhood religion” (32%), “one religion good for children” (24%), and ‘‘to please his/her spouse” (20%). While 40% felt religion was important to them, 15%

felt it was very important, and 44% reported religion was of little or no importance to

them.

Foster and Tabachnik (1991) wrote that the strongest factor pulling converts

towards Judaism was their Jewish partner and also that the converts in their study desired

Jewish identity more for tribal or ethnic reasons than for religious reasons. The

participants were discouraged from converting by unspecified others (31%). gentile

friends (27%), mothers (23%), rabbis (22%). Foster and Tabachnik (1991) also

questioned 84 people who took the Reform and Conservative Introduction to Judaism

class but did not convert. The two most common reasons for not converting were they

could have a Jewish-oriented home without conversion and they didn’t need to convert to

belong. In a comparison of those who converted with those who did not convert, the

converts had less positive relationships with their parents, more religiously involved

parents, more Christian religious education, and, as might be expected, more religious dissatisfaction with Christianity. The authors sum up by saying:

It would seem that while these converts were not driven out by negative parental relationships, their family’s positive regard for and involvement with Jews, their own liberal social views, and their high regard for religious involvement but dissatisfaction with some aspects of Christianity were factors that pushed them toward Jews and Judaism (p. 70).

Montgomery’s (1991) snowball sample of 100 JBCs in the Philadelphia area expressed more negative reaction to Christianity. Sixty-two percent reported their early childhood religious upbringing was “an irritant” (p.80). About half of these (30 people)

“went along with the program passively” while the others rebelled and spoke of “feeling

3 4 different from their peers who were believers” (p. 80). These felt free as Jews because they didn’t have to pretend any more to believe something they couldn't accept.

In comparing interfaith spouses married to JBBs, Mayer and Avgar (1987) found those who converted were more likely to describe themselves as very or moderately religious, had more need to pray, to believe in God. and to think religious identity is important than those spouses who do not convert. Although both groups had similar amounts of religious training as Christians, those who converted felt less satisfied with their childhood religion when they were adolescents. Of the whole sample, only 27% reported having been encouraged to convert. Of those who converted. 7 1 % were encouraged by their Jewish spouse against 35% of those who did not convert. The numbers were in the other direction when it came to encouragement by in-laws.

Encouragement from Jewish in-laws was reported by 17% of those who converted compared to 22.5% of those who did not convert. Mayer and Avgar (1987) wrote that family issues were much more influential on the decision to convert or not to convert than any of the behaviors or attitudes of the rabbis they had contact with.

Partners of Converts. Jewish men intermarry at greater rates than Jewish women do though the intermarriage rate for women is increasing at a faster rate (Medding et al.,

1992). Men’s rates go from around 10% in the I960’s to 45% in the I980’s and women’s rates go from 2% to 30% during the same time period. Medding et al. (1992) and

Fishman et al. (1991) both used the same data which was attained in Jewish population studies conducted in eight cities all over the U.S. between 1985 and 1989. The total number of households surveyed was 8,387 including 6,733 inmarried, 463 conversionary, and 1,191 mixed married couples. Fishman et al. (1991) compared the statistics for the

35 different cities while Medding et al. (1992) merged the data into one large sample and did further statistical testing. Medding et al. (1992) found that those with more than six years of Jewish education were more likely to inmarry than those with less than six years who were more likely to intermarry; this was particularly true among the younger respondents.

Higher socio-economic status was associated with higher rates of both conversionary marriages and in-marriages and with lower rates of mixed marriage.

Denomination of the Jewish partner is another determining factor in the type of marriage in the Medding et al. (1992) study. One half of those who identified themselves as "just Jewish” were in mixed marriages compared to 30% of Reform, and one in fifteen of both Conservative and Orthodox. The writers reminded us that these Jewish respondents didn’t necessarily grow up in these denominations but some of them may have changed after the mixed marriage because they felt the new denomination may be more accepting of them (p. 2 1 ).

The participants of the Foster and Tabachnik (1991) study had families who were more positive about and involved with gentiles than inmarried Jews. However the conventional wisdom that those with more Jewish education tend to inmarry, while possibly true for those in mixed marriages, was not found to be true in comparison with those in conversionary marriages. Partners of converts had significantly more Jewish education, significantly higher childhood involvement in Jewish practices, knowledge of blessings, and ethnic involvement than inmarried partners.

Religious Observance Among Converts

Six of the studies on converts explore this topic and they all agreed that JBCs score very highly on levels of religious observance. The variables that were used to

36 measure this included attending Passover seders, lighting Shabbat candles, fasting on

Yom BCippur, belonging to a synagogue, and attending services regularly. Montgomery's

(1991) converted respondents had significantly higher rates (p=<.00l on all) than the

general Jewish population of Philadelphia on lighting Shabbat candles, lighting

Chanukah candles, keeping kosher homes, refraining from travel on Shabbat. fasting on

Yom K-ippur. and attending synagogue regularly. She summarized by saying that the

“majority of the respondents had developed a religious belief system that is congruent

with Judaism and had made great strides in developing appropriate ritual practices” (p.

105). This is true in spite of the contradictory messages she reported they received with the rabbis telling them that the Jewish religion is primary while the “significant others” in their lives told them that ethnicity is primary.

Huberman’s (1978) study on Reform Jewish converts showed diat they scored higher on all but one of the six measures he used to rate levels of religious observance.

JBBs rated higher on attendance of “Jewish studies” programs.

Foster and Tabachnik (1991) separated participation in religious ritual from religious beliefs. Their population of converts had lower levels of participation than their

JBB population of people who were referred by rabbis and who were very religiously active. However, “they do as well or better on major practices when compared with general Jewish population studies” (p. 137). Sixty-one percent of respondents believed in

God, 97% believed in free will (over original sin), 74% believed Jews have a covenantal relationship with God, and 39% believed Jews are to be a light to the other nations. One unsettling finding from a Jewish standpoint was that 10% of respondents continued to hold distinctly Christian views about Jesus. Mayer and Avgar (1987) agreed that JBCs had equally or more religious

observance than JBBs. In fact, “in many cases converts indicated that they had tried to

bring about greater Jewish observance in their homes!” (p. 18).

Medding et al. (1992) and Fishman et al. (1991) both reported on patterns of

religious observance in conversionary marriages, mixed marriages, and inmarriages

rather than the rates for the converts individually. Medding et al. (1992) pointed out almost total similarity between conversionary and inmarried Jews on synagogue membership, service attendance, and Jewish ritual practice while mixed married people score from 30-40% lower on all items. One difference between conversionary and

inmarried couples was that 22% of conversionary couples had Christmas trees compared with 2% of inmarried couples; the rate for mixed couples was 62%. In all groups, the rate for Christmas trees was higher with families that had children.

It can be seen that most people who convert to Judaism have high levels on measures related to observance of the Jewish religion. Montgomery(1991) wTOte that

JBCs who were Christian often think of conversion more in religious terms than ethnic terms because that is the way conversion is practiced in Christianity. She wrote that most

“Introduction to Judaism” courses are taught by rabbis who emphasize the religious aspects of the experience. Medding et al. (1992) agree and they conclude that:

conversion to Judaism in the sense of religious integration proceeds faster than communal integration. Apparently it takes longer to acquire and develop Jewish communal ties than it does to adopt new religious beliefs and practices (p. 24).

The next section of this paper will look at findings related to conversion and ethnic issues.

38 Ethnicity and/or joining the Jewish people

Many variables were used in these studies to define whether or not JBCs became

ethnically Jewish. They included attitudes towards Israel, joining Jewish organizations

(other than synagogues), giving money to Jewish causes, having Jewish friends, and

reading Jewish publications. Also included in this section are findings related to the

more personal aspects of joining the Jewish people like problems with not feeling

accepted by other Jews.

Huberman (1978) reported overall converts were more religious than JBBs but

were less ethnic and those who were most religious were also the most ethnically Jewish.

He found that converts, in comparison with JBBs, had lower levels of joining Jewish

organizations ( 18% versus 26% joined one or more Jewish organizations), lower Jewish

friendships (26% versus 55% reported most or all of their best friends are Jewish), lower

levels of giving to Jewish causes, lower levels of support for Israel, but that they read

more Jewish publications. About 50% of Huberman’s participants experienced some rejection from other Jews and some of these people reported feeling rejected by

Christians because of their conversion and not fully accepted by Jews. In spite of these problems only 17% expressed misgivings or regrets about their conversions, while 83% did not.

Foster and Tabachnik (1991) reported that 89% of converts changed their life style when they converted; 16% said this was a major change. Overall knowledge of

Judaism, commitment to Jews, and involvement with Jews increased with conversion.

Issues that are important to the Jewish community were also important to the converts with 97% reporting they valued Jewish continuity, 92% were concerned about anti-

39 Semitism in the U.S.. 72% supported Israel, 79% supported world Jewry. 90% feel

comfortable in Jewish settings, and 8 L% wanted to be part of Jewish community. Sixty-

one percent felt positively accepted by the Jewish community, 42% never had negative

response from Jews, and 60% found it easy to feel they belonged with Jewish people.

The authors concluded that the "Jewish community as a whole still evidences great

suspicion toward converts” (p. 74). While this explanation probably does explain some

of the problem, it is also possible that another variable that is operating is that some of the

problem could be coming from the converts. It appears that some converts did not feel at

home in their previous religious community (Montgomery. 1991 ) or did not have one at

all and that previous discomfort may have made them especially sensitive to feeling like

an outsider in the new community.

The Medding et al. (1992) study's comparison of conversionary, mixed, and

inmarried couples had mixed results on ethnic issues. Rates of giving to Jewish causes

were even with conversionary and inmarried couples, while mixed couples were

substantially less likely to do so (81%, 86% and 57% respectively). Visiting Israel and joining Jewish organizations were done most by inmarried couples, least by mixed

couples, with the conversionary in between but closer to the inmarried people (47%.

39%, and 21% respectively). With the category friendship circles conversionary couples were slightly closer to the mixed couples than they were to the inmarried people (50% conversionary, 30% mixed, and 75% inmarried). The authors suggested this may occur because of the perception of these couples that the Jewish community did not accept them.

4 0 Mayer and Avgar (1987) reported that, in comparison with JBBs, converts were

similar in affiliation with Jewish organizations, contributions to Jewish causes, and

support for Israel. They suggested that "although conversion is primarily a religious

transformation, it seems to be related to sociopolitical attitudes as well” (p. 31 ). Eighty- one percent reported it was very or fairly easy to fit into the Jewish community while 7%

had great difficulty with that. Seventy-five percent felt the Jewish community did not understand them and 33% felt that their preparation for Jewish life was not adequate and that the programs they participated in should have helped them more with their feelings.

Jewish Identitv

Medding et al. (1992) computed a Jewish identification score for their couples by adding up the points they earned by doing both religious and ethnic activities. The activities were synagogue membership, synagogue attendance. Sabbath candle lighting, participation in a Passover seder, fasting on Yom Kippur. lighting Hanukkah candles, membership in a Jewish organization, donating to a Jewish charity, visiting Israel, and having predominantly Jewish close friends. Possible scores ranged from 0 to 11 and the distribution was split into high, medium, and low Jewish identification. Conversionary and inmarried couples scored almost identically with 17% and 18% respectively scoring low while 69% of the mixed married scored low. Fifty percent of both conversionary and inmarried couples scored in the medium level compared to 30% of the mixed. Thirty- three percent of the conversionary married couples, 32% of the inmarried, and 1% of the mixed marrieds scored high. The authors are pleased that the conversionary married couples score so well and they use this as a basis for their recommendation that much more resources and attention be directed toward increasing conversion of the Gentile

41 spouse in interfaith marriages. They also pointed to the fact that 17% of the

conversionary marrieds scored low and suggest this indicates that conversion “does not

always work” (p. 37).

A discussion by Snow and Machalek (1984) was described earlier about whether

or not religious conversion was a mere alteration or a transformation of the personality.

It seems that maybe it is both, depending on the degree of change that takes place. For

the 17% mentioned above who had low Jewish identity scores after conversion and

particularly for the 7% of the converts in Mayer and Avgar's (1987) study who said they

had not changed as a result of the conversion, the change was very superficial if indeed

there was any at all. However 29% of Mayer and Avgar's participants reported the

changes they underwent were somewhat significant while 64% reported the changes were

very significant.

Adult children of Interfaith Marriages

“Will the children be Jewish?” is an extremely important question in the Jewish

community on the topic of interfaith marriages. As mentioned previously there is a very

strong fear that Jews will be assimilated into non-existence. As we shall see, this fear is a very realistic one when looking at mixed married families, though much less realistic in

looking at conversionary families.

Medding et al. (1992) described a segmented and ambiguous identity that can happen to children raised in a mixed marriage family. They suggested these children feel they will be rejecting and hurting one parent if they choose the religion of the other parent. These children may stay neutral in identity and focus on secular issues instead so they can avoid this situation. Describing their study, Fishman et al. (1991) wrote that the

4 2 “most striking finding is that many mixed married households are not environments that

are likely to produce a new generation connected to Judaism or the Jewish people” (p.

123).

Critics (Sama, 1998) of conversion to Judaism point to Foster and Tabachnik’s

(1991) results that said converts and their partners were less concerned about children

having a Jewish identity, mostly Jewish friends, or a Jewish marital partner; they were

also more tolerant of the children being exposed to Christianity.

Mayer (1983) had 117 questionnaires that were returned by the offspring of both conversionary and mixed marriages that he had questioned in the 70's. Close to half of the respondents were male and the age range was from 16-46 years. About one third were from conversionary marriages and two-thirds were from mixed marriages. About one third were married.

Eighty-six percent of the offspring of conversionary households identified themselves as Jews, none as Christians, and 14% said they had no religion. In comparison, 24% of the offspring of mixed households identified themselves as Jews,

43% as Christians, and 33% said they had no religion. The high rate of no religious affiliation found among the children of mixed households could support Medding's suggestion that children of mixed marriages might tend to withdraw from religion altogether rather than choosing the religion of one parent over the other. Children of conversionary marriages also were closer to their parents and continued to have more contact with them than did children of mixed marriages.

Huberman (1978) pointed out that 86% of converts plan to provide Jewish education for their children compared to 59% of people who were bom Jewish. Fishman

43 et al. (1991) reported that 86% of conversionary households provide Jewish education for the children compared to 50% of the mixed households and 95% of the inmarried ones.

In fact 85% of Mayer’s participants from a conversionary household received a Jewish education but only 20% of those from a mixed household did. They were also much more likely to have a bar/bat mitzvah (73% vs. 14%), observée Jewish holidays, and to have and use Jewish artifacts and ceremonial objects in their homes (p. 17). They were three times more likely to have visited Israel and two and one half more likely to have mainly Jewish friends.

Of the respondents who were married, 64% of those from conversionary households had married another Jew while 8% of those from mixed households had married a Jew. Although it is unwise to make any generalizations from such a small sample, the inmarriage rate of the conversionary offspring was higher than it was for the general Jewish community where over 50% were marrying exogamously.

The two groups were fairly similar in favorable attitudes to Judaism as a religion and to the Jewish people, in feeling it important to remember the Holocaust, in supporting candidates that are favorable to Jews, and that Jews have a special responsibility to other

Jews though those from conversionary households were more likely to have actually made donations to Jewish causes in the past year than those from a mixed household

(56% vs. 32%).

Summarv and Discussion

Based on these studies, the typical convert to Judaism was female, in her 20’s, converting for mixed reasons, highly educated, of an upper middle class socio-economic status, and converting in the context of marriage to a Jew. Her conversion was not a

44 sudden one and she very likely spent at least several months studying Judaism before it

took place. She likely came from an intact middle class home. Her parents and friends

had mixed feelings about her marriage and conversion and she has experienced some

problems being accepted by the Jewish community and dealing with ethnic issues. Her

levels of religious observance were generally equal to those of JBBs. If she had children,

she saw that they got a Jewish education and a Bar/Bat Mitzvah celebration, and they very likely identified as Jews.

It is clear that these studies on converts to Judaism were mainly descriptive and quantitative in type. They focused on describing who converts to Judaism and why and on describing the outcome of conversion in terms of religious observance, ethnic issues, and Jewish identity of the converts and of their children. Only tu'o researchers,

Huberman (1978) and Montgomery (1991), went beyond description and attempted to statistically identify variables that contributed to successful conversion experiences.

Looking at a combination of identity, religious observance, and ethnic issues to rate the depth of involvement in Judaism, Huberman (1978, 1982) portrayed his results by drawing seven concentric circles (p. 145 of this paper). The outermost circle was for

Non-Jews, that is, people who had repudiated Judaism and their conversion; they made up about 7% of converts in Huberman’s study. The central circle stands for Integral

Converts and these people were at the other extreme. They were living a “Jewish rhythm,” socialized almost exclusively with other Jews, observed many Jewish rituals, and were very involved in Jewish concerns; these people made up about 12% of

Huberman’s sample (Huberman, 1982).

4 5 Huberman (1978, 1982) used an ANOVA to find which variables most influenced

a participant’s placement within the circles. The variable with the most influence was the

importance of Judaism to the convert’s spouse and this accounted for 20% of the variance

in the convert’s Jewish commitment. If Judaism was very important to the Jewish

spouse, then it tended to be very important to the convert and vice versa. In some cases

the convert brings the Jewish spouse closer to Judaism as participation in Introduction to

Judaism classes teaches them more about Judaism. And in about 15% of the cases in

Huberman’s study the convert scores higher on Jewishness than their JBB spouse!

The second most important variable was the relationship with in-laws and their

commitment to Judaism, which accounted for 16% of the convert’s score. The rabbi was

the third most important variable; Jewish friends were fourth. Fifth was the age of the

convert and the number of years since conversion. People in the 40-49 age group were

significantly more involved in Jewish activities than those in the 20-29 age group.

Huberman suggested this was because having and raising children Jewishly caused people to be more involved in synagogue activities and the younger people hadn’t had that experience yet. Another possibility, which Huberman does not mention, is that people who are approaching middle age and issues about aging and death might feel more need for religion in their lives.

A high degree of closeness with parents was negatively associated with the convert’s Jewishness and integration into the Jewish community. Huberman speculated that it is the wish not to hurt the parents that kept these people from becoming more

Jewish.

46 Variables that did not statistically influence convert’s scores were former religion,

importance of religion in the childhood home, amount of religious education in the

former faith, extent of religious youth group participation, and gender of the convert.

Montgomery (1991) wrote “conversion to Judaism is a process which involves

formal acceptance of a religious ideology, adjustment to the community and assumption

of a new social identity” (p. I ). Her model, which borrowed from sociological theories on

assimilation of immigrants, hypothesized that successful assimilation of Jews by Choice

into the Jewish community was dependent upon several variables. She hypothesized that

the strength of the “desire for inclusion” in the community and the behavioral

manifestations of this (“participates in activities,” "develops Jewish network,” and “gains

knowledge”) would be important variables. The behavior of the “welcoming

community” she hypothesized would also be important to resocialize the convert and

would include “confirms status,” “provides experiences,” “articulates demands.” and

“encourages participation.” “Ties to the old setting” (“retains old network” and

“participates in activities”) she thought would work against successful assimilation. She

hypothesized that all three of these variables would influence an intervening variable,

“sense of belonging to the local Jewish community” and this would then influence the degree of Jewish identity the convert gained. She wrote that Jewish identity has three parts to it: an ethnic part, a theological part, and a ritual part (p. 34).

While Montgomery’s model was not supported overall, certain parts of it were.

For example, the convert’s “desire for inclusion” was associated with a sense of belonging to the community (p. 125). She found that participation in organizational activities was the “singularly most significant variable associated with any of the

47 dimensions o f Jewish social identity” (p. 128). In Montgomery’s (1991) sample of

converts, 5% “have not made any serious attempt to become truly Jewish” (p. 112).

Two aspects of the Jewish community response to converts’ attempts to join the

community were also important. They were "confirming the status” of the convert as a

Jew and also to "provide pleasant experiences for them” (p. 124). But 75% of the

respondents reported they felt JBBs do not think JBCs are Jews and, in fact, 45% had

been referred to as “not really Jewish” (p. 93). When asked if they were Jewish, 87%

said yes, 8% said they were confused, and 5% said no (p. 96). Some people responded

that they felt more like Jews when they were with Gentiles than when they were with

Jews; the difference was the Gentiles believed they were Jews while the JBBs didn’t

always think so.

Variables found to have no association to the level of Jewish identity that was achieved were “pull from the people and traditions from the old social setting” (p. 126),

“sense of belonging to the Jewish community, age, sex, educational level, occupational status, income, childhood security, religious environment in childhood, and length of time preparing for conversion (p. 126).

These studies seldom taook into account the amount of time that had passed since the conversion took place. We saw in an earlier study on conversion to Christianity

(Paloutzian, 1981) that the convert’s Purpose of Life and Values Changes scores fluctuated from very high right after conversion, then dropping to fairly low levels, then rising to an intermediate level and staying there at six months and longer. It is not clear at all if there is a similar fluctuation in converts to Judaism or not and there is no information on what may happen over the years. Until there is some effort to measure

48 converts over time this will not be known. It is not hard to imagine that with increasing participation in Jewish activities and forming friendship ties over an extended time in the

Jewish community that Jewish identity both ethnically and religiously could deepen very much. On the other hand, if the convert faces rejection and/or gives up on attempting to join the community, the outcome could be that the convert does not feel Jewish at all.

Clearly both outcomes are possible and both happen. Time since conversion is one of the issues that will be considered in the present study.

This chapter began with a discussion of some of the early explorations on the topic of religious conversion. Then it narrowed to a discussion of recent studies on conversion to Judaism. This included findings on who converts and why and the outcome in regards to religious observance, ethnicity, social identity, and the rearing of children in conversionary against mixed households. There followed a discussion and summary. Next is a presentation of what the current study proposed to do and how that was done.

49 CHAPTER 3

METHODOLOGY

Lincoln and Cuba (1985) wrote about the phenomenon of “knowing what we don’t know” (p. 269). The previous chapter contained an overview of pertinent information that has been gained from the quantitative research that has been completed so far on the topic of religious conversion to Judaism. However, just like any other research paradigm, quantitative research has limitations, and this is especially noticeable when there is a lack of qualitative research to fill in some of the holes that are left by those limits.

The information that we don’t know, i.e., one of the "holes,” is related to the questions: (I) What is the experience like for people who convert to Judaism? (2) How does conversion to Judaism occur? (3) Is there a pattern of experiences or stages that can be identified that takes place during the conversion process? The quantitative research done so far on conversion to Judaism has focused mainly on evaluating and describing the outcome of conversion with a few questions on what variables are related to positive outcomes (Huberman, 1978; Montgomery, 1991). This fits with a positivistic scientific approach to research where the assumption is that there is an objective “truth” out there and that the job of research is to find that truth which is then used for “the ultimate aim of science [which] is to predict and control natural phenomena” (Guba, 1990, p. 19). The

50 Scientific Method is used which means that a theory is chosen or created, hypotheses are

formed, a sample is chosen and the theory is tested (Greene, 1990; Schwandt, 1990).

Montgomery (1991) used this method when she formed hypotheses about the theory of

assimilation of immigrants and tested the applicability of that theory to conversion to

Judaism. If this study had employed this method then a different theory would be

chosen, hypotheses would be formed, a sample would be located, and the theory would

be tested.

Instead, I proposed to ask converts to tell their stories to me so their experiences

could be compared and analyzed to see if there were common trends or stages that they

went through. This project was based on an “interpretive paradigm” (Denzin, 1989a.

1989b, 1998). In this type of study the approach to inquiry is inductive in nature;

hypotheses are not formed a priori and then tested by the research data. Rather, the

researcher decides on a topic he/she wants to know more about and information is

gathered through observation and interviews with participants. Because it is particularly

important that the researcher not impose his/her own understanding of the topic on the

participant, standardized questionnaires and standardized interviews are not used here;

the interviewer him/herself is the instrument. Data gathering is more open-ended and less

structured than in the positivist methods and the participant helps to determine the nature

and direction of the inquiry. If interxdews are used, an effort is made to have the

participants explain how they understand the topic, what their experience of it is, and

what meaning it has for them. The information gathered is then analyzed and interpreted

by the researcher and/or by the research team. Similarities and differences in the patterns of participants’ viewpoints are often identified. Although some quantitative data may be

51 gathered and may be included in the findings in this type of research, there is no effort to

subject this information to statistical analyses or to establish probability levels.

The assumptions underlying interpretative research (Greene, 1990. Guba, 1990)

are related to those of the positivist approach although somewhat different. One of the biggest differences between positivist researchers and interpretive researchers is that

interpretive researchers believe that there are multiple realities, not just one. Another is that reality is socially constructed out of interactions with others. Political forces, gender, race, class, culture, and language are just some of the variables that go into how people construct their vision of or their phenomenological understanding of the world and of their experience in the world.

In order to try to tap these multiple meanings, interpretive researchers are more inclined to use an “emic” approach (Greene, 1990) to gathering information in research.

That is, they get much closer to participants and do not maintain the distance that positivist researchers do; they try to understand the viewpoint of the participants by at least partially joining with them and, in this way, they get a much closer perspective.

Interpretive researchers also see research as being value-bound; although they strive for some objectivity, they are more aware of the limitations to that and they try harder to be aware of how their own biases and viewpoints are affecting their work.

These assumptions affect the methods used by interpretive researchers, who often use unstructured or semi-structured interviews and ask probing, not leading questions.

This is done to help understand the respondent’s point of view and to minimize the researcher’s influence on the answers. Another source of data for the interpretive researcher is the feelings and impressions of the interviewer. These are recorded in field

52 notes made during and after interviews. In this kind of research the interviewer is the

instrument and the interviewer’s experience is part of tlie data that is important. Though

interpretative researchers have knowledge of theories and other research, they try to hear

what their respondents are telling them and to minimize the tendency to be influenced in

their listening by already existing theories and other findings.

This different approach and resulting different methodology has the effect of

putting the researchers closer to the participants than positivist researchers where there is

often little or no personal involvement between the researchers and the subjects who

simply complete a questionnaire.

Rationale for Methodology

Although use of techniques and concepts from other models were also employed,

the main research model used in this study was "Interpretive Interactionism” as Norman

Denzin (1989a, 1989b, 1998) explained it. This model focuses on understanding what

life-transforming experiences are like, how they occur, and the meanings given to them

from the viewpoints of the people who undergo these events (1989a). Denzin lists

religious conversion as an example of a life-transforming event, which he calls an

"epiphany.” After such an event, the person is never quite the same again and one’s view of life and its meaning are never quite the same again. "In epiphanies, personal character

is manifested and made apparent” (1998, p. 335). An example that Denzin gave of such an experience is that of an alcoholic who hits rock bottom in his/her life and decides to change and stops drinking (1989a).

Denzin wrote that research topics should emerge from and be based on the experiences and biography of the researcher (1989a). This is certainly the case with this

53 topic as I converted to Judaism over two years ago myself. My own experiences and the understandings and meanings that I have given to them informed the research questions and the interviews that were conducted. It was extremely important, however, that I also kept myself open to hearing what the research participants said about their experiences and that I not impose my own experience and/or understandings onto them. As a practicing clinician for the last 24 years, I have had a lot of experience with this, as this is also a very important skill in the type of psychotherapy that I do.

Another way that Denzin’s model fits with this topic is that it pays attention to the link between personal issues and experiences and larger social policies. Denzin explained that interpretive interactionism can be used to evaluate programs and policies.

In this study which focuses on converts to Judaism, a minority group within a minority group, there exists the possibility of feedback from the smaller group to the larger group.

In other words, this study can function as a way for converts to exercise their "voice” which can then help to fine-tune conversion programs.

Procedures

Denzin (1989a) listed six steps or phases to the interpretive process (p. 48). They are framing, deconstruction, capturing, bracketing, construction, and contextualization.

A description of the procedures of this study is presented within this framework.

Framing the research question.

As explained above, this research project grew out of my personal history and my curiosity about what the experience of conversion to Judaism is like for others. To that end, the main research goal was to answer the questions: (I) What is the experience like

54 for people who convert to Judaism? (2) How does conversion to Judaism occur? (3) Is there a pattern of experiences or stages that can be identified tliat takes place during the conversion process?

Chapter One included a description of the political context and history within which the conversion experience takes place. This serves to locate the phenomenon of conversion to Judaism and this study historically and sociologically.

Deconstruction

This stage involves a critical analysis of the research that has been done on this topic to date. Previous conceptions and findings are what are deconstructed or taken apart and looked at with a critical eye. This was done in Chapter Two. the Review of

Literature. The chapter began with a broad definition of religious conversion research and then was narrowed to focus on conversion to Judaism research and this was presented and discussed. This helps to give a context for where this study fits in and what it adds to the larger body of work that has been done.

Capture

Here is where data collection takes place. Sites where this experience takes place are identified and efforts are made to involve participants in the study. Interviews are then conducted and biographical material is collected from the participants.

Location. Since the formal ritual of conversion takes place in a synagogue with a rabbi that seemed a logical place to begin to find study participants. Therefore I placed a notice in the monthly bulletin for a local synagogue in a large Midwest city. It read:

5 3 Often after a significant change has occurred in our lives it feels good to tell our story to someone. As part of my dissertation study to learn more about the experience of conversion to Judaism, 1 need to interview some people who. like me, have converted. I would like to talk to people at all stages of the process — from those who are preparing for conversion to those who did it many years ago. Volunteering would involve two interviews of approximately one hour each. If you are a Jew by Choice and would be willing to share your story, please call Diane Centolella at xxx-xxxx.

Eleven people responded to this notice and/or to word-of-mouth requests that I

circulated in the local Jewish community. As there were no men who volunteered

initially, special efforts were made to include men in the study. As there is a custom in

Judaism that one should not mention to someone that you know they are a convert so that you don’t embarrass them, 1 had to drop hints by telling people about my research and also that I needed men to participate. Two men graciously picked up the hints and responded by volunteering. This gave a total pool of 13 possible participants.

Selection of Participants. Ten people were interviewed for the study; this was the point where '"saturation” occurred (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). There was an attempt to talk with people who were at different temporal points in the process and to provide some variation in age and situation. A few demographic questions were asked on the telephone to help with this procedure. Name, address, phone number, date of conversion, denomination, marital status, children, education, and occupation were all information that was gathered by telephone.

Data Collection. A questionnaire was developed to assist in the interviewing process. A copy o f it is included in Appendix C. Changes were first made on the advice of the dissertation committee and then again later during and after the first two interviews to respond to the feedback of the participants. People who were interviewed were encouraged to enlarge and expand upon the information that was specifically requested. 56 Participants were asked to imagine that we were writing a book together about their

experience with conversion. The first chapter of this book was background information

about them and what led them to this experience. Next followed a description of the

experience and what it was like for them. Subsequent chapters followed the topics as

they were enumerated in the questiormaire. The interviewer attempted to maintain a

balance between being open to following the participant's interests and flowing where

their energy flowed and the need to get information on the questions for the study.

Again, this is an experience I deal with a lot in doing psychotherapy where there are times when I like to get certain kinds of information (Intake interviews, for example) such as history and background while the client is upset and only wants to talk about the presenting problem.

Effort was made to phrase the questions as invitations to story telling. Recently criticisms have been directed against some qualitative researchers because of the types of questions they ask which seem to invite sociological reports from participants rather than stories (Chase, in press). Chase suggested that it is important questions are worded so that they refer to participants’ lives rather tlian sociological or psychological theories.

While there was no pilot study per se in this study, the participants, especially the early ones, were asked for feedback on the interview. This helped to refine the questions.

Interviews were conducted in participants’ homes where that was possible in order to assure comfort for participants. This happened with five people. Two people were interviewed at my counseling office, two in my home, and one in an office at a local synagogue. All of these locations were private and quiet.

57 Several sources of data were used for this study. First, interviews were tape- recorded and these tapes were transcribed word for word by this researcher. The transcriptions were then read while the tapes were played to check for accuracy.

Secondly, ethnographic field notes (Emerson, Fretz, & Shaw, 1995) were made right after each interview which included my perceptions of the setting, the participant’s emotional response to questions, and my own reactions, both emotional and intellectual, to the interview experience. Once again, my experience as a psychotherapist was relevant as I make notes like this after every session with a client.

Though these experiences were not formally used when doing data analysis, 1 also participated in many different types of activities and in religious services in the Jewish community and this makes this emic research (Greene, 1990). I have observed several more public conversions since my own and have spoken to many people who are either considering conversion, in the process of conversion, or who have completed conversion.

As it became known in our congregation that I was doing research on conversion, more and more people (both Jews by Choice and Jews by Birth) would ask me when they had a question about or wanted to talk about some aspect of conversion.

I also participate in a Jewish Book Club at my synagogue and some of the books we have discussed have dealt with the topic of conversion. For example, several months ago we discussed Turbulent Souls, a book by Stephen Dubner about his own return to

Judaism which was very similar to a conversion since he had been raised Catholic. I was also in an e-mail group (“Friends of Ruth’’) which is for people who are somewhere in the process of conversion (including just considering it but not decided yet). This is a place where people discuss their experiences and share information with one another. Also

58 since conversion is a "'hot topic” in Judaism now, the topic often emerged in other situations that I participated in. For example, the topic came up several times at the

Melton Adult Mini-School, a two-year program that I attended at the Jewish Community

Center.

A further source of data for this project was the reflexive journal that I kept. This is a diary where 1 kept notes about my own feelings and experiences as 1 went through this research process. I also noted methodological decisions that were made and problems that were dealt with and the reasons for these decisions (Lincoln & Guba,

1985).

Bracketing

This phase of research is where the analysis of the stories, or data, takes place. In

Denzin's words. “It (the phenomenon) is taken out of the world where it occurs. . . . and taken apart and dissected. Its elements and essential structures are uncovered, defined, and analyzed” (1989a, p. 55).

In this phase of this study, the transcribed interviews were read and compared to the audiotapes. First the interviews were coded by topics that were in the interview questions. These topics provided an “analytical framework” (Patterson. 1990).

Responses were put into charts with participant names down the side and with question across the top. Looking horizontally across all of the charts, each person's answers to all of the questions were written into a conversion history for each person. These were then sent to and approved by each participant.

The charts were also compared vertically. This allowed for answers to questions to be compared across all of the research participants. Also, different charts were

59 compared with other charts, which allowed for comparisons betw^een responses to

different questions. Themes were identified and interviews were coded again as to theme

(Emerson et al. 1995) and more comparisons were made. For example, one interview

question was about how others reacted to conversion. Responses were first coded for the

interview question. A theme that emerged was whether or not others accepted the

conversion and interviews were coded on that topic. Next the topic of acceptance was

further broken down into sub-categories of comments about acceptance of conversion by

the Jewish community and comments about acceptance of conversion by the non-Jewish

community; comments about non-acceptance by both of these groups were also coded.

References to these four sub-categories were tallied and this allowed for the discovery of

trends in the data. Upon a further comparison of answers across participants, it was found that they also talked mainly about parents, spouses, and children. Answers were then flirther coded into those sub-categories and compared in that way too.

Construction

In the bracketing phase the interviews and information are taken apart and in construction these parts are put back together again into a “coherent whole” (Denzin,

1989a, p. 58). Though Denzin listed these as two different phases, they are also stages that are very related. There was a shift in thinking in this stage to fitting the pieces back together again. A larger “story” was possible then, which is a compendium of all of the stories, though of course variations in experiences were also noted.

Contextualization

This is where the findings are fed back to the larger society. In this study, perhaps an article might be published in Reform Judaism, a quarterly magazine that carries

60 articles that are of interest to Reform Jews. As mentioned in Chapter One, Jews in ail denominations are struggling with the topic of conversion and the information gained in this study may be helpful in forming policies and programs to deal with conversion and intermarriage.

Trustworthiness

Lincoln and Guba (1985) listed four areas that conventional, that is. quantitative or positivistic. researchers use to show "that the findings of an inquiry are worth paying attention to” (Lincoln & Guba, 1985, p. 290). Naturalistic inquirers have developed different but related criteria for those four areas. The next section of this paper will present Lincoln and Guba's (1985) ideas and that will be followed by a discussion of how trustworthiness was handled in this project.

The first area is "truth value." As already mentioned, positivist researchers believe that there is an objective truth that is out there and they attempt to find it. They try to achieve this by attempting to control variables, both by controlling the procedures in the research and by controlling the sampling of the population. For example, in research to determine if anxiety affects test scores, they would want to make sure that all participants were subjected to the same conditions: same room, same anxiety-producing stimuli, same test, same tester (or at least someone who attempts to show the same behavior). They would also want a randomly selected population that is large enough to approximate a normal curve in intelligence and prior experience of anxiety. The qualitative researcher almost always has a smaller sample since qualitative research is far more labor intensive. The setting for qualitative research will be more likely to be natural

(someone’s home, for example) rather than in a controlled laboratory, and the qualitative

61 researcher has less of a belief that there is one "objective truth.” "Credibility” is the word

that Lincoln and Cuba (1985) use to describe the naturalist researcher's approach to this

area. Believing in multiply constructed realities that are at least partly subjective, they

suggest that the researcher’s job is to "carry out the inquiry in such a way that the

probability that the findings will be found to be credible is enhanced” (Lincoln & Cuba,

1985, p. 296). Secondly, they suggest that the participants whose realities are being presented should be shown the findings for approval (member checking is one way to do this) to make sure that the researcher "got it right.”

A second question for conventional researchers is "How applicable are the findings?” That is, are they generalizable to other people and other situations? A finding that is only true in the laboratory would not be very useful in the classroom, for example.

Qualitative researchers expect that, as conditions vary and populations vary, research findings too will vary. They use "thick description” so that others can determine if the sample and the situation that was used in the findings is very similar to the sample they are thinking about and, if so, then it is more likely that they will decide that the findings will transfer to that other group.

The third topic for the conventional researcher is "consistency." often referred to as reliability. Replication is the technique most often used to show reliability.

Naturalistic researchers use a different term here too. They prefer the term

“dependability” and Lincoln and Guba (1985) suggest four ways to meet this criterion.

First is to argue that there can be no credibility without dependability so this need not be shown separately. Second is use of "overlap methods,” third is "stepwise replication.”

62 and fourth is the “inquiry audit.’" They seemed to prefer the second and fourth methods as

being the most useful and practical (Lincoln & Guba. 1985, p. 316-318).

The fourth area the conventional researcher is concerned with is "neutrality” or

objectivity. This condition is met by keeping the researcher in the role as distant outside

observer and an attempt is made to keep the research value-free. Lincoln and Guba

(1985) prefer the term "confirmability.” Here the objectivity of the researcher is not the

issue but instead the issue is whether or not the data and the research techniques can be

confirmed. Documenting all activities, thoughts, and feelings related to the project and

keeping all transcripts, tapes, fieldnotes of all activities is one way to do this. Lincoln

and Guba (1985) call this leaving an "audit trail” which makes it possible for an auditor

to check to see that the research actually occurred in the way it is reported to have

occurred.

Several methods were used in this study to increase trustworthiness. Several

forms of "triangulation” were employed (Huberman & Miles, 1998; Lincoln & Guba,

1985). In the data collection section I have already described the several sources of data that I collected and used in the analysis.

In this study, the data captured in interviews was not checked for truthfulness with any outside sources, another example of triangulation. Given the nature of this study and the possibility of vulnerability of the participants, efforts were made to keep the information that was given confidential. Participants were shown the life stories that were written from the interviews that had been conducted. This allowed the researcher to make sure the participants were comfortable with the amount of information contained in the interviews and with my attempts to camouflage each person’s identity. A few minor

63 changes were made here to protect confidentiality. This “member checking” (Lincoln &

Guba, 1985) was also used to make sure that each person was accurately represented.

There were few changes needed as most people felt they had been represented accurately

though there were a few additions where interviewees wanted something explained more

extensively. The additions are noted as “information that was added in a later e-mail.” In

two cases this required some negotiation. Interviewees wanted their quotes changed so

that they sounded more formal and grammatically correct. In both cases I persuaded

them to leave the quotes untouched so that the sense of the interview as a spontaneous

conversation could be maintained. Once they understood the reason, they agreed.

By introducing more than one source of data and more than one researcher to

interpret the data, it is hoped that the biases and/or limitations of one source for data and

of one researcher will be balanced by other sources and other opinions. “Peer debriefing"

(Lincoln & Guba, 1985) is another kind of triangulation that was used in this project.

Particular emphasis was placed on having some debriefers that were Jewish. This helped

ensure that I interpreted cultural factors correctly. As I have only been a Jew for about

two and a half years and no one on my final committee was Jewish, it helped to have

people with background in the Jewish culture to help me with this part of the project.

Three people served in this capacity. One was a psychology professor at The Ohio State

University and one was a journalist and an editor of an education journal at The Ohio

State University. A rabbi who works extensively with converts also read this

dissertation. All three were bora Jewish. A fourth peer debriefer was a non-Jew who was studying Judaism and considering conversion. A fifth reader was one of the research

participants.

64 There were two main types of codes that were used with this data. First they were

coded as to information content as it relates to tlie questions the interviewer asked. This

helped to gather all the responses to questions together so they could be compared and

contrasted. To ensure trustworthiness with this coding a second person, an economist

who often does qualitative research as a consultant, coded two randomly selected

interviews. Agreement was almost 100%.

The data were also coded as to themes that emerged from the stories. Several people were used to ensure trustworthiness here. First, the researcher made a list of themes. One of the people mentioned above also read four of the transcribed interviews and we discussed and compared our impressions of the interviews and of the themes they conveyed. This list was then discussed and compared with the themes that the dissertation committee members had identified in reading the story summaries. Next, a list of codes was devised from these themes and this researcher re-coded the ten transcribed interviews with these codes. Using these same codes, a second person then coded two randomly selected transcribed interviews. This coding was then compared and was found to match 82% of the time. The differences were then discussed and categories were further refined and defined.

I also documented activities and some of the emotional and intellectual process that I went through as this project was completed. This “audit trail” has been saved so that the project could be confirmed, if necessary.

As mentioned above, my dissertation advisor and committee also functioned as a check on trustworthiness by watching over this project and by questioning me. Three

65 were very knowledgeable about and experienced in qualitative research and the fourth was very knowledgeable about and experienced in quantitative research.

Limitations of the Methodology

In attempting to identify a process that takes place over time as religious conversion does, it would be preferable to follow the same participants over time.

However interviewing different people at different places in the process has been used quite often as a substitute tactic for longitudinal research and this design fits better with the time limitations of a dissertation deadline and this was the method that was used in this project. This method relies more on participants’ memories of their experiences.

Some of these participants converted many years ago (the most distant conversion was 36 years ago) and participants couldn't always remember answers to some questions though with other questions, they became very lively and seemed to remember even minor details. Since the time elapsed since conversion ranged from 36 years ago to one and one half years ago, this type of approach doesn’t take into account the different political and social effects of conversion as they relate to a particular historical time. For example, conversion to Judaism in the year 2000 is probably more socially acceptable than conversion was in 1964 was when there wasn’t as much emphasis on cultural pluralism and acceptance of other cultures.

Another limitation of this study is that there were only ten participants. This brings up questions about how representative the sample was and how transferable the results will be. There is a trade-off that occurs in choosing between quantitative and qualitative research. Since quantitative is less labor-intensive, it is easier to have large samples. However, qualitative research, while it is more labor-intensive and therefore

66 restrictive in numbers of participants, can provide much more in-depth information from each person. In-depth information can then be the source for developing grounded theory

(Strauss & Corbin, 1998) which can then be tested quantitatively with larger samples.

67 CHAPTER 4

F[ND[NGS

Demographics of the Participants

The ten participants in this study have been Jewish an average of 15.3 years. The

shortest time since conversion was 1.5 years and the person who has been Jewish the

longest converted 36 years ago. Age at the time of conversion tended to form two

clusters. One cluster was in their early twenties, when four people converted, and one

cluster was in their late thirties, when four other people converted. The remaining two

people converted at the ages of 47 and 57. Age at the time of the inter\dews ranged from

34 to 60. Two of the research participants were male; eight were female.

At the time of the interviews, five of the research participants were married to spouses who had been bom Jewish, two were single, two were married to non-Jewish men, and one was married to another Jew-by-Choice. For eight people, their primary reason for converting was a conviction that the Jewish religion fit them better than did

Christianity or any other religion. The two others, although they also mentioned things about Judaism that they preferred over Christianity, said that they converted primarily for family reasons, that is, they would have the same religion as their husbands and so they would not have an interfaith marriage.

6 8 The highest level of education attained ranged from one woman who had a Ph.D.

to one who was a college student at the time of the interview. In between, one person had

completed all but her dissertation on her doctorate, two had Master’s Degrees and the rest

had Bachelor’s Degrees. Four people had undergraduate majors in religion and/or philosophy and one had partially studied for the priesthood but had dropped out. All but the two people who were single owned their own homes and all were living stable middle or upper middle class lives, based on their homes, occupations, and their spouses’ occupations. Information on occupation is not being presented in order to preserve confidentiality.

Life Histories

In this section the life history of each research participant (all names are pseudonyms) will be told. This information was related to this researcher during semi- structured interviews conducted in the fall and winter of 2000-2001.

Each story follows a similar format and includes religious background, first contacts with Jews and/or Judaism, forming a relationship with Jews and/or Judaism, conversion preparation, conversion ceremony, changes in relationships with others, other changes, and forming a Jewish identity.

Story # I - Terry

Terry’s conversion to Judaism took place in 1964 when she was 23 years old; she was 59 at the time of this interview. Here is her story:

Terry’s religious background was Catholicism and she said, “I was the most practicing Catholic of any of my brothers and sisters. This made my father very proud.”

Terry’s father was Catholic while her mother was Lutheran. Terry remembered her

69 father traveling a lot for business and her mother “who was not that enthused about

Catholicism" doing the majority of religious education in their house "with very little

support.” On Sunday, which was often the only day she would see her father, everyone

but mother would attend Church and, while Terry was confirmed, it was at a later age

than the other children were.

Terry remembered facing discrimination as a Catholic when she was growing up.

She characterized this as being “like what Jews have experienced." She mentioned boys

who were not allowed to date her because she was Catholic and also an experience at a

Girls’ State Convention where one of the girls was warned that she should not socialize with a Catholic after she had made plans to go out with Terry. In college Terry's sorority took a vote on whether or not they v/anted to live with a Catliolic before they admitted her.

Terry’s first contact with Judaism or Jews was that she remembers having a neighbor who was Jewish. “And that was it. It wasn’t good, bad. anything. Just I knew that they were Jewish." She later knew a Jewish woman in college “who was very smart, very fat, and very out-spoken" and “didn’t leave a very positive impression."

Terry was also in college when she learned that her mother’s stepfather had been bom a Jew; he had converted to Christianity when he married Terry’s grandmother.

Terry described him as “the only grandfather I ever knew." Terry remembered him teaching her a few Yiddish words though at the time she learned them she didn’t know they were Yiddish.

She first thought of conversion at the age of 23 when she was dating a man who had been bom Jewish and who later became her husband. In her words, “I wasn’t that

70 exposed to Judaism and I wouldn't have probably thought about it if I hadn’t been dating

him.” She wanted to be of the same religion as her husband because she didn't want to end up in the same position as her mother, trying to pass on and teach a religious tradition that she didn’t believe to her children. She reported she felt no pressure to convert from her fiancé or his family. Another factor in her decision was that she was unhappy about

“the Catholic church’s attitude about women, about birth control, and about abortion”

Terry liked the fact that in Judaism “there weren’t so many things telling you what to believe” and that “you had an obligation to find out what you believe” which she found both “extremely scary” and also “releasing.” She also liked the Jewish idea “that

Jesus existed, Jesus was a good person, a good example, but the messiah hasn't come and we have to make more of an effort to prepare the environment for a messiah.” This spoke to the question "if Jesus was the messiah how come things are so bad?” which she had wondered about.

Terry’s fiancé got a referral for Terry to a Reform rabbinic student. As her preparation for conversion, she met with this student 6 or 7 times, “sometimes with and sometimes without” her fiancé. She described it as “a very 60's informal kind of thing where we sat down and talked about the meaning of life.” She was given some books to read which were “more about philosophy and spirituality” and were “zero about religious practices.”

The conversion ceremony took place on the same day as her wedding. She described the ceremony, “I was in the rabbi’s office with some witnesses and he said a few things and said a prayer and that was it. . . . I signed the papers and so did he and that was it. That was all there was to it.” “It felt scary,” she added.

71 Terry’s parents were '‘vehemently opposed” to her conversion and her marriage.

Her father and her fiancé had a “huge argument.” Before the wedding she “was offered a

cruise to forget him.” Her parents rented a limo and went to the synagogue on the day of

the wedding but then her “father refused to go in.” Her father had her "officially

excommunicated” from the Catholic Church in "some kind of ceremony.” Her parents

“disowned” her and there was very little contact for the next eight years until the 70’s when she began to see them 3-5 times a year. On the few occasions that they did get together she says, "my father became anti-Semitic.” "He would sit and point out negative things. He would point out that there was a Jew involved” while "my mother would get furious with him.” Terry said he got a little better when she "finally spoke up” to him.

Terry experienced some culture shock when she first met her husband’s family.

Invited for dinner, she remembers:

I had never sat at anybody’s table where anything like this ever went on in my life! They corrected each other and the volume was something else. 1 don’t see how anybody knew what anybody else was saying because they were too busy saying something. It was something else!

This was quite different for someone who “came from a home in which my parents never argued in front of the kids.” Her reaction, “I think I was just astounded and maybe aghast.” Despite this reaction to their conversational style at the dinner table, Terry describes her in-laws as “terrific.” She said “it wasn’t very long until I was their daughter” and that “felt good because I was being told quite clearly that I was not somebody else’s daughter any more.” Her feelings were hurt, however, when her new in­ laws did not attend her wedding because they felt they couldn’t close their store during their busiest season. 72 After the wedding, Terry “found out just how little a practicing Jew my husband was.” Like her mother, she ended up being in charge of the religious education of the children. She states “I don’t think he (husband) ever took the kids to religious school unless I was sick” thougli in her case this was more a result of disinterest on her husband’s part rather than business travel like it was for her father. Her husband “didn’t like going to services. Consequently the kids didn’t like going to services.” At the boys’

Bar Mitzvah, "my husband got up there to say the prayer during the reading of the Torah and it turned out he had not practiced and he couldn’t do it.” Because of lack of help from her husband and her own “embarrassment” and fear of asking others for help, "it was a struggle and my kids on the whole do not have very positive enthusiastic feelings” about their religion and “some of the joyful things about Judaism - they don’t have that.”

She reported that now “one son is ambivalent about Judaism. One son is resentful.” She now feels “guilt that I didn’t do something - that I didn’t make the efforts to be more knowledgeable ... you name it and there are guilts all over the place there.”

At first “Christmas was hugely hard for me for a number of years and a very sad day” and she missed the “many traditions” including the “midnight mass which is absolutely gorgeous” and which she used to attend prior to her conversion. She explained that “there was a kind of a void. Things that had been meaningful were not there.” She “wanted more understanding of the religion” (Judaism) and “probably more than anything else I wanted some traditions.”

Though it was too late to help her children while they were growing up, Terry has found some meaning in Judaism for herself. She said, “Yom Kippur to me is a beautiful and meaningful day.” And though she doesn’t go to services very often, when she does

73 go, she frequently “will find a word or phrase or a paragraph and I may even forget to sit down because I get thinking about that.” And today, now that she is older and more assertive, she does sometimes go to Adult Education programs. She has been very active in Sisterhood activities, participates in social action projects through the synagogue, and, she added in a later email communication, has served on several boards and committees in Jewish community organizations. She wants to do things that will “make this world even just a tiny bit better - to know that 1 can do that — which to me is a part of Judaism.”

Though embarrassment and lack of knowledge is still a problem for her, today she is more likely to say, “what does that mean?” if someone uses a Yiddish word or a concept or phrase that she does not understand.

When asked if she feels like she is “really Jewish,” Terry responded by saying,

“Ummmmm, yeah. Yeah. I’ve picked up some things, not anyways near what anyone should know.” Though she has friends who are Orthodox and seem to accept her, she resents the official position of Orthodoxy in the U.S. and in Israel which is that she would not be accepted as a Jew because of her Reform conversion. “But,” she says, “that doesn’t make that much difference to me any more.”

Storv #2 - Kate

Kate’s conversion took place in 1969 when she was in her 20’s. She was “in her fifties” at the time of this interview.

When asked about her religious background, Kate said “my maternal grandmother was quite religious and she is the one who took me to Sunday School.” She reported that her grandfather probably never “set foot in a Church.” Kate’s mother took the middle ground and “went occasionally” to Church. Her parents were divorced so Kate had “no

74 father around.” Kate said she was a “star pupil” in the Sunday School class where her

grandmother took her every week and she was confirmed in a Lutheran Church.

Despite her academic success at the Church, Kate stated “it wasn’t that I was real

religious — I was not.” There were two things that bothered her about Christianity even

as a “little kid.” The first was the idea of the Trinity and the second was the idea of the

Virgin Birth. As she put it, “I just could never get it through my head how one person

could be three” and “it didn’t make sense at some point that one person could have a child by themselves.” She said, “1 couldn’t rationalize those things. It just never fit for me.” Another source of discomfort for her in the Church was the Christian symbols in the décor. She said “our Church was not so bad but seeing some of these Churches in

Europe and blood is coming out everywhere. Or Mexico, you see it there too.”

Kate reported that the first time she heard of Jews was in her Sunday School classes. Also her mother worked as a housekeeper and baby-sitter for a Jewish family during the Depression. Her first experience of anti-Semitism came tfom reading criticisms in movie magazines about Tony Curtis, who was Jewish, marrying Janet Leigh, who was not. The first direct contact she remembered having with Jewish people was when she did volunteer work with the Democratic Party for John Kennedy, before she was old enough to vote. She reported that “somebody’s religion or color is just not something I think about.”

Kate said she was in her early 20’s when she began thinking about converting to

Judaism. She was reading about religions, including Judaism and some Eastern religions.

Although she liked the “serenity” of some of the Eastern religions, she was somewhat disenchanted with that idea when she observed people in Thailand praying to win the

75 lottery “over and over and over again.” One of the things she liked about Judaism was ”I didn’t see the hypocrisy that I thought I saw in some other religions. Because I knew people who professed to be quite religious but didn’t always do such nice things.” She qualifies that by saying, “of course we (Jews) have a history to show that too.” The main draw for her was the “freedom of thought” and having “more intellectual leeway in that it wasn’t so doctrinaire.” She decided that “the best fit for me was Judaism. 1 still believe that” and “1 wouldn’t go against my instincts on something like that. It’s more than instincts — you have a lot of knowledge.”

Kate stated that “the last time 1 went to Church was the Sunday after Kennedy was assassinated.” Even though she was thinking about converting, there was only one synagogue in her town and that was either Conservative or Orthodox, rather than Reform.

She did not want that kind o f conversion because she viewed it as being “rigid.” By 1967 when she met her current husband who had been bom Jewish she had been married and divorced and had a son. After dating for a year and a half he asked if she would convert to Judaism and she agreed. They went together to a Reform Temple where the rabbi, “a very nice man,” agreed that she could take his conversion class. She remembered “loving the classes and looking forward to going and the book was excellent and I passed.”

There were no individual sessions with the rabbi other than the first interview though

Kate says there were “conversations with him” and they were “on a very friendly basis.”

She also went to services which she thought “were not that much different” from what she was used to at the Church. Passing the class meant that you could convert and the ceremony was a joint one for the people in the class. Kate didn’t remember what happened in it, only that her fiancé was there watching her. There was no mikvah.

76 Kate reported her family, which at that time included her mother, grandfather, and

an aunt, “were fine” with her conversion. “It was not an issue” with them. Her mother

“wasn’t judgmental about other people” and “those things just didn’t matter, or. if they

did, they were sure well hidden because I never got any sense of it.” Her father had been

out of the picture for many years and Kate thought he probably had no knowledge of

what had happened.

Her husband’s family had the opposite opinion; they were "horrified.” They

opposed the marriage because Kate wasn’t Jewish, and because she was divorced; they

thought she was after her fiance's money and they said that she wore "cheap perfume.”

Relatives told Kate’s fiancé that his deceased mother wouldn’t approve and they sent him books about women who were “evil, conniving, scheming tramps” and they kept sending

letters to him. They thought Kate was probably anti-Semitic underneath and it would come out when they fought. They said, “why would anybody want to be a Jew? Look at the trouble. Everybody hates us!” And they wondered “What kind of a rabbi would do something like that? Convert somebody?” This was all very painful and Kate and her fiancé talked about calling off the marriage. But they went through with the wedding and her fiancé’s brother and sister who were “all right.” one “nice cousin,” and her fiancé’s father came to the wedding ceremony.

Kate said that the conversion didn’t change how she felt religiously or philosophically internally but there were “outward” changes. She and her husband included more ritual in their lives and more observances of holidays. She offered to keep a Kosher home but her husband declined, remembering his mother saying “look at all the work I am doing for you” and not wanting his marriage to be like that. Dietary changes

77 were minimal, as Kate had already given up pork. Their friends stayed the same. Her

eight-year-old son, however, did begin to participate in Temple life. She said he

“apparently fit right in.” He went to Sunday School, was elected class president for two

years, had a Bar Mitzvah, and, as an adult, considers himself to be Jewish, and is raising

his children to be Jews.

Kate reported "the biggest thing that was helpful was (my husband’s) total

support and agreement.” Also, that "nobody gave me any grief’ (the in-laws didn’t know about the official conversion ceremony until after it had happened). She mentions the rabbi as helpful and also the many books that she read, some that were Jewish and some that were about "what happens to people when they aren’t like everybody else.”

When asked if she feels she is really Jewish, she answered, "Oh yeah. Before I was. Yes.” She remembered telling the rabbi, "well, 1 already have most of the feelings regarding Judaism.” And he said, "I thought you did.” Interestingly, Kate confided that

"most people don’t know that I’m a convert.... I don’t talk about it. I don’t think about it. After all these years.”

Storv #3 - Bob

Bob converted to Judaism in 1972 at the age of 20. He was 48 at the time of this interview.

Bob’s family was Episcopalian. They attended church fairly regularly though he reported religion played a "pretty minor” role in their lives. He thought his parents attended Church as something they had to do "for the kids.” He said "theology and religion were rarely if ever a topic of discussion” with his family.

78 When he was in Junior High School the family moved from an area where 50-

60% of Bob’s classmates and his best friend were Jewish to a new town and a new

neighborhood which had only one Jewish family. His family got more involved in the

new church they attended. Bob joined the choir and also was an altar boy for about six

months but quit when he "just really didn’t find it something that 1 really wanted to do.”

When he reached high school age. he started noticing the words in the prayers more

closely and became uncomfortable with some of them. He approached his minister and

said. "I have a problem with this father, son. and holy ghost thing. Why do I have to pray

to all three of them when 1 could just pray to God?” Bob reported that the minister began

complaining about the community not doing enough to educate the young people. Bob

said to him. "1 feel a little bit hypocritical going through all this stuff.” The minister

responded "well. I’m sorry but as you get older you will leam.” That didn’t happen and

in his interview. Bob said, "well, personally 1 never got the concept of the Holy Ghost.”

In his freshman year at college Bob took a yearlong required course on

Comparative Religions which he found "fascinating.” Though he grew up surrounded by

Jews he had learned very little about the religion until this class. In his words:

I picked up a book on Judaism and got to about page 12 and I went "That's it! It’s already been invented. I don’t have to come up with a new religion! This is absolutely perfect exactly — 1 couldn’t have written this book better myself!”

In particular. Bob listed two beliefs in the theology of Judaism that appealed to him. The first was that "there aren’t any intermediaries required” and he could pray to God directly. Second was the concept of original sin. In his words "I had a real problem with the concept that you come into the world and you’re doomed.’’ He thought that original sin implied that "you’re in trouble before you start and so you better spend your whole

79 life overcoming the problems and if you are successful in effect, then your afterlife will

be good.” He believed that “it was more logical to me that you start with a clean slate

and you dirty it up at will and after-life is kind of a question mark.” It followed then that

the “important part should be here on earth and what you do here rather than trying to

hope for something after you’re gone.”

As there were no rabbis on campus or in the local community that did

conversions. Bob had to drive one hour away to meet with a rabbi who could help him.

This Reform rabbi met with Bob twice a month for a six-month period; Bob also read

books and articles and he completed homework that was assigned to him.

While he was in this process. Bob met a Jewish woman whom he later married, though he insisted he did not convert for marriage. He said:

People have asked me probably 100 times whether I converted because of (my wife) and the answer is an emphatic "no!” I mean there are lots of things you do for love but that (changing religions) wasn’t one of the ones that I could do.

His fiancee’s parents strongly suggested to Bob that if he wanted to convert, it would be best if he converted Orthodox because then no one would question his

Jewishness. They arranged for him to meet with a Conservative rabbi several times; this rabbi then made arrangements for Bob to have an Orthodox conversion. Picking up the

Conservative rabbi along the way. Bob drove four hours to another city, which was the location of the Orthodox rabbi who did the actual conversion. Bob said he looks back and laughs at himself now imagining what he must have looked like — “this 20 year old kid who had shoulder-length brown hair but who really wanted to be Jewish.” Bob met with 3 or 4 leaders of the Orthodox shul and “they interviewed me for an hour and a half on everything under the sun.” When asked if he had been nervous. Bob answered “I felt

8 0 more like it wasn’t really a test but they were doing their job, if you will, making sure the

person who wanted to convert had a commitment.” The questions he remembered most

were the questions about Jesus. One man asked “what if you do find Jesus when you get

older? What would you do?” Bob said, “the thought had never even occurred to me.

What would I do?” He answered them:

Well, number one. 1 can’t imagine it happening....But if I quote “found Jesus” unquote then I’d be reborn again - heaven forbid — so to speak at least religiously anyway, I guess I would have to convert again. 1 certainly wouldn’t want to be hypocritical which is what I was doing or how I felt in Church the first time.

The men answered together “that’s the right answer because we don’t care to have a

hypocrite in our midst either.”

On the basis of his answers and the recommendations of the Conservative rabbi.

Bob was accepted for conversion. So everyone drove to the mikvah and performed that

part of the ceremony. In his words “1 dunked down and they recited the prayers which

made absolutely no sense to me but they explained it fairly well in English.” Next step was the ceremonial circumcision. Everyone went to the hospital where “they drew blood.” Then everybody went “back to the synagogue and they said more prayers and asked more questions.” The papers were signed and, after a small meal. Bob and the

Conservative rabbi started back home. The whole process had taken 5 hours plus 8 hours of driving. Bob was exhausted.

When asked if he felt Jewish at the end of the process. Bob answered, “One hundred percent. That didn’t turn me into a practicing Jew by any means but I felt that I was now a member of a religious group whose beliefs were in sync with mine.” When asked how his parents reacted to their son becoming Jewish Bob said:

I was a little surprised that they really didn’t say much about it at all. They asked if that was what I really wanted to do and I said yes. They asked me if I was sure and I said yes and that was really the extent of the conversation.”

Bob specified in a later email conversation that this was their reaction “at the beginning.”

Two years later Bob’s parents divorced and his father “had a mental breakdown of some kind” and “cut off all contact with the entire family. He wouldn't talk to me or my brother and sister” or anyone else in the family. Bob hasn’t had any contact with his father since then. His mother remarried, moved to a different part of the country, and she and her new husband “are very active in their Presbyterian Church, very very active.” He can’t tell how his mother feels about his conversion today. He added in a later e-mail that he thought “she is accepting and sees how happy we are as a family (as she is to my brother who married a Catholic and my sister who is agnostic).” Bob added in a later email that she “is getting better at sending Hanukkah instead of Christmas cards” and now she occasionally sends a High Holy Day card “but it’s certainly not regular.”

When asked how much conversion changed his life. Bob pointed out that he has been Jewish a long time and he has become very “comfortable with the structure and the foundation of the cycle of life” which have been part of him since he was 20. He has become more knowledgeable about the holidays and festivals, though he went through a period often years right after conversion when he wasn’t very active in any synagogue.

He later explained this was due to “frequent moves and no children.” Currently he and his family are very active. His younger daughter is now beginning to question Judaism and has asked, “what if I converted to Christianity?” He states “it’s interesting for me to

8 2 watch her start to question some of the things that I questioned. She is questioning

obviously from her perspective [being Jewish] which I try to encourage a little bit.”

When asked if he feels he is really Jewish, Bob answered “and have been for

some time.” He stated his religious identity is “different than what my family has. but

it’s me.”

Storv #4 — Mona

Mona converted in 1982 at the age of 38. She was 56 at the time of this interview.

Mona was raised a Methodist and was ver>' active in her Church, ser\dng as

President of the Methodist Youth Fellowship when she was in Junior High School. She first became “disenchanted” with the Church when she saw the behavior of adults at the

Board meetings in her Church. She also heard there was a lot of drinking going on at

Church-sponsored parties and a lot of the adults “weren’t following their beliefs.”

Looking back Mona thinks she may have been “naïve” but she was really affected at the time and even went in to see the minister and talk about it. She feels she always had a

“religious sense” as a child and a sense of awe about life and God and these other people didn’t seem to have that at all.

In college Mona was a philosophy major and explored “a lot of different religions.” Her roommate during her freshman year was in the process of converting to

Judaism but at that time Mona “really had not taken a look at Judaism at all.” Mona was at first particularly drawn to mysticism and the Eastern religions and, as a young adult, used to go into a wooded area near her house where she would read the Tao Te Ching and

83 she would meditate. In her late 20’s Mona attended a Unitarian Church but felt they lacked a "real solid doctrine or belief or something they could hang their hat on.”

Mona said she had always been somewhat mystical and had experiences where she was "just really feeling the closeness of God and feeling a sense of awe and appreciation for life.” It was during her late 20’s that she first read Martin Buber, which was "a very powerful experience” and gave words to things that Mona had been feeling all along. In her words "the whole I-Thou experience was one that I really felt ver>^ sort of a kinship with.”

Franz Rosenzweig’s book Star of Redemption was also a very important book to

Mona. During a two-year period when her mother was battling cancer and then died,

Mona "used to carry Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig around with me. . . . They were like old friends.” Then four months after her mother died, Mona’s 13-year-old son was killed in a bicycle truck accident, which was an "enormous tragedy that took (her) about five years to get over.”

Mona, who had already contacted a rabbi and begun the conversion preparation, continued to work with the rabbi after her son's death. She said her mystic religious sense was "no help in a situation of loss” which left her with "such an empty feeling” and that was when she "realized the sense of what it really meant to choose God and to make a decision for belief.” While Mona felt she had a "very solid philosophical basis” from her readings, the rituals of Judaism were "foreign” to her. This was an obstacle for her in converting and that was one of the topics she focused on in her sessions with the rabbis she worked with.

84 Mona had a two-part conversion ceremony. The first part took place during a

Friday night service at a Reform synagogue where she presented a paper she had written.

The second part took place at a mikvah where three rabbis performed a ceremony. She was “really glad to do it [the mikvah] because it was symbolically kind of a rebirth” and she said that her conversion “changed my life tremendously.”

Mona had many Jewish friends and a few of them wondered if she had “some kind of persecution complex” when they heard she was converting. The Reform movement was not doing very much outreach in 1982 and Mona “wanted to be a pioneer” and an “advocate” for more outreach. She said “I was welcomed so warmly and made so many friends just immediately that I still treasure. They’ve become like family to me. There were just a few people that raised eyebrows.”

Mona’s non-Jewish husband “considers himself an atheist” and his attitude to her conversion was “oh, that’s her thing.” She said now he “just fits right in” with their

Jewish friends and “has been accepted as one of the crowd.” Mona said that one big change that occurred as a result of her becoming Jewish is that she became more assertive with a family member who she said “treated me very badly.” Mona had been trying to

“turn the other cheek and offer forgiveness — a lot of the things that are tenets of

Christianity I really tried to live.” She said “the whole notion that Christianity has of forgiveness is — forgiveness without atonement so to speak — that experience took that out of me.” Mona eventually was able to stand up to this family person and that helped her to feel better. She said “I really lived through in a very physical way what the difference is in being Christian and being Jewish.”

85 Mona remembered that her father was not very religious when she was a child.

He later tried out a few local Churches but was “disenchanted” with them. She didn’t tell

him about her conversion, which took place in 1982, until "the 90’s.” She took him out

to dinner to tell him and found that he had known for some time but hadn’t mentioned it.

In her words, "He was really great about it. He said that he was glad that I had found

something that meant so much to me.” After that she told the rest of the family and got

one negative reaction from her father’s sister who said, "Jews killed Jesus.”

Mona’s children were not converted with her. She wishes now that she had

"found her place” earlier "so they could have had something much more.”

After her conversion was official, Mona said she "craved” ritual, though she didn’t always know how to perform them and was not always sure whom to ask. She

"also didn’t want to be considered a convert any more, just Jewish.” She "jumped right into things” and became very active in synagogue life for several years. However in the

90’s some family issues caused her to withdraw and not be so active. She also "had a couple of unfortunate things that happened with the finance committee” at the synagogue

"which probably bothered me a lot more than it should have.” She said several of her friends have become less active too and she wondered if that was a "time of life kind of thing.” She mentioned the possibility of becoming more involved again some day and said she would "love” to do that "some time, not now.” She said "so much in Judaism is focused on all the good things and the joys of life and all of that which I treasure but there’s — but it’s hard to when your life is in turmoil.” She has maintained relationships with Jewish friends however and, when asked if she still considers herself to be Jewish, she said, “oh, absolutely.”

86 Mona added in a later email, after reading the above story, that her passion for

Judaism continues to be strong. She wasn't sure this was clear and wanted it to be included.

Stor\: #5 — Liz

Liz converted to Judaism in 1985 at the age of 38. She was 54 at the time of this interview and had been Jewish for 15 years.

When Liz was growing up her parents went to Church of Christ services weekly though "mom and dad weren’t what you would call real religious.” The sermons "were very much hellfire and brimstone kind of stuff.” Though her mother taught Sunday

School when Liz was younger, as she and her siblings got older, “it was like they would send you but they didn’t go lots of times” and, eventually, the children "balked at it and didn’t go” at all.

For a short time (when she was in her early teens), the family went to a Methodist

Church. Liz liked the woman minister there and she added in a later e-mail that she

“loved the youth group activities” at this church. Liz considered becoming a missionary.

She thought her motivation came more from “wanting that connection...to know where I belonged” and “it wasn’t because of being raised in the Church.” Her family then moved and Liz didn’t follow up on the idea. Liz reported that now. as adults, none of her three siblings are involved in Christianity. Two have no religion at all and one is “on a spiritual quest” and “into some Eastern kinds of things.”

Liz’s first contact with Jews was through knowing her sister’s tw'o husbands who were Jewish and the Jewish boyfriend of someone at work. She says she didn’t learn

87 anything about Judaism as a religion through these contacts. She did report, however, that at least two of these men were “very close” to or “extremely tied to” their mothers.

Liz’s first contact with the Jewish religion was when she met her husband-to-be who is “very much Jewish.” She states that she wouldn’t have converted without meeting her husband as Judaism “wasn’t anything I had even considered." She did it so she and her husband could be close and “so that one is not going one way and one is going another way.”

Liz and her fiancé went to see a rabbi and together they took a 4 to 5-month long

“Introduction to Judaism” course. At first she was just trying to learn about Judaism, but after learning about it, she decided it felt right for her to convert. When asked what drew her to Judaism she says “the gentleness” of it and she added, “everybody seemed to be so open and accepting.” She also liked that she didn’t feel so pressured to go to services because there were many ways to be a Jew. and when she did go she “didn’t have to listen to that burning in hell kind of thing.”

Following the Orthodox Jewish tradition, her fiancé waited more than a year after the death of his parents before he married her. He also sought rabbinic advice on whether it was acceptable for him to marry a divorced woman with children and was reassured that was acceptable. Liz also talked to the Senior Rabbi about how to handle her two sons who were 12 and 15 at the time of her conversion. His advice was “nothing, just keep them informed and bring them along.” She now feels that advice was “one of the best things in the world” as she believes that to have tried to force them into Judaism

“would have been very stressful because it wasn’t going to happen.”

88 As part of her conversion ceremony, Liz participated in a belt din where she was

“nervous” and felt “almost like you were taking some final exam or something.” Like

Bob (story #3), she too was asked her feelings about giving up Jesus and she responded that while she could not deny his existence, she was comfortable with calling him an educator or prophet rather than a messiah. After being approved by the beit din, at a public Saturday morning service Liz said blessings and made promises to keep a Jewish home, to raise her children to be Jewish if she had any more children, to forsake past religions, to continue to study Judaism, and to be loyal to the Jewish people. She did not have a mikvah as the rabbi “didn’t make it sound real appealing” and she was afraid it would be like the “immersion baptism” which she had at age 12 and found to be a

“horrifying experience.”

Liz’s husband came from a very close family “and he would never think of not being with family on a holiday.” Liz said that in some ways her husband is very religiously traditional though he did belong to a Reform synagogue. She related several instances where he helped her to understand Jewish ritual and helped her to navigate the

Jewish culture. For example, he guided her through her first Shiva and advised her on appropriate protocol and how to understand the customs and ceremony that Liz was participating in.

At the time of her conversion Liz’s two sons were 12 and 15 years old. They had been taken to Church “sporadically” as they were growing up, though they had questioned the necessity and desirability of going to church. After Liz’s wedding, the family moved to a neighborhood that was predominantly Jewish. The youngest son

“gravitated towards the (Jewish) kids and became friends with them.” As a teenager he

89 identified himself as Jewish though he did not undergo a conv'ersion ceremony. Though

Liz s older son was not interested in becoming Jewish himself, on the day of her

conversion he told her he was proud of her for pursuing something she believed in. He is

currently married to a Catholic woman and they are raising their daughter to be Catholic.

Liz expresses some sadness over having a different religion from others in her family as

that means she “won’t be able to share with them the life cycle things." She added in a

later email that her “son and his wife are open to their children learning about their grandparents’ religion.”

Both of Liz’s parents were deceased at the time of her conversion. She said.

“they would have had an absolute coronary if they had been alive and at all involved with me converting to Judaism, even dating a Jewish man.” Her parents would not have accepted the conversion or the marriage and “it would have been harped on and 1 don’t deal well with just harping.”

Liz found her husband’s family to be “a bit overwhelming in the beginning

because I don’t have a lot of family. That coming together for multiple times a

year.. .and it was just so much.” She adds “twenty people — thirty people or something

and every time you turned around and they’re coming at you kind of like you know this

was nice, I mean, but it’s too much.” Liz entered the family at a time when “people

were just grief-stricken and just horrified” because of the accidental deaths of her

husband’s parents. Her fiance’s grandmother was “upset” at first about the marriage and

“they had words” but she accepted it and gave her blessing to the couple. She later

attended the wedding and joined them under the chiippah. Liz added, “the rest of his

family was very very accepting.”

90 When asked if she feels she is really Jewish, Liz answered that she feels

committed to Judaism and to the Jewish people but that she also feels she “is on the

outside looking in” and that she doesn’t “know enough to be Jewish.” She added, “it’s

not anything anybody has done to me. It’s just that there’s a definite vacant space

between what I know and what a lot of other people [know].” She hopes this will change though she has some doubts. In her words “it’s kind of like 1 am on the outside waiting to get in and whether I’ll ever — something will probably happen that all of a sudden it will be, oh, just an epiphany or something. I don’t know.” She later added in an email that she was “not worried about it.”

Liz described her husband’s sense of being Jewish as different from her own.

She said he “could no more leave Judaism than he could fly. I mean where would you

even begin?” She pointed out that she was not raised Jewishly and so she has a whole

host of memories that are different from his and she believes that those memories “just

don’t ever leave you.” For example, “there are songs I can sing right along with Church

groups and their hymns because I’ll never forget “The Old Rugged Cross” and some of

those songs.” When it came to choosing a Hebrew name she insisted on the literal

translation of her English name because “my God, it’s taken me almost 40 years to learn

who I am! I don’t want someone else's name.” She summarized her thoughts by saying

that she is discovering that being Jewish “is more than [practicing] a religion.”

Liz also expressed some difficulty participating in services. She said the transliteration of the Hebrew is hard for her to follow and everyone goes “too fast” and she “gets lost” and this is “frustrating.” She does enjoy the rabbi’s sermons and explains

91 “sometimes I think they’re really good — I mean I like what they have to say.” She also

said she likes that the sermons are shorter and more “like something condensed”

compared to what she usually experienced in church.

When asked how much her conversion changed her, Liz mentioned changes that

were more related to her marriage than to her religious conversion. She listed planning

the wedding, moving, and finding a new job as changes she had to cope with. Right after

her conversion and wedding, Liz said she and her husband were "crazed” and very active

in synagogue activities. After about three years she “burned out” and “backed off’

though her husband continued to participate in an interfaith marriage committee, while

she supported him by preparing “goodies” for committee events.

Liz currently participates in a book discussion group at her synagogue though she

feels “like I don’t know anything.” But she planned to continue even though she said, “it

will take years for me to be able to talk.”

In a later email Liz added that she and her husband also belong to a havurah and

that they participate in other synagogue activities. She added that though “it has taken several years to feel comfortable I am gradually participating in activities that support my

beliefs and use my talents.” She also stated that she is “content with the decision she

made nearly sixteen years ago.”

Storv # 6 - Cvnthia

Cynthia converted to Judaism in 1988 at the age of 23. She was 35 at the time of this interview.

Cynthia said “I was not raised in a single religion background so I mean Baptist on one side and Methodist the other side and they switched off.” She also had contact

92 with Catholicism as her elementary and high schools were Catholic. Her father’s family was Baptist and their attitude was they “love to keep things pretty open about religion in terms of being out there and everybody should be doing something, whatever it is.” They

“loved to discuss religion, sometimes argue about religion” and there were missionaries and ministers on that side of her family. In 1984 at the age of 50, her father rededicated himself to the Church and underwent a second Baptism. Cynthia's mother is African

Methodist Episcopalian and her family was “very quiet about it [religion], very private so the two kind of clash more or less.” Cynthia says that both of her parents were "pretty tolerant in terms of religion types of things.”

Cynthia was out of the country when her grandfather died in 1985. When she returned to college in this country, she attended synagogue services with a non-Je wish friend. She found it to be a “warm and welcoming atmosphere.” The town where her college was located was "very religious right oriented” and people often approached her on the streets telling her she should be saved by Jesus “so it was refreshing to go someplace where somebody wasn’t trying to do anything to me.” During the Kaddish prayer Cynthia said “I started crying and I felt this really big sense of peace and that was the first time that I had felt that in such a long time.” She added in a later e-mail that this was the first time she had been able to fully mourn her grandfather, despite having visited several churches while abroad. She continued going to services until the end of that school year when she graduated.

Cynthia’s reasons for conversion included both intellectual and emotional reasons. She summed it up by saying Judaism “just made more sense to me.” She had difficulties with the Christian beliefs of the “Trinitarian system,” the emphasis on

93 “waiting for the world to come,” and “original sin.” She said Judaism “fit ethically with what I believed” and “you can still believe without believing in Jesus.” When talking about visiting some churches in Paris she said, “it was kind of like looking at somebody that you used to know and just not seeing anything.” On the other hand at Jewish services she “always felt very comfortable,” a “sense of peace and serenity,” and she thought they were “something more uplifting then something that was pulling me down.”

At home after graduation from college she was sitting with her parents one day and all of a sudden she said, “okay, Fve got to find a rabbi.” Her parents were surprised, as they had no idea she had been thinking about Judaism.

Cynthia found a synagogue in the yellow pages and went there for services. She spoke with the rabbi “who I don’t think he knew what to do with me.” This was 1986 and she was 2 1 years old. She went to services for two months before the rabbi agreed to accept her as a student. He gave her a “long list of books” and she felt “he was putting me through the whole thing at once just to make sure this was really what I wanted to do.” She said she thought he had “qualms and concerns” that she would have difficulty finding a Jewish spouse since she was black and she might not be able to maintain her commitment to Judaism. She also took an “Introduction to Judaism” course and experienced a period of “six months of frustration because we were trying to fix a date and it was never quite the right time and I was like I can’t wait forever!”

A beit din was convened for Cynthia’s conversion and they questioned her knowledge and motivations for Judaism. One man said to her “you’re already a woman and you’re black and you want to be Jewish too? Are you crazy?” She doesn’t remember how she answered the question but “it seemed to satisfy him.” She also had a

94 mikx’ah ceremony. The third part of her conversion was a public ceremony where "she

‘"invited everybody including my family...and not everybody was able to come.” Her conversion gifts included a ‘"nice traditional Jewish cookbook,” a tree was planted in her name in Israel, a mezuzah, and a menorah.

Cynthia reported that, though her mother "‘had some difficulty with it” at first,

"she’s pretty much accepted it quietly in her own way.” Her mother now ‘"keeps track of the holidays” and often sends cards to Cyntliia for Jewish holidays. Cynthia said that for her father it ""wasn’t a problem either.” She added in a later email that her father was a

"bit concerned and wondered about the reason for the change.” He later ""accepted it to the point that I was able to keep kosher when I went home for visits.”

Cynthia states she felt hurt that the rest of the family seems to ignore that she has become Jewish. An aunt sends her Christmas cards every year and the family prays to

Jesus in her presence and no one acknowledges that she is not Christian. She found out later that her mother had not told her friends and also had not told a friend o f C>mthia's; this still hurts.

Being both Jewish and black has created some difficulties for Cynthia in the dating scene. She was engaged to a black man for a time but he ended the relationship after she participated in a public seder that some of his friends had attended. She thinks he thought she wasn’t "really Jewish” and that this was just a passing fad.

The changes to her life related to conversion include "how I look at my life and how I keep house,” and also with what foods she eats. She views her ‘"weekends differently” and is on a "different schedule” than others are. She says she is ‘"far more tolerant” with others and their religious choices. Emotionally she feels "much happier,”

95 ‘'more energized in terms of what am I giving back to society,” ‘"richer,” and “more at peace.” She also says, “I don’t feel that sense of guilt and burden.” She says. “I guess if

I had to do it over again I’d probably still do the same thing.”

Cynthia does have some complaints about Judaism, particularly Orthodox

Judaism. She doesn’t like the family purity laws, she doesn’t like that the Orthodox would not accept her conversion, she doesn’t like Orthodox services which she says are sometimes too fast and the “women make a lot of noise and seem to be more concerned with how they dress, not what the meaning of the prayers are.” She is “okay” with

Reform and Conserv ative services. As far as her lifestyle, it seems that she hasn’t found a place where she fits in the sense that she reported she is too traditional for Reform and not traditional enough for Conservative or Orthodox. She said this has also created a dating problem. If she dates someone Jewish they either think she is too observant or not observant enough. She added in a later email that she feels some men reject her for being

Jewish and some for being black and some for both reasons.

Cynthia also complained about problems with having a Gentile family. One example was when her father died and she made some of the decisions about his fimeral and burial. She wanted to respect his beliefs and his family’s beliefs but ended up participating in a service that was Christian and she was not comfortable with it. She added in a later e-mail that she “would have felt I was disrespecting my father’s memory and my family by reftising to participate in any way with his funeral.” She tried to compromise by reading “a poem and a notable quotation” and picked “Old Testament readings.”

96 When asked if she feels Jewish, C>aithia responded ‘‘I feel that I am really Jewish but I don’t feel necessarily that someone looking at me would necessarily take me as being Jewish.” She sometimes feels conspicuous at services as “the only dark-skinned black Jew in the whole place.” Although she feels “totally accepted” at her current congregation there have been times when she has felt that other Jews were shocked at a black woman who is Jewish. She said that she has “become stronger at asserting a

Jewish identity” and that, right after her conversion, she was very concerned with wanting others to accept her. She further says that “you get to a point where it stops to matter - it doesn’t matter any more and you are just accepting of yourself.” She added, however, that the non-acceptance of others could be a problem for her if she wanted to marry an Orthodox Jew or if she wanted to immigrate to Israel and they would not accept her Reform conversion.

Cynthia also reported that she feels very conflicted when her Jewish identity and her black identity pull her in two different directions. For example, her father went to the

Million Man March, which was led by Louis Farrakhan, who is openly anti-Semitic. In her words “if something comes up do I look at it because I am an African-American or do

I look at it because I’m a Jew or do I look at it because of both?” She particularly has problems when other blacks make anti-Semitic comments “where it is presumed that because I am black I will feel a certain way” and they don’t know she is Jewish. She says that is “probably the biggest conflict for me.”

Storv #7 - Susan

Susan was 48 when she converted to Reform Judaism in 1993. She was 55 at the time of this interview and she had been Jewish for approximately eight years.

97 Though Susan’s father had an Episcopal background, he left that religion early in

life. Though her non-religious mother sent her to Sunday School so she could learn Bible

stories “for literary reasons,” Susan grew up in a home that had no religious content.

They celebrated Christmas and Easter by doing “cultural things not religious things” and

her parents never attended Church.

Though Susan had friends and neighbors who were Jewish, "the issue of their

Jewishness was not an issue.” Her Undergraduate Degree was in Religion but included

only “minimal” reading in Judaism. Her first in-depth contact with Judaism came when

she was teaching in an Orthodox Day School in 1975. She says this experience "really

immerses you in the rhythm of Jewish life whether you intend to be pulled in or not.”

She and her husband moved and Susan missed the contact with Jewish life. She

met with a rabbi who provided her with a bibliography of readings on Judaism though he

did not encourage her participation in synagogue life. She began to realize that "whether

it was going to be conversion or not I didn’t know, but there was some greater

connection” between Judaism and her. She also began to notice that her older son

seemed to have a "pretty deep spiritual well” and was getting spiritual guidance from the other children since there was no religion in the home. The family moved again and

Susan took Hebrew classes and began attending services at the new synagogue, though the rabbi there would not accept her as a student for conversion because he did not want to create an interfaith marriage and her husband was not Jewish at the time.

There were several things in Judaism that appealed to Susan. The most important was the emphasis on “rationality.” She liked the way that Jews study the Bible in such detail and sometimes question every word, and also the emphasis on the human­

9 8 ness of the Biblical characters. She had no interest whatsoever in mysticism. She said “I wanted God to have a place in my life and it’s a place that’s comfortable for me. I can make sense of it. I understand it and I don’t make sense of or understand those other things” (Christianity and Buddhism). She also liked the “emphasis on the family as the center of one’s religious observance” and the “emphasis on community.”

In 1992 the family moved again and this time Susan found a rabbi who would prepare her for conversion. Meanwhile her oldest son (who was in middle school) began to attend Religious School at the synagogue; he later converted also. Since she had already read all the books on the rabbi’s list, he was ready to go ahead with the conversion but Susan felt she had to do more work preparing her family for this change.

She had seen some other women who converted to Judaism while their Gentile husbands didn’t convert and noticed that several of them got divorced. She began to add Jewish ritual to her family life, such as hanging a mezuzah on the door and lighting Shabbat candles on Friday night.

Each piece of ritual observance that we added serves essentially two functions, one quite positive and one pretty negative. That while each little piece was sort of a bridge to a Jewish life it also had the potential for being a barrier between people who already lived here and for me that business of not creating the barriers was huge.

Susan also attended a two year program tor learning about Judaism during this time and she liked the fact that this gave her experiences in the larger Jewish community and expanded her circle beyond her synagogue. After a while she felt they “had done enough in terms of incorporating Jewish practice in the home and being regular at services so that [her husband] had some sense of what this was. Then we were more comfortable having me go ahead and convert so I did.”

99 Susan’s conversion ceremony took place in the rabbi’s study with her two sons

and husband present. The rabbi “sits there and he asks you the questions and he does the

blessings and asks you to say the sh 'ma and read the poetry.” She also was given a

Hebrew name and she made the five promises that are part of the Reform conversion

ceremony. She said the ceremony itself was “reasonably anti-climactic,” calling the rabbi

to say she was ready to schedule the ceremony was a much more important moment for

her.

Susan’s husband came from a family that was “pretty vehemently anti-religious"

so “he didn’t have any perspective on religion at all.” Though for many years he had no

interest in religion, he, in fact, eventually did convert to Judaism several years after Susan

did.

Susan’s children had been raised with no religious background also. She

explained that “I think the feeling was that if you ignore the subject it would go away."

Both offspring have become very interested in Judaism. One has converted and one

hasn’t, though Susan says “I think at some level he [the one that hasn’t converted] is the

most authentically Jewish of all of us.” She said that “neither one of them has ever

expressed any distress with having had and then given up Christmas for instance.”

When asked how her parents had reacted to her conversion, Susan said it “would

have been just fine” with her father, who has since passed away. Her mother, however,

was “not good with it.” Since her mother lives some distance away and there is little contact, that makes it easier for them to “not discuss it.” Susan said, “it’s not a topic for conversation.” A sister is “just fine” with it.

100 Susan reported that conversion made a “huge” change in her life. The first

change she mentioned is “your identity changes and how you identify yourself within the

larger society changes.” The rhythm of her life changed and interests diverged, making it

"harder to maintain non-Jewish friendships.” She talked about a group she was in that

prayed to Jesus at the beginning of their meetings; they also wanted their December get-

together to be a Christmas party. Susan said “for a long time 1 didn’t mind going and

being an observ^er but it became more and more uncomfortable” to do that so she stopped.

While Susan's friendships with non-Jewish friends were dwindling, her friendships in the

Jewish community were growing. She said she made these new friendships "a part of

your life so it [synagogue] is not just where your religious life is but it’s also where your

social life is.” She thinks this is "really important and really helpful” in the “identity process.”

Susan said she now:

...look[s] at things through a Jewish lens. The sense making that you do - the sense making that 1 do in each of the encounters that 1 have in my life comes through that filter now. It’s isn’t a Friday night or Saturday thing to do. It’s a constant filter.

When this filtering took place automatically and without having to think about it. that’s when she “identified for myself that I was really a Jew.” She said others’ acceptance of her being Jewish was helpful and, while there may still be a few people who think she isn’t really Jewish, she has reached a point where she felt “that was their problem” and not hers. She says though “on the whole the acceptance by other Jews helps you to establish an identity.”

Susan stated that she also believed her participation in an intensive two-year program on Judaism helped her to feel more Jewish. She remembered people saying to 101 her “you’re the most Jewish person I know” because of her knowledge of Judaism.

Though she feels “authentically Jewish” she continues learning and continues making decisions about level and type of ritual observance. In her words, “I don’t think I am complete. I’m a work in progress. A Jewish work in progress. So ask again in five years.”

Storv #8 - Dan

Dan was 57 when he converted to Judaism in 1998. He was 60 at the time of this interview.

Dan was raised Lutheran though his family was “not regular Church attendees.”

Dan did attend Sunday School “off and on” and he was confirmed at age 13. In college he studied to be a seminary student but dropped out of that program in his senior year.

He thought his father might have been a little disappointed that Dan wanted to be a priest.

As Dan put it "nobody raised me to be a priest.” In spite of his family being somewhat lax on religious issues, Dan had a strong Christian identity. He stated that he had “no interest in changing” religions as he was “comfortable in the Lutheran religion or the

Lutheran approach and that it was part of me and part of who my family was going back through the years.”

Dan had little or no contact with Jews or Judaism as he was growing up, though he remembered hearing “ethnic slurs” against Jews, even in his own family. He also remembered debating other seminary students about whether or not Jews were “doomed” since they hadn’t accepted Jesus. Dan was on the side that said they weren’t, as he believed God wouldn’t do that. His first major contact with Jews was in 1975 when he married a Jewish woman.

102 For many years Dan and his wife had an interfaith marriage. He was active in his church where he served as a deacon. When their daughter reached the age of five, they decided that she would be raised as a Jew. This brought Dan much more exposure to Judaism “and the more I learned the more I wanted to know and that was the path that led me to conversion.” He relates that at first he felt like an “outsider.” As he had further contact, though, he began to feel that the “message doesn’t leave you out, it does include everybody.” He said, “listening to the rabbi and a lot of other people here that made me feel that I belonged.” Dan also liked the emphasis on family, the emphasis on education, and "the beauty of the service.”

Dan had also been reading about and questioning some of the Christian beliefs about Jesus; he mentioned that “The Good Book” by Peter Gomes was particularly helpful to him. Dan stated the “emphasis in Christianity is to have a place in heaven and the emphasis in Judaism is to conduct yourself as well as you can in this life as a member of the human race.” Dan mentioned a “sense of betrayal” towards what he was before and what he believed, particularly the “messiah question.” Despite this feeling, he began to

“set aside” his belief in Jesus and he always believed the Christian and Jewish God were the same and he “liked the path that [he] saw here” in Judaism. He stated this was a

“matter of faith” and an “emotional appeal rather than some kind of logical intellectual thing that 1 can outline.”

Dan said that for him “the conversion had to happen in my own mind first.” He was very clear that he is still in the process of converting. Some of the things that have helped him prepare for conversion include an “Introduction to Judaism” class and

Hebrew classes. He also “read[s] everything that 1 possibly can” and met with a rabbi

103 two times. He said he experienced some “light bulb moments” in classes and it was “like

the eureka thing and I would come home all excited.” Reading the Reform Platforms

helped him to understand Reform Judaism and so did writings in the prayer books and the

rabbi’s sermons. A message written by the congregation president that urged synagogue

members to embrace newcomers to Judaism was particularly helpful in making Dan feel

welcomed. In Dan’s words “one of the things I had to get past in order to look at Judaism was the fact that I was an outsider and that this was something that I could never really belong to.” He reports he believes this is not something you can leam quickly.

Dan's conversion ceremony took place privately in the rabbi's office, “partially because of the conflict [his daughter] was having” about it. His daughter and wife were present and he said it was a “shortened version” of the public service. There was no circumcision and no mikvah.

Dan considered conversion for about a year before he told his wife or daughter, so they were both surprised when he announced that he was going to do it. His wife's first response was to check with him and to make sure he understood that she had not pressured him to do this and to make sure that this change was coming entirely from him, which it was. He said his wife and her family were very supportive. He stated “I think there was an attempt by my wife and her mom and her sisters and everybody to not put pressure on me in any way, shape, or form, including even after I had converted not to over-react to it. I appreciate it.”

Dan’s older children from his first marriage “understood and had an appreciation” of his wanting to convert. He expected his younger daughter, age 11 at the time to be “happy” but she was upset instead. He wishes he had told her he was

104 considering it so she would have had a chance to get used to the idea. He believes now that she had a “mixed identity” that included both Judaism and Christianity in it and this made her feel less different than the other kids at school; she also didn’t like losing

Christmas. He now thinks that it was a “mistake trying to have both religions in the home” and he wishes he had converted earlier and been more active in her religious education. He explained to her “I can’t just not do it now because you don’t want me to.

I’ve got to go ahead because I think it is the right thing for myself and I think it's the right thing for our family.” She “rebelled at it for a while” and it took two years for her to “come around to where she had some acceptance of it.”

Dan’s father was deceased at the time of his conversion and his mother “was fine but I don’t think she’s ever really said.” He thinks that “at her age she worries whether I am lost out here or whether I really know what I am doing” but there’s “no animosity or real conflict.” She does send them Chanukah and other Judaica gifts sometimes though some of it is “stuff that we would never put out.” He explains that many non-Jews see the “Chasidic Jews in New York and they think that’s Judaism” and he thinks his mother is doing that too.

Dan keeps ajournai of his experiences as he goes through these changes.

Sometimes he writes his thoughts and experiences in it, sometimes he puts articles and writings that mean something to him in it. Some things haven’t changed. For example,

Dan said his “relationship with God is the same... I mean I see differences in myself but I don’t see a difference in that relationship.” His “philosophy is somewhat altered: and the

“emphasis certainly switches a lot and I’m more comfortable with the emphasis I see in

Judaism than I saw in Christianity.” He wasn’t interested in ritual at first but is beginning

105 to see value in it and is incorporating some of it into his life. And though he “wasn't in a crisis of religion” and “wasn’t a lost sheep,” he reports a “greater sense of support” now.

He describes this as “being at peace . . . being comfortable with being who 1 am within the framework of what 1 know about Judaism.” And, despite the “renewed energy” he feels as he goes through this process, he tries not to talk about his conversion all the time.

He also takes a stronger stand against anti-Semitism when he sees it now than he used to do. Dan pointed out several times that this change is ongoing and that this is a process.

He said, “it's early yet with me. Probably the way I would talk about this five years from now is different than what I'm able to say right now.”

When asked if he feels “really Jewish,” Dan responded that “1 tell people that I practice Judaism. I’m not sure what really being a Jew is you know.” He goes on to explain that when people ask that question there is usually an ethnic part to it and “that’s not what Judaism is any more entirely.” After thinking for a minute he states “1 feel I am a Jew in the sense that 1 practice Judaism. Yes, 1 do.” And, although “none of my ancestors probably made any of that journey” from Egypt and slavery that is celebrated at

Passover, he “can associate with it now and feel comfortable with it and feel part of it and understand the meaning of it to some extent.” One difference Dan mentioned between himself and someone who was bom Jewish is that he thinks he has less “affinity for Israel than a bom Jew would have,” though he does support the country.

Storv #9 — Claire

Claire converted to Reform Judaism in 1999 when she was 36 years old. She was

38 at the time of this interview and had been Jewish one and one-half years.

106 Claire'S parents were in their 40’s when she was bom and they divorced shortly

after her birth. Claire spent most of her childhood living with her stepmother and her

father who was an evangelical Christian pastor. As a young man. her father woke up in

the night and saw an angel who told him to take an evangelical path in life and he worked

with the Salvation Army for a number of years. While Claire was growing up. however,

her father was somewhat “distanced” from evangelical religion for a while. He also felt

let down by the Church during a period of financial troubles during that period. He

returned to his Salvation Army work when Claire was an older teen but she was

“estranged” from him at that time. Claire’s mother was also very religious though she

worked two full-time jobs after the divorce and therefore got most of her religion from

television rather than participating in a Church. Claire has not been to Church since the

Iran hostage crisis in the 80’s when she became angry with the minister for not

mentioning what was going on.

When asked about her first contact with Judaism or Jews Claire recalls at age 11

she and her sister and mother were looking for a family Bible which her mother

remembered had a Jewish name in it. They were wondering if they had some Jewish ancestors. They didn’t find the Bible but they did find a brochure with a Star of David on

it. Claire had no contact with Jews while growing up until she went to college. There she dated a Jewish man for a while and also frequented the campus Hillel. As part of an

independent studies course she read Herman Wouk’s This is Mv God and had “the first inkling that I was interested in this or it spoke to me.” She copied some passages into her journal as they “just made sense.”

107 At 26 Claire had breast cancer and noticed the difference in the way she dealt with that compared to the way her family dealt with it. She thought the others were too concerned with death and what would happen to her afterwards. She noticed these differences again when her mother was dying of cancer. She said her brother was concerned about their mother needing to ask for forgiveness from Claire’s (dead) father so that she could go to heaven after she died. This didn’t make sense to Claire who felt

“that was kind of another moment kind of like the Church thing with going to Church that we’re not on the same wavelength, that I feel differently about things.” Part of what drew

Claire to Judaism was "the sense of a community and acknowledging the larger community in that all Israel is responsible for one another.” She said she did not find that in the Christianity that she had experienced.

After college, Claire would “grab these books on Judaism and read them up.” She had no one to discuss this with so she kept this interest to herself. When she turned 35 she began to think that maybe she could convert so she found synagogues in the phone book. She called every synagogue in town and left a message that she was possibly interested in converting and asked someone to call her back. The only place that called her back was an outreach program. When asked why she was looking into conversion at that point in her life, she said her mother had been dead for two years and her father for four years. A girlfriend had just rededicated herself to Catholicism and Claire had attended some Catholic activities with her friend but “it didn’t speak to me.”

Claire began a class at the Jewish outreach program. She was frightened and unsure how to dress and who to talk to. She remembered seeing “black hat Jews” in the diamond district in New York and she was afraid she would be seeing people like that

108 and that she would be laughed at. Instead she started the class and “loved it from the

very beginning. Once I got in there and once I sat down in the chair there was no more

question. It all came together.”

The rabbis at the outreach program did not do conversions and Claire “still didn’t

see them as somebody to turn to.” A friend’s mother gave Claire the name of a rabbi

who did do conversions and Claire went to see him and. for the first time, said she

wanted to convert. She was very nervous and he put her at ease. He gave her a list of

books and told her to come to services and to start Hebrew classes. For the first time she

realized that she was “just not hooking up with a religious faith that had the same kind of

mindset or thinking” but that this also included "a commitment to a different lifestyle.”

She delayed her conversion for a month because she wanted to experience a Jewish

holiday, Chanukah, first to see what it was like. Her actual conversion took place five

months after she approached the rabbi.

Her ceremony took place at a Friday night service where she was “happy but

anxious.” She invited family and friends and describes it as a “coming out” experience.

She felt very welcomed and “once again validated what I had done and glad I had done

it.” And though she at first refused it, she also had a mikvah ceremony after the rabbi

reassured her about it.

The only surviving family Claire had was made up of two sisters and one brother

and they sometimes seemed more like parents since they are older than she is. All her

siblings had been raised while the family was very active in the evangelical Christian

movement. One sister showed signs of not being entirely happy with Claire’s conversion at the ceremony which was “the only little dark moment or little cloud hanging over” the

109 evening for Claire. No one said directly how they felt about it but in a roundabout way

Claire is getting hints that maybe her siblings don’t entirely approve of what she has

done. For example, her brother sent her a card saying that her sister was worried about

Claire's life after death.

Claire thinks that she has changed "in some ways not at all. in other ways 100%.”

Claire has changed her work schedule to accommodate attendance at services and at

classes. She now looks at food differently and says blessings over it. She said, "there’s a

spirituality to it that it didn’t have before. There’s a sacredness. God’s presence that was

not there before that I now have learned to look for.” She said she views Fridays

differently too, "you know like sundown. Sabbath. Just the whole hour, the whole day is

different. How I react to the day is different.” She also feels "part of something bigger”

which she said is "the community, the family that 1 have here, I feel part of that. ... I

didn’t have that before.” She said friends check with her about whether she can do

activities on the Sabbath, thus recognizing her change. She also did volunteer work on

Christmas at a hospital. She said, "no lightening bolt.” just "little bits add up to a lot of bits, I guess.”

When asked if she feels Jewish, Claire responded "yes, I have no doubt. 1 think I was always Jewish. I was just one of those who grew up in the wrong family.” She added, "I have no doubt of my own spirituality and where it has led me and what I am today.” When asked what does it mean to her to be Jewish she replied that it "isn’t necessarily the ritual parts” but is "more the social justice aspects of being a Jew. ” She decided that the question is “difficult and complex” and "a little too abstract for me and where I am at the moment.”

110 When she wondered out loud about the possibility of marrying someone who isn’t

Jewish, Claire said she can’t imagine giving up the changes that have occurred over the

past two years. In her words, “It’s what I am now. ... I can’t give up what I am. I can’t

give up my left arm.”

Storv #10-Je a n

Jean converted to Judaism in 1999 at the age of 38. She was 40 at the time of this

interview and had been Jewish for one and one-half years.

Jean’s parents never went to Church. She said, “Sundays were our days to sleep

in.” “Every once in a while” Jean's grandmother would “haul me off to Sunday School”

where she “felt uncomfortable, didn’t really want to be there, couldn’t quite get into what

they were saying” and “it just wasn’t hitting me at all and so I just never went.” One of

the Christian beliefs she couldn’t accept was the Virgin Birth. She said that occasionally

she would go and get into a discussion and ask questions but no one could ever answer

them. She did believe in God “but that’s as far as it went.”

Her first contact with Judaism was in 1997 when she went to Israel to work on an

archeological dig. On the plane she met a Jewish woman and this woman invited her to

dinner and for a sightseeing trip. Jean was “flabbergasted” over the amount of

knowledge and the passion with which this woman’s family were talking about Judaism

over dinner.

During a later sightseeing trip, this same woman and Jean went to the Western

Wall in Jerusalem and Jean had a religious experience. At first she was hesitant to approach the wall because she “thought it wouldn’t be right for me to go and praying at my age at this point in my life was kind of ridiculous because I never did it.” Then it

111 happened- In her words, “I remember I put my forehead on the wall first and then I put

my two hands on the wall and then after that things kinda’ went to heck." She adds “I

felt like I needed to find out more about Judaism by the time I was dragged away from

the wall." Jean was crying and couldn’t stop for a while. She felt that she had “proof

now that God does exist" and that the experience "was like being hit in the face."

Looking back on the experience today she thinks she would rather have had it happen

more gradually but she explained “I have a hard head and maybe God said “this is the

only way this girl is going to even pay attention to what I have to say."

Jean had always felt something was missing in her life and she knew it was

religion. She had never considered Judaism at all and had thought that she just hadn’t

found the “right Church” yet or the “right minister who would answer questions for me."

After returning home from Israel she went through several days of “torture.” She “cried a

lot" and didn’t sleep and walked around thinking, “this is so stupid! How much sense

does this make? Where the heck am I going to go?” She felt particularly self-conscious

about being an African American and told herself “they’re going to be able to see me

from the air. I’ll be the only dark person in there!”

Jean’s husband, who was a practicing Christian, was relieved that she was finally

interested in religion as “it bothered him that I had never spoken about God the whole time we had been together at all.” His response when she told him about the experience and that she felt the need to learn about Judaism was “thank God. ” Jean said, “he doesn’t care really about what religion as long as you believe in something.” He believed

“there’s a big hole in the lives of people who don’t have religion,” so he was “very excited.”

112 Jean looked in the phone book and found a rabbi who agreed to work with her.

She attended classes and services and did “extra-curricular stuff’ at the temple and her

husband also attended a program there. After two years she announced that she felt ready

for conversion and asked the rabbi if there was anything else she needed to do. He

informed her that he was ready to convert her but that her son, who was 10 at the time,

would have to convert with her "and then everything went to heck again.” Jean felt that

her son wasn’t ready to make that commitment yet and it wasn’t fair for her to decide for

him. She felt very hurt that she hadn’t been told earlier about the requirement that her

son would have to convert with her. She said “I cried and carried on but it’s like one way

or another this is going to happen because I don’t have a choice.” She had to be Jewish.

Jean then consulted an Orthodox rabbi. He refused to convert her because she

had a Christian husband who would not be converting with her. The rabbi did not want

to create an interfaith marriage. She characterized this as a "one-two punch.” She was discouraged and thought about giving up but her husband said, "you can’t do that. No, no. This happened to you — you've had this experience and you have to follow it through.

... I am behind you 100%.” He knew of a rabbi in another town and called him. This rabbi referred them to a different local rabbi and Jean talked to this person. He said, "you have done enough.” He did not require any more study but asked her to attend services at his synagogue for two months.

The conversion ceremony happened at the community mikvah. Jean’s husband, her grandmother, and her son were present. Some friends from the first temple surprised her by attending also and they brought her some gifts. The service was the same as a public service except it was performed privately at the mikvah. The rabbi added a speech

113 supporting Jean for her persistence and her husband for his support and encouragement.

Jean, her husband, and her friends then went to lunch to celebrate her conversion.

Jean reported her husband was undergoing some changes of his own since she

began this process. Though “he has got that firm belief in Jesus,” he stopped going to

Church and "to his mother’s horror he’s really getting away from the now traditional

Christianity.” Jean stated that he thinks that Christians “have taken the Jewishness out of

Jesus.” Despite his being a “workaholic,” he observes Shabbat with Jean and lights the candles even when Jean is out of town. He had expressed interest in attending classes at the synagogue but is afraid he would be “intruding.” Jean also reported that observance of the family purity laws has invigorated their sex life. She says, “it doesn’t get old that way.”

Some time after her conversion. Jean reported, her son decided "1 want to be a

Jew. I don’t want to be a Christian.” Jean and her husband allowed their son to experience both religions; his maternal grandmother, in particular, took him to Sunday

School at a church. He was also attending religious school at the synagogue and, at this point, the plan is that his conversion service will take place along with his Bar Mitzvah.

Jean’s experience also has impacted other family relationships. Her father was deceased at the time of Jean’s conversion but her mother “struggled big time” with it.

When Jean informed her mother by telephone of her conversion, her mother hung up on her and didn’t speak to her for 6-7 months. This has changed and “now we’re talking and she has come around” and “even gone to a couple of services.”

Jean’s “devout Christian” maternal grandmother’s response to the conversion was

“I just want to know one thing. Do they believe in God?” After being told yes, she said,

114 "well, that’s all that matters.” Jean said "and that was the end of that.” Grandmother came to Jean’s conversion service and now periodically calls Jean and says, "there’s a holiday coming up. I’ve been readin’ up on it.”

Jean said there has been a "big shift” in their household. They have changed their diet and they now include some ritual in their home. On Friday night they light Shabbat candles and Jean describes this as "rather spiritual.” She said "a peacefulness comes over me and I just feel like all week I have been holding my breath and now, finally, I can let it out.” Jean feels more peaceful now. For example, she talked about episodes she used to have in the night where she would wake up and feel "terrified” and keep thinking of death. She said, “I would just want to scream because it’s like nothing you can do about it. It’s just like a train hurtling into space and you can't stop it. It's going to get to wherever it's going to get to and there's nothing you can do about it.” This doesn’t happen any more.

When asked if she feels really Jewish, Jean said, "no, umm, I don’t. People who have known me say I have changed and can't figure out what the change is.” She added,

"1 don’t know how you are supposed to feel.” Jean reported that many people that know her don’t know that she has converted, as she doesn’t talk about it to others very much.

When she goes to dinner at someone’s house she "just eats around things.” She also said.

"1 always feel like I am not quite what I am supposed to be. I’m not as good as I’m supposed to be.” She is bothered that the Orthodox and some Israelis wouldn’t recognize her as a Jew and thinks if she felt more accepted that would help her to feel more Jewish.

Her experience with Orthodox people on a personal basis has been positive. Although at first when she began attending the mikvah every month at the Orthodox synagogue, the

115 others were “really surprised” and explained that few Reform Jewish women come to the mikvah. She feels accepted there now and said, “they have always been really really nice.”

Another important person in Jean’s story is the woman she met on the plane to

Israel. This woman and her daughter have stayed in contact with Jean and have been a source for emotional support, advice, and practical information. Jean and her son went to the daughter’s house for their first Passover. This family also gave Jean a challah cover with a picture of a "brown family” on it to help reassure Jean and her son that you can be

Jewish if you are African American.

Responses to Interview Questions

In this section, responses to interview questions will be summarized to address the six main content areas. The following questions are drawn from the intervdew guide

(Appendix C) and cover these six areas:

1. What was your religious background?

2. When did you first think of converting to Judaism and why?

3. Tell me about the process of preparing to convert and the ceremony you went through.

4. How did others react to your conversion?

5. Do you feel like you are “really Jewish?”

6. How much have you and-or your life changed since your conversion? In what ways?

These questions were used as the analytical framework (Patton, 1990) for the data and interviews were initially coded by question topic. As participants’ responses were compared and contrasted across all of the stories, themes emerged. Interviews were re-

116 coded for these themes and references to them were tallied (LeCompte, 2000; Rosenblatt

& Fischer, 1993). These tallies will be used to discuss trends in the data.

Religious Background

Except for Susan, who only attended Sunday School for ''literary reasons,” all of the participants had some degree of Christianity in their homes as they were growing up.

Nearly everyone reported some level of Church attendance. For Kate and Jean it was their grandmothers who took the children to Church because their parents either didn’t go to church or didn’t go very often. One of the most striking findings in this data is how little attachment these participants, and often their parents, had to Christianity.

There was Catholicism in the home but certainly not strongly. . . . We usually went to Church. (Terry)

My matemal grandmother was quite religious and she is the one who took me to [Lutheran] Sunday School. .. . My mother went occasionally. . . . My grandfather — I don’t know that he ever set foot in a Church, (no father in her life as parents were divorced.) (Kate)

I think it was more "this is something we have to do for the kids,” at least that’s how it came across to me because they [parents] weren’t active, they weren’t doing things - they would go Sunday mornings and therefore we [Bob and siblings] did.... [Religion was] pretty minor. (Bob)

As a child I always had a religious sense.... I was raised a Methodist and was very active. 1 was MYF president in Jr. High.... I can remember my mother asking him (father) to drive me to Sunday School and he would take me and drop me off and that was about it... . much later - like 70’s and 80’s — he actually sometimes went to church . . . and then he became disenchanted. (Mona)

Mom and dad weren’t what you would call real religious. There was still that every Sunday Church kind of thing and the sermons were very much hellfire and brimstone kind of stuff. (Liz)

We were not regular Church attendees although I did attend Sunday School off and on and was confirmed when I was 1 3 .... We weren’t very religious at least in attendance. (Dan)

117 My father and my mother met through the Salvation Army so it was very evangelistic at some point. I kind of missed all that.... As he [father who was a pastor] got older, either he failed or his faith failed him .. . . His final years he went back to the Salvation Army and belonged to that and in fact that’s where he died - he was on the pulpit and stepped down and collapsed and died. (Claire)

1 had never been a religious person. My parents never went to Church or anything... . Sundays were our day to sleep in .... Every once in a while my grandmother would haul me off to Sunday School. (Jean)

As would be expected from people who converted away from Christianity, this

group referenced many experiences with Christianity “not fitting" or "not making sense"

for them. There was an average of more than 7 comments from each participant on this

topic. The range went from a high of 18 (Bob) to a low of two (Dan).

All research participants expressed disagreement with some of the major tenets of

Christianity. Kate, Bob, and Cynthia said the concept of the Trinity was troublesome;

Bob said he never understood the Holy Ghost. Bob, Cynthia. Dan. and Claire disliked the Christian emphasis on the "world to come” as opposed to emphasizing this world now. Other topics mentioned as troublesome included the concept of hell (Liz), “original sin” (Bob and Cynthia), and the Virgin Birth (Kate and Jean). Dan couldn’t accept that

God would “doom” people not accepting Jesus as the Messiah. Terry didn’t like

Catholicism’s beliefs about women, birth control, and abortion. She also couldn’t understand that “if Jesus was the Messiah, then how come things are so bad?” Bob.

Mona, and Jean mentioned they spoke to their ministers and tried to resolve their difficulties but none were satisfied with the responses they received.

One thing about Christianity that I remember very clearly - I just could never get it through my head how one person could be three. 1 mean that bothered me as a little kid. That was impossible. ... It didn’t make sense at some point that one person could have a child by themselves. I couldn’t rationalize those things. It just never fit for me. (Kate)

118 The concept of original sin said to me that you’re in trouble before you start and so you better spend your whole life overcoming the problems and if you are successful, in effect, then your afterlife will be good and that didn’t mesh with my outlook.... it was more logical to me that you start with a clean slate and you dirty it up at will and afterlife is kind of a question mark (Bob)

While Bob complained that he felt like a hypocrite for saying prayers that he didn’t believe in, Kate and Mona complained about the hypocritical behavior of other

Christians; Kate then hastily added that you see some of that among Jews too. Susan didn’t like the way that Christians smdy the Bible saying "that it remained in the realm of mythology in the Christian experiences that I had.”

Three participants mentioned feeling uncomfortable in religious services in the church.

I felt uncomfortable, didn’t really want to be there, couldn’t quite get into what they were saying .. . the whole thing about Christianity. It just wasn’t hitting me at all and so 1 just never went. (Jean)

So 1 did attend a couple of churches in the area and it still just didn’t speak to me. It just didn’t fit. (Claire)

Our Church was not so bad but seeing some of these Churches in Europe and blood is coming out everywhere. Or Mexico, you see it there too. (Kate)

Overall this group of people had very little attachment to Christianity. Only Terry and Liz mentioned that they missed anything about Christianity. They both had converted primarily for family or marriage reasons rather than because of religious convictions about Judaism. Dan mentioned feeling a little guilt and a sense of betrayal for leaving his previous religion. These three were the only ones that reported they had changed their understanding and interpretation of Jesus.

119 First thoughts about conversion and why

Most people had some prior knowledge or experience of Judaism and/or Jewish

people. Some had read about Jews in Sunday School, some had Jewish neighbors or

Jewish schoolmates, Liz had two Jewish brothers-in-law, and Terry had a Jewish step-

grand father (who converted to Christianity). However, everyone could name an

experience or set of experiences where their spiritual direction changed and they began

the journey which ultimately led to conversion to Judaism. For four people the change

occurred in response to something they read.

1 picked up a book on Judaism and got to about page 12 and I went 'T h at's it! It’s already been invented. I don’t have to come up with a new religion! This is absolutely perfect exactly! I couldn’t have written this book better myself!” it was Boom! I found the theology and the viewpoint on life that matches what I think. ... I said "AJia! This is what I think You know granted well okay a little bit here a little bit there is a little bumpy but this is the one!” (Bob)

I really considered myself pretty much a mystic.. .. So when I found Martin Buber and he talked about this so matter-of-factly it was like it gave words to something — it was just a very^ powerful experience for m e... . My mom was diagnosed with cancer... . During that final period I just used to carry Martin Buber and Franz Rosenzweig around with me...They were like old friends. . . . The whole I-Thou experience was one that I really felt very sort of a kinship with ... I knew exactly what he was talking about. (Mona)

Eventually I pulled that book ["This is My God” by Herman Wouk] to read and that was then the first inkling that I was interested in this or it spoke to me and I grasped it and it meant something.... I remember there being passages in there by him on how he felt about things and I remember taking those passages and writing them down in my diary or journal at the time. It just made sense. ... I don’t even know what it was. It was just something. How he wrote so eloquently I thought, articulated how he felt. That just kind of spoke to me about the faith part o f it. (Claire)

Kate began her joumey to Judaism by reading about it but the local synagogue was Orthodox and she didn’t want that kind of conversion which she thought would be

120 too “rigid.” A few years later when she met the man she eventually married, he helped

her find a rabbi to help her with a conversion to Reform Judaism.

I was reading about all kinds of religions and I thought the best fit for me was Judaism. 1 still believe that. ... About a year and a half into the relationship he asked me if I would mind converting to Judaism and I said “no” ... so we went to the Reform temple and talked to the rabbi. (Kate)

Terry and Liz had not been considering Judaism but it was meeting and deciding

to marry Jewish men that started their joumey.

When 1 considered marrying my husband. And I probably would not - 1 don’t know — I wasn’t that exposed to Judaism and I wouldn’t have probably thought about it if I hadn’t been dating him. (Terry)

It wasn’t anything I had even considered.... 1 didn’t have any reason to even look into it. I guess maybe I wasn’t close to anybody enough to be curious to know more. . .. I didn’t make it because I was getting married but 1 did make - if it was something that I could embrace and would want to do or I wanted to do to make us close so that one is not going one way and one is going another way. That there’s a common communication and common belief system. (Liz)

Cynthia's joumey began as a result of going to Jewish services with a college

friend. She particularly mentions the first service she went to after the death of her grandfather.

The first Friday night I went it was a very peaceful sort of calm kind of thing. We got to Kaddish [Jewish prayer honoring those who have died] and he sort of explained what it was. ... He was a very nice sweet older rabbi. 1 started crying and 1 felt this really big sense of peace and that was the first time that 1 had felt that in such a long time. ... 1 continued going to Friday night services there at the same synagogue.

For Jean, the experience that started her on the road to conversion was very dramatic and sudden. She was working in Israel as an archeologist and she visited the

Temple Mount Wall in Jemsalem.

121 I remember I put my forehead on the wall first and then 1 put my two hands on the wall and then after that things just kinda' went to heck. Ummm, it’s hard to explain, but I felt like I needed to find out more about Judaism by the time I was dragged away from the w all.... I was just bawling and bawling and bawling.... and that was the beginning of it.

Susan talked about her experiences teaching at an Orthodox Jewish Day school.

Her interest in Judaism was awakened gradually through her experiences at the school,

the readings she did, and her reaction to leaving the school and the Jewish community

when they moved.

I went to work for the [Orthodox Jewish] Day School and it really immerses you in the rhythm of Jewish life whether you intend to be pulled in or not. ... I really had not thought about converting although 1 had learned a lot. I read a lot while we were there.... I guess we had been there for a year or so [after moving away from the community where the school was] . . . when it became really clear to me the sense of loss of the connection to the Jewish community was greater than I miss my friends.... it was pretty clear to me at that point that there was going to be some other connection — whether it was going to be conversion or not I didn’t know, but there was some greater connection.

Dan, who had a slow and gradual interest that developed over a long period of time, listed many different experiences that influenced him. He converted after 22 years of marriage to a Jewish woman. For many years in the beginning of their marriage he remained “very entrenched” and active in his church where he was a deacon. Gradually, after participating in Jewish services and other activities with his wife and daughter, he became interested in Judaism. Classes and books further fired his interest.

The classes were eye-openers. Those were the light bulb moments in those classes.... It was like the eureka thing and I would come home all excited about f t... and then reading the platforms that reform went through.... and the feelings that I get from being in temple and the writings in Gates of Prayer or whatever [the rabbi] might be talking about in his sermon.... the other thing was a president’s all-inclusive message that we need to accept and embrace all people ... there was one of the lightbulbs that went off.

122 After feeling acceptance (or not) by others, the next highest number of references

went to the topic of Judaism ‘^making sense” or “fitting” for people. One hundred twenty

references were coded for this topic. This information was often offered spontaneously

as participants told their stories to this researcher. The number of references per person

ranged from 18 to 8. As might be expected, those eight people who converted primarily

for religious convictions had a higher number of references to Judaism “making sense” or

“fitting” (12.9 per person). But even the two people who converted more for family

reasons averaged 8.5 references each, which showed that they also had an affinity for the

religion.

Terry, Kate. Liz, Dan, and Claire made a total of nine references to finding more

intellectual freedom in Judaism than they had found in Christianity. And, though Terry

found that a little frightening compared to Catholicism where she felt she was told what

to believe, all five of them liked having the freedom to struggle with the tenets in Judaism

and to make up their own minds about what they believed.

Becoming Jewish involved some amount of struggle for most people. Everyone

referenced some areas where they weren’t immediately fully comfortable. The most

common experience referenced was learning how to do Jewish ritual. For example,

Mona talked about not knowing how to light Chanukah candles since her family of origin

had not done that while she was growing up. Participants got more comfortable with these kinds of activities by learning about them from finends, rabbis, classes, and books.

Jean mentioned that, as far as she knew, she had not known any Jews or anything about

Judaism before her trip to Jerusalem and her experience at the wall so she had a lot to

learn. Both Terry and Liz had some struggles with customs in the Jewish culture, in

123 particular with very enthusiastic and sometimes confrontational dinner conversations with their in-laws; their Gentile families of origin were apparently more subdued at dinner. Liz and Jean, with 21 and 12 comments respectively to feeling uncomfortable and/or lacking knowledge about some aspect of Judaism or Jews, seemed to have the most difficulty. The other eight people averaged three references each on this topic.

Conversion Preparation and Ceremonies

The range of time it took to prepare for conversion from the first contact with a rabbi was from four months to two and a half years. All ten participants were required to do readings, six attended classes, nine had individual study sessions with a rabbi, and six mentioned that attendance at services was required.

Five of the participants had a private conversion service in the rabbi’s study, one had a private service at the mikvah, and four had public ceremonies at either Friday night or Saturday morning services. Bob, Mona, and Cynthia had mikvah services in addition to their other services. Bob, Mona, Liz, and Cynthia had to appear before a belt din where they were questioned and approved. Only one. Bob, underwent a ceremonial circumcision. Susan described her ceremony as “reasonably anti-climactic” and said she had “stronger associations” with calling the rabbi to say she was ready to convert than she did at the actual ceremony. No questions were asked in the interviews about whether any of these different kinds of ceremonies were meaningful to the participants. However,

Mona and Jean both mentioned the mikvah ceremony as being particularly meaningful for them. Several people didn’t remember what was said at their ceremonies, either because they were so long ago (from one and a half to 36 years ago) or because they were too “anxious” while others remembered in detail the promises that they had made in their

124 ceremonies Almost ever^'one had fnends and/or family members present at their

ceremonies and Cynthia, Dan, and Jean mentioned they received gifts.

Changes in Relationships

A whole dissertation could be done on this topic alone. Many people spoke of

relationship changes, oftentimes very difficult ones that accompanied their conversion

experiences. While an in-depth analysis of this topic is beyond the scope of this work,

some of the most important findings will be presented, however briefly, in order to provide a full picture of the conversion experience.

O f all the themes that were coded the topic of acceptance received the most references by these participants. In the ten interviews conducted there were 183 references to whether or not participants felt other people (both Jews and non-Jews) accepted them as Jews.

Acceptance bv Jews. Of the 112 references that related to the Jewish community’s acceptance of them as Jews. 71% were positive. That is, participants were expressing that they felt accepted by other Jews. These were all related to personal experiences; some of these were with people they did not know very well such as being congratulated by many people after a conversion ceremony. Many of these references, however, were to relationships with Jews whom participants were very close to such as friends, in-laws, and/or spouses.

Twenty-eight percent of the references to acceptance by Jews were negative, that is, participants were expressing that they did not feel accepted. Several of these referred to the four rabbis that would not accept participants for conversion. Three of these rabbis did not want to create interfaith marriages and one did not want to convert the mother

125 unless the son converted at the same time. Cynthia complained that her rabbi was so hesitant about converting her that she began to question whether she was welcome. In talking with him about it, she found that he was worried that she would not be able to find a Jewish spouse (she was African American) and this would lead her to discontinue being Jewish. Cynthia also reported her belt din asked her if she was sure she wanted to be Jewish since she already faced discrimination as an African American and as a woman, but they did accept her for conversion. Most of the rest of the negative references were about the official Orthodox position that Reform conversions aren't legitimate, though three people mentioned that the Orthodox people they had contact with personally were accepting of them. There were two references (1%) to acceptance by

Jews that were coded as neutral. In these cases, the participants just mentioned that acceptance was important without telling of any experiences of it.

Acceptance bv Gentiles. Participants made 71 references to whether or not they felt accepted as Jews by Gentiles. Fifty-one percent of these related experiences of feeling their conversion had been accepted, 44% related feeling their conversions had not been accepted, while 5% were neutral. While a few of these references were related to distant relatives or people at work making negative comments about conversion to

Judaism, most of these references (both positive and negative) were about relationships that were close and personal. It’s important to add that these responses were not rated on a Likert scale for how much impact they had on the participant, they were just counted as positive or negative. Kate, Susan, and Jean had more positive than negative references about acceptance; Mona, Liz, and Dan were tied for positive and negative; Terry,

C>Tithia, and Claire had more negative references; Bob wasn’t sure if he was accepted,

126 The Outliers. Jean, an African American woman who had been Jewish I Vz years at the time of her interview, mentioned acceptance 47 times which was almost two times more than the next highest person on the list (Cynthia with 25). Forty percent of Jean’s references were to feeling accepted by Jews, 17% were about not feeling accepted by

Jews (she had been turned down for conversion by two rabbis and her other comments were about the Orthodox). 34% were about feeling accepted by Gentiles, and 9% were about not feeling accepted by Gentiles. Cynthia, the other African American, was next with 25 references to acceptance. For Cynthia, 17% were about feeling accepted by

Jews. 24% were about not feeling accepted by Jews, 12% were about feeling accepted by

Gentiles, and 40% were about not feeling accepted by Gentiles (two references were neutral).

Both of these women reported that one of their first thoughts when thinking about converting was that they would be very conspicuous in the congregation. Jean remembers her first reaction:

This is stupid! How much sense does this make? Where the heck am I going to go? They’re going to be able to see me from the air. I’ll be the only dark person in there! .. . But I found out later that’s not true.

A Jewish friend helped her with these feelings:

She sent me this beautiful print of a Jewish family during Shabbat at the dinner table. And it’s a brown family . .. and it’s a beautiful painting that she sent me and 1 framed it.... She made a challah cover for me .. . and she just made it out of an African print.

Cynthia’s comments were often in the context of dating and of not finding the

“right” man yet. She also reported much more contact with Orthodox Jews than any other participants did and many of her comments relate to her level of religious observance which is higher than many Reform Jews but not as strict as the Orthodox. 127 She has considered undergoing an Orthodox conversion but, so far. has not done so.

With these numbers in mind, the paper now looks specifically at some examples of close and personal relationships and how they were impacted by conversion.

Parents. Of the ten research participants, four people (Liz, Dan. Claire, and Jean) reported that, at the time of conversion, their fathers were deceased. Kate’s parents had divorced when she was very young and she never knew her father. Mona didn’t tell her father until many years later; he said he was glad she had found something she believed in. Bob’s father, who later had a nervous breakdown and left the family, didn't say much about Bob’s conversion at the time. Susan said of her father, “anything I did would have been just fine with him.” Cynthia said it “wasn’t a problem” with her father, though in a later email she said he was “a bit concerned.” Terry reported that her father disowned her and had her excommunicated from the Catholic Church; he also reportedly became anti-

Semitic. After eight years, they did begin having limited contact again.

Mona, Liz, and Claire reported that, at the time of their conversions, their mothers were deceased (Liz and Claire also had deceased fathers). Terry’s mother joined her father in disowning their daughter, though her mother was more conciliatory in her behavior and confronted her father on the anti-Semitic remarks he made to Terry and her husband. Jean’s mother, when told her daughter was going to convert, hung up the phone and didn’t speak to her daughter for 6 or 7 months, though she later became more accepting and even attended a Jewish service with Jean. Cynthia reported her mother

“had some difficulty with it” though she thought that later her mother "pretty much accepted it quietly in her own way but it’s not something that the rest of my family really

128 mentions.” Susan’s mother was “not good with it” and "we don’t discuss it.” Her mother

lives a long distance away and their contact is therefore very infrequent.

Bob’s mother, like his father, “didn’t say much about it” at first though Bob added in a later e-mail that he believes she has “accepted” it. Dan reported his mother’s

“reaction was fine” and she showed “no animosity or real conflict.” He continued by saying "1 don’t think she's ever really said” and he suspects that she may worry that he is

“lost” and also “whether 1 really know what I am doing.” Kate reported her mother was

“fine” with Kate’s conversion and that “those things [religious differences] just didn’t matter, or, if they did, they were sure well hidden because I never got any sense of it.”

Spouses. Five of the spouses of research participants were Jewish from birth.

Terry was disappointed that her husband was not very religious and he therefore often left her to find her own way religiously. She reported he also did not help in passing on the religion to their sons:

1 found out just how little a practicing Jew my husband was. ... 1 don’t think he ever took the kids to religious school unless I was sick. ... He didn't like going to services. Consequently the kids didn’t like going to services.

Kate lists her husband as the “biggest thing that was helpful.” She said that she got “total support and agreement” from him. Liz also lists her husband as being helpful to her:

I remember when [his aunt’s] husband passed away and they were sitting Shiva. . . . 1 was going through the line and getting up close to [her] and he thought 1 was moving to sit down on the stool beside her and he kind of... steered me clear and whispered in my ear “don’t sit down” .. .And he does try if there is something that maybe I haven’t been exposed to before or something.... yeah, he’s been real good that way.

129 Both Bob and Dan reported that their wives, while supportive of their conversions, checked to make sure their husbands had not felt pressured to make this change:

She encouraged it cautiously at the beginning. It was never "if you want to stay together you have to” — there was never anything like that. It was more "if this is what you want to do, great. If you have questions let me know and 1 will either answer them or work out a way to get the answer.” (Bob)

[My wife] said, "Hey wait! You're not going to convert so that we're the same!” . . . I think there was an attempt by my wife and her mom and her sisters and everybody to not put pressure on me in any way, shape, or form, including even after I had converted not to over-react to it.... I appreciate it. (Dan)

Cynthia and Claire were not married at the time of their conversions and at the time of their interviews. Three participants were married to non-Jewish men at the time of their conversion. Jean's husband was strongly Christian at the time of Jean's conversion.

He's a person where he doesn't care really about what religion as long as you believe in something because he feels that people need to believe in something or there’s a big hole in their lives. So he was very- excited.

Mona and Susan's husbands were not religious in any way, though Susan's husband later converted to Judaism himself. When talking about a rabbi Susan had asked to work with her on conversion:

He wasn’t willing to work with me unless [my husband] was also ready to study for conversion and he was not. That was a new concept, a new idea for him. He didn’t think he had any interest at all. . . . and then [my husband] converted [a few years later].

Mona's husband has not converted:

He really to this day considers himself an atheist and really has no sense of God or no need for a sense of God. I mean he knows where I stand on it and I think he’s just like "oh, that’s her thing” sort o f... most of our fnends are Jewish and [he] just fits right in.... He comes with me to services, usually one or two High Holiday services and he really likes the services. (Mona) 130 Children. At the time of their conversions, these research participants had a total

of 11 non-Jewish children. Of these eleven, three became Jewish, one is planning a

conversion ser\dce at the time of his Bar Mitzvah, and seven did not become Jewish

(three of these were grown-up when their father converted). Of the five children who

were later bom Jewish (either through having bora Jewish mothers or having Jew-by-

choice mothers), three are actively Jewish, one is ambivalent, and one is resentful.

Other Relatives. Several participants mentioned that siblings had been

understanding and supportive of their decision to convert; Claire’s siblings had some

difficulty with it, however. Kate’s grandmother, who was described as “quite religious”

and who used to take Kate to Sunday school every week, was deceased at the time of

Kate’s conversion; Kate’s grandfather, who “never set foot in a Church,” was “fine” with

it. Jean’s grandmother was very supportive of conversion once she was reassured that

Jews did, indeed, believe in God; she even attended Jean’s conversion ceremony and has

been reading and learning about Judaism since then. Mona’s aunt responded to the news

that Mona had converted by saying “Jews killed Jesus.”

Jewish Identity

All of the ten people in this study identify themselves as being Jewish. Everyone

in this study was living by a Jewish calendar and celebrating Jewish holidays, they were

all synagogue members who were actively participating in Jewish life in some way, and they had all met the requirements for conversion and been converted by duly ordained rabbis. This question about feeling Jewish was not intended to determine if the participants were Jewish but was instead focused on determining how deeply they felt their Jewish identity and what meaning that identity had for them.

131 The four people who have been Jewish the longest responded positively when

asked if they felt like they were “really Jewish.” Terry, who has been Jewish the longest,

said:

Hummm, yeah. Yeah, I’ve picked up some things, not anyways near what anyone should know.... They’re [Orthodox] certainly are not going to accept somebody with a reform conversion ... but that doesn’t make that much difference to me any more. (Terry. Jewish 36 years)

The next three people answered pretty definitely in the affirmative.

Oh yeah, before I was. Yes.. .. Most people don’t know that I’m a convert.... I don’t talk about it. (Kate, Jewish 3 I years)

And have been for some time. . . . [identity] is different than what my family has but it's me. (Bob, Jewish 28 years)

Oh, absolutely. (Mona, Jewish 18 years)

Liz said she is Jewish but wants to feel more Jewish and is working on that:

I can say I feel committed to Judaism and to the Jewish people. ... I am on the outside looking in.... So. while yes I feel like I am because I've met what I needed to meet and I have renounced other [Christianity] so that I can be this, that I am Jewish, so I am. But I don’t feel like I know enough to be Jewish, if that makes sense, and that is why I am trying to learn more so that I can intelligently discuss things. (Liz. Jewish 15 years)

Cynthia speaks of the struggle to achieve a Jewish identity and her ability to assert that when she is with people, like many in her family, who don’t feel she is really Jewish.

I feel that I am really Jewish but I don’t feel necessarily that someone looking at me would necessarily take me as being Jewish.. .. I’ve become stronger at asserting a Jewish identity which at the beginning right after I converted was . . . more wanting to be immediately accepted.... And you get to a point where ... it doesn’t matter any more and you are just accepting of yourself. Because conversion is such a personal spiritual experience anyway that it would only hurt if someone chose not to accept you and it was a situation where it really mattered . . . like wanting to emigrate to Israel permanently and was denied . . . or if I did something where the person I wanted to marry was Orthodox, then we’d have some problems. (Cynthia, Jewish 12 years)

132 Susan, who stated that she feels "authentically Jewish,” also mentioned that she has gotten to the point that it doesn’t bother her if others don’t accept her as being Jewish although she said that she hasn’t had that happen very often as most people have been very accepting.

Part of it is that you look at things through a Jewish lens... . the sense making that 1 do in each of the encounters that I have in my life comes through that filter now.. .. It’s a constant filter. ... So when that filter was there and in place without thinking about it, that’s the way that I... identified for myself that I was really a Jew.... I had a tremendous sense of acceptance from the beginning.... I also came to the point where I understood that that acceptance thing from those people who are not too sure that you are Jewish enough - that’s their problem. It isn’t my problem. (Susan. Jewish 7 years)

Dan’s answer to the question about Jewish identity shows that he has thought about this topic:

I tell people that I practice Judaism. I’m not sure what really being a Jew is you know. But the religion I practice is Judaism because when most people ask that there’s an ethnic part of that they’re asking and that’s not what Judaism is any more entirely. (Dan, Jewish 3 years)

The two study participants that have been Jewish the shortest amount of time have very different feelings about their Jewish identity. One expresses a strong Jewish identity and the other is still trying to decide what that means and how it can apply to an African

American.

Yes, I have no doubt. I think I was always Jewish. I was just one of those who grew up in the wrong family. . . . I have no doubt of my own spirituality and where it has led me and what I am today. (Claire, Jewish I Vi years)

No, umm, I don’t.... I don’t know how you are supposed to feel.... I always feel not quite what I am supposed to be. ... there are certain groups that don't recognize me as one and that bothers me.... I would kind of like to be recognized as a Jew in Israel. (Jean, Jewish I Yz years)

133 Life Changes

This paper has mentioned changes in relationships and changes in identity that happen along with conversion to Judaism. This section deals with other kinds of changes that were listed in response to the question “how much has your life changed and in what ways?" Participants named both internal and external changes. Five people reported on the amount of change and all agreed it was a large change. For Mona it was

“tremendous," for Liz it was “big," and for Susan it was "huge.” Jean spoke change as a

“big shift" in her life and Cynthia underwent “a lot of changes." Interestingly, the changes listed are in relation to increasing religious ritual, joining a religious community, and a change in feeling state. Most people did not report changing their religious beliefs.

Instead, they found and joined a community tliat shared the beliefs that they already had.

Three people reported they changed their understanding of Jesus; for the other seven that didn’t seem to be an issue as they didn’t share Christian beliefs about Jesus anyway.

Religious Observance. The participants were not asked specifically what their level of religious observance was so it is possible that these changes might be true for more people than are listed. These are the changes that were mentioned spontaneously.

Seven people mentioned that they had increased participation in religious ritual.

Mona “craved” ritual right after her conversion though she sometimes had difficulty finding out exactly how to perform them correctly. Dan wasn’t interested in ritual at first but now reported that “if nothing else, repetition seems so important in reminding yourself what the correct things are.” The ritual that was mentioned most often was the lighting of candles on Friday evening for the Jewish Sabbath.

134 Five people reported more knowledge about and participation in religious

holidays since their conversions. For example, Terry said she finds Yom Kippur to be a

“beautiful and meaningful day.” Susan reported that, since she and her husband are

lacking a “Jewish cultural heritage,” they could pick and choose whether to follow the

Ashkenazi or Sephardic customs for Passover, for instance. Liz mentioned celebrating

the holidays with her husband’s family as her husband “would never think of not being

with family on a holiday.”

Four people talked about their conversion related to food. Kate had “given up pork a long time ago.” Jean and Cynthia changed what they ate. Claire's attitude toward eating changed so that food had “a spirituality that it didn’t have before, there’s a sacredness.”

Five people mentioned that they viewed time differently, especially Friday evenings and Saturdays. Cynthia sees her "weekends differently” now that she is on a

“different schedule” from the non-Jewish world. For Susan the “rhythm of life is different” than it was before her conversion began.

Participation in Jewish Communitv. Both Mona and Liz mentioned being very active at first in the Jewish community and synagogue life, then withdrawing somewhat from their activities. Mona said she was “in almost everything” for the first eight years.

Then family concerns required much of her energy and attention and she withdrew somewhat. Liz was “crazed” for the first three years, then “burnt out,” and “backed o ff’ though she continued to help out and to support the work her husband was doing in the synagogue. Terry’s pattern may have been the opposite. During her first few years of being Jewish she was very isolated from the Jewish community. Her participation built

135 up more gradually until today she has a very long list of activities she has accomplished and community and congregational boards and committees she has served on.

While Kate reported that her “friends did not change,” Susan said some of hers did as it was “harder to maintain non-Jewish friendships.” Two people reported that they felt as if they had joined a family and one a religious group:

I guess the most important part of it for me was kind of the sense of family and kinship....Coming into it sort of through ideas and through philosophy and having that piece of it really really stick....! tended to be very very abstract at college...and a deep thinker....It’s just so much better to be involved...socially and all the other dimensions that being involved in Judaism bring. (Mona)

I feel a part of something bigger. Once again the community, the family that I have here, 1 feel part of that. That has changed for me. 1 didn’t have that before. (Claire)

[I was] now a member of a religious group whose beliefs were in sync with mine. (Bob)

Nearly everyone mentioned feeling accepted by most people in the Reform

Jewish community, though several people complained that they would not be considered

Jewish by official Orthodox standards or in Israel. However, three people had found that individual Orthodox people were friendly and accepting. Only one person talked about feeling like she didn’t belong:

It’s not anything anybody has done to me. It’s just that there’s a definite vacant space between what 1 know and what a lot of other people [know]. . . . It’s kind of like I am on an outside waiting to get in and whether I’ll ever [get in] . .. 1 don’t know. (Liz)

Change in Attitude and Feeling State. While Kate reported external or behavioral changes in her life, she thought that internally “how I felt hadn’t changed.” Cynthia was at the other end of the scale with many changes:

136 [Changes were how I] look at life, how I keep house, decisions I make.... how I view other people .. . more tolerant.... spiritually happier.... less guilt and burden.... more energized.... more at peace.

Dan reported a "greater sense of support” which he explained meant "being at

peace ... [and] being comfortable with being who I am.” Jean too talked about peace:

I have to admit I have been more peaceful. I used to have times [at night] where I would . .. be thinking about death and I’d just be terrified.... I’ve settled down it seems like.

Claire feels more of a sense of "God’s presence” now, especially on Friday nights

and Saturdays. Jean, though she did believe in God before her experience at the Wall,

has "proof now that God exists.”

Cynthia, Susan, Dan, and Jean particularly emphasized that the changes are still

continuing and the process is not over yet. Dan said, "It is an ongoing process and I’m

still going through it. Still learning more and understanding more and feeling more at

home.”

Dan and Susan suggested 1 come back in five years and ask them then to see how

much they change from now.

Beliefs. Though there were many changes reported in religious observance,

activities in the new Jewish community, and attitude and feeling state, people often

referred to finding a religion and/or a religious community that was a better fit with their

beliefs rather than changing their beliefs. Kate, for example, said, "Philosophically there was no change.”

Several people mentioned that Jewish writers described a way of understanding religion, ethics, and/or relationships that fit with the way they understood them.

137 When I started studying more about the tenets of Judaism, it fit ethically with what I believed. (Cynthia)

This is absolutely perfect exactly — I couldn’t have written this book better myself.... But it was boom! I found the theology and the viewpoint on life that matches what I think. (Bob)

Mona found that Buber and Rosenzweig described experiences and beliefs that she had.

For Claire, it was Wouk that explained beliefs about God and about life that matched her

own. She referred to her conversion as “hooking up with a religious faith that had the

same kind of mindset or thinking.” When asked how much her life had changed, Claire

responded “In some ways not at all. In other ways 100%.” She later added. “ I think I was always Jewish. I was just one of those who grew up in the wrong family.”

Everyone mentioned ways that Judaism “made sense” or had meaning for him or her in ways that Christianity did not. So instead of changing beliefs, participants joined a religious group whose beliefs were “in sync” with their own, as Bob put it.

Three people reported that they had changed beliefs in that their view of Jesus had changed. Terry “liked the concept that the messiah is yet to come” as that answered her question that “if Jesus was the messiah, how come things are so bad?” She began to see

Jesus as “a good person, a good example.” Liz began to see Jesus more as “an educator or a prophet” rather than as a messiah.

Dan reported that his “sense of relationship with God is the same....I see differences in myself but I don’t see a difference in that relationship.”

138 CHAPTER 5

DISCUSSION

Introduction

The purpose of this study was to explore the experience of conversion to Judaism and the psychosocial process that occurs as people "turn Jewish.” Three research questions were the focus of this inquiry. They were: ( I ) What is the experience like for people who convert to Judaism? (2) How does conversion to Judaism occur? (3) Is there a pattern of experiences or stages that can be identified that takes place during the conversion process? To this end. ethnographic interviews and qualitative techniques were used to gather and to analyze the stories and experiences of ten people who have converted to Judaism.

Ten people who had converted from one and one-half to 36 years ago were interviewed in-depth in a semi-strucmred format. Their "stories,” the data that were gathered, and the themes that emerged in these interviews, were presented in Chapter 4.

This chapter will further discuss and interpret this data. First, the participants in this study are compared to the participants in previous studies on conversion to Judaism and there is discussion as to how they are similar and how they are different. Second, there is a discussion of some of the family issues that emerged in these interviews and how conversion to Judaism is related to family relationships. Third, stages that comprise the process of conversion are presented along with a discussion of the issues and tasks that

139 occur at each stage, as suggested by the data. Variations in the process are noted and comparisons are made with other models of how people make transitions in life. Fourth, developmental stages of late adolescence, early adulthood, and mid-life and theories of identity formation are discussed as they relate to the data in this study. Fifth, conclusions and limitations of this study are discussed. Next, implications for policy related to conversion are presented. Finally, suggestions are made for future research.

Comparison of Participants with Other Study Participants

In this section a comparison will be made of demographic factors, reasons for conversion, and levels of participation in the Jewish community of the participants in this project and the participants in other studies on conversion to Judaism. This is done to help the reader determine the generalizability of these findings as they may pertain to other converts.

Demographics

Gender. Eighty percent of the participants of the current study were female. This is similar to the rates reported by other studies which were; Foster and Tabachnik (1991)

— 80%; Huberman (1978) - 66%; Mayer and Avgar (1987) — 86%; Montgomery (1991) —

8594.

Age. Huberman’s (1978) study was the only one that reported the ages of his subjects at the time of their conversion. Nine percent of Huberman's (1978) subjects were in their late teens at the time of their conversion compared to none in tlie cuirent study. Seventy percent were in their twenties compared to 40% of the participants of the current study. Seventeen percent of Huberman’s (1978) subjects were in their thirties compared to 40% of the current study. Finally, only 4% of Huberman’s (1978) study

140 were in their 40’s or above, compared to 20% of the participants of the current study.

Montgomery (1991) reports the ages of her subjects at the time of her study, not at the

time of conversion. Foster and Tabachnik (1991) report the ages of participants in the

‘'Introduction to Judaism” class as ranging from 22 to 69 with an average age of 35, but

not all of these people converted and the age at time of conversion was not reported.

Education. As in other studies of converts to Judaism, the participants of this

study were a highly educated group.

Studies Percent who attained Percent who attained Undergraduate degrees Graduate degrees Huberman (1978) 28 19

Montgomery (1991) 38 44

Mayer & Avgar (1987) 41 47

Foster & Tabachnik (1991) 52 33

Current study 50 40

Table 5.1: Highest college degree participants have attained.

Socio-economic status. The specific occupations of the participants of this study

will not be reported to protect confidentiality and income was not asked. All were middle

or upper middle class in their lifestyle and occupation (and/or their spouse’s occupation).

This is similar to the findings of other studies that reported on SES (Foster & Tabachnik,

1991; Huberman, 1978; Mayer and Avgar, 1987; Montgomery, 1991).

141 Reasons for Conversion

While it is often difficult to define exactly what it was that made someone decide

to convert and there is often a mixture of reasons, the people in the current study were

more likely to report religious reasons rather than family/marital reasons for their

conversion. In fact. 80% of the total converted mainly for religious reasons. While

participants were not specifically asked what their most important reason for conversion

was, this information emerged spontaneously in many of their stories. Of the five people

who were married or engaged to Jews at the time of their conversion, three reported they

converted mainly because of religious convictions. Even the two participants who did

convert more for family/marital reasons expressed preferences for Judaism in some ways.

Of the remaining five subjects, three were married to non-Jews and two were single at the

time of their conversion. This differs from the findings of Huberman (1978) and Foster

and Tabachnik (1991 ), where reasons for conversion were more related to marriage

and/or children (though the reasons included religious aspects), and is also different than

Montgomery’s (1991) findings which showed more mixture of religious and family

reasons related to conversion. Huberman’s (1978) subjects usually listed multiple reasons, but when asked their most important reasons. 53% listed maritakfamily reasons as most important, compared to 32% who said their most important reason was that

Judaism was more acceptable than their childhood religion. Foster and Tabachnik (1991) reported similar findings; subjects listed multiple family and religious reasons for conversion, but when asked the most important reason, the largest category was marital/family reasons (46%).

142 In listening to the stories of participants, it was found that the three who were

married or engaged to Jews at the time of their conversion but who converted because of

religious beliefs had more in common with the five who had converted without the

context of marriage. Even those who reported converting more for family reasons also

reported religious reasons. While it is possible that there are people who fit the

stereotype of converting totally “for marriage,” this was not the case with the people in

this study. Nor is this phenomenon very frequent in the other studies cited (Foster &

Tabachnik, 1991; Huberman, 1978; Montgomery. 1991) as there is usually a rnixmre of

religious and marital-family reasons for conversion. However, in the current study 80%

have converted primarily for religious reasons which is a higher percentage than others

have reported.

Those who converted primarily for religious reasons also reported some marital/family reasons for converting. In this way they were similar to the participants in other studies who had a mixture of reasons. Claire and Mona both reported that the new

Jewish community began to feel like a “family” to them. Susan was very careful to be considerate of the feelings of her husband and sons when she converted and delayed her conversion until a point when they were more prepared. Both Susan and Dan reported that one of the values they had in common with Judaism was the emphasis on the family and the home as the center of much religious observance. Dan summed up his reason for conversion as “in some sense I guess I did convert because of family reasons but it was more that it made sense to me.”

143 Another difference betw'^een the current study and others is that 50% of the participants in this study reported intellectual freedom as being one of the things that drew them to Judaism.

It gave me more intellectual leeway in that it wasn’t so doctrinaire. (Kate)

I really did like that there weren’t so many things telling you what to believe. At one time that was extremely scary and at another time it was also releasing to be able to do that. (Terry)

This was not mentioned as a reason for conversion in the other studies that report on reasons for conversion (Foster & Tabachnik. 1991: Huberman. 1978; Montgomery,

1991).

Level of participation

Huberman (1978) has proposed a model to display patterns of participation in

Jewish life. These categories also reflect the degree of Jewish identification that converts have reached.

Huberman (1978) lists seven levels of Jewish participation and he portrayed these in seven concentric circles. Level One, the inner circle which he calls “Integral

Converts,” “regard Judaism as a central factor in their lives” and they live their lives by a

“Jewish RJiythm” (p. 199). At the other extreme. Level Seven people do not regard themselves as Jewish and see their conversions as an embarrassment. Seven percent of

Huberman’s subjects fit into this category.

144 Figure 5.1 : The “shape” of Jewish communal participation among converts

Integral Converts (12%) — live a “Jewish rhythm.” Participants (33%) — involved in Jewish life on a regular basis. Associated Converts (12%) — affiliated with Jewish institutions in some concrete way. Contributors and Consumers (23%) - give money and/or use the services of Jewish institutions periodically. Peripheral Converts (6%) — identify as Jews but completely un involved in Jewish life. Marginal Converts (7%) — quasi-Jews who are neither completely in nor out of the Jewish community. Non-Jews (7%) — converts who have repudiated Judaism and their conversion.

145 In the current study, all ten (100%) of the participants fall within the inner three

circles of this model with at least half of them in the inner two circles, according to

Huberman’s (1978) criteria. They are all synagogue members, they attend services at

least part of the time, they use the synagogue to commemorate life cycle events, and they

participate to varying degrees in Jewish organizations other than the synagogue. All but

one mentioned they either serve on committees or boards, teach in religious school, sing

in the choir, and/or attend adult education activities regularly. This contrasts with

Huberman’s (1978) subjects where 57% were in the inner three circles. Thus, the

participants of this study were more active after conversion than Huberman’s ( 1978)

subjects.

Four possible reasons could explain the difference between the level of Jewish

participation of the participants in this study and the ones in Huberman’s study (1978).

One is the method of gathering participants. Huberman’s (1978) subjects were drawn from people who had taken an "Introduction to Judaism” course; he contacted people and asked them to participate. In the current study, people volunteered to participate from an ad in a synagogue bulletin, so it may be that people who would volunteer for this type of study are more involved in Judaism and interested in the topic of conversion. Not everyone reads the synagogue bulletin and those who do are probably more involved in synagogue life. In addition, the ad began with "often after a significant change has occurred in our lives it feels good to tell our story to someone” which may have drawn people whose conversions were more transformational.

Second, 93% of Huberman’s (1978) subjects converted to Judaism in the context of marriage while only 50% of this study’s participants at the time of their conversion

146 were married to or engaged to a person who was bom Jewish and, of those, 60% converted more for religious conviction than for family or marriage reasons. People who convert primarily for religious reasons may be motivated to participate more actively and also show a higher level of commitment.

Third, Huberman’s study was done in 1978 when there were fewer conversions to

Judaism. Mayer (1995) estimates there were 1,800 conversions per year in 1974, 3,200 in 1984, and 3,600 by the early 90 s. In 1978 when Huberman’s study was completed, the Reform movement had just began their outreach program. The present study was done 23 years later so there may be more precedent for converts to participate more in synagogue life. There are more role models for the new converts today plus the Jewish community may be more experienced at dealing with new Jews and better at integrating them into the community.

Fourth, these research participants tended to be older than Huberman’s (1978) subjects and have been Jewish for a longer period of time. One of his findings was that converts become more active in synagogue and/or Jewish community life as they age and as the length of time they have been Jewish increases. More specifically, he reported people in the 40-49 age group participated significantly more in Jewish community life than those in the 20-29 age group. Age and length of time since conversion was the fifth most significant determinant of placement in the concentric circle model, after spouse’s involvement, Jewish in-laws, rabbis, and friends (Huberman, 1978).

Summary

In summary, participants in this study were similar in education, gender, and socio-economic status to subjects in other studies. They differed in that they were older,

147 they converted more for religious reasons, they were more active in Jewish community

life, and they had been Jewish for a longer period of time. The next section of this paper

discusses some of the family issues participants reported dealing with.

Family Issues

There are many ways that a family can be impacted when someone converts to

Judaism. Conversion affects parents, siblings, in-laws, spouses, children - in short, just

about any relative can be affected. These people can, in turn, have an effect on the

convert.

One unexpected and interesting finding in this study was the low number of participants who had support from his/her father at the time of conversion. Four people

(40%) had fathers who were deceased at the time of conversion, one was absent and had been for many years, one had a “nervous breakdown” after his son’s conversion and has had no contact since, one didn’t know about the conversion because his daughter didn't tell him for many years, and one disowned his daughter and had her excommunicated from the Catholic Church after she converted. Of the two remaining fathers, one accepted his daughter’s conversion though he was "a bit concerned” about it. and one was described as accepting everything his daughter did. Six of these fathers were described as being not very or not at all religious, one’s religion was unknown, one had some religion, and two were very religious (though one of these was very conflicted about religion while his daughter was growing up).

Turning to mothers, three were deceased at the time of conversion, one stopped speaking to her daughter for 6 months but seems more accepting now, one went along witli the father disowning the daughter though later was more conciliatory, and one

148 disapproved and they don’t speak of it and have very little contact. On the more positive

side, two mothers seem at least partially supportive: one was “okay” with the conversion,

and one became accepting after a period o f non-acceptance at first. The mothers’ levels

of religiosity were very similar to the fathers in that they were overall not very religious.

Subject Father Father very Mother Mother very Religious? Religious? Terry Disowned No Disowned No

Kate Divorced Unknown Fine No

Bob “nervous No Not sure No breakdown” Mona Didn’t know No Deceased Unknown

Liz Deceased No Deceased No

Cynthia Concerned Yes Difficult at Unknown at first first Susan Okay None Not None accepting Dan Deceased No Fine No

Claire Deceased Yes. but Deceased Yes conflicted Jean Deceased No Difficult at No first

Table 5.2: Parental reaction to conversion at the time and religiosity of parents.

No questions were asked of participants about what their relationships with their parents were like before conversion. It is not known what effect, if any, their previous relationships had on the decision to convert. In case studies and/or research on conversion to Christianity, several authors (Allison, 1969; Bragan. 1977; Freud,

149 1923/1961; James, 1902/1961; Kildahl, 1965; Kirkpatrick & Shaver, 1990; Roberts,

1965; Salzman, 1953; Spellman, Baskett, & Byrne, 1971; Starbuck, 1897, 1900)

suggested that people who had very sudden and very intensely emotional conversions to

Christianity at a young age were expressing unresolved Oedipal difficulties or other

developmental and/or mental health issues. In comparison, the subjects who had

experienced gradual conversions were found to be psychologically healthier and to have

had better relationships with their parents. In addition, both Salzman (1953) and Roberts

(1965) reported that subjects who had converted to a religion that was different from their parents’ religion were psychologically healthier and more mature than those who deepen their commitment to a religion they already professed. In the present study all of the participants were converting to a religion that was different from their parents’ religion and, though one began the conversion process after a sudden religious experience, all of these conversions were gradual and involved much intellectual study.

The interviews of these participants contained a number of comments related to

Gentile family members being non-accepting of their conversion to Judaism. These comments about acceptance were coded as to whether they denoted acceptance, non- acceptance, or neutrality and then re-coded as to whether they related to Jews or to non-

Jews and they were counted. While there were a few comments about friends or co­ workers, most of the comments about non-Jewish acceptance were related to family members. While being disowned by a father after conversion might often be more impactful than having a very distant aunt remark that “Jews killed Jesus” after being told that her niece had converted to Judaism, there was no attempt made to weight these comments. After removing Jean, who was an outlier with 16 positive and four negative

150 comments, and Bob, who seemed somewhat unsure whetlier his conversion had been accepted or not, data indicated an average two and one-half comments per participant about acceptance by non-Jews and three and one-half comments per participant about non-acceptance by non-Jews. Again, these numbers do not signify how many instances of acceptance and non-acceptance participants had experienced, rather they showed the numbers of references to acceptance and non-acceptance that were present in the stories that people told about their experiences. Identifying what types of memories people have of their experiences helps to understand what their experiences were like, one of the goals of this research. On average, there are more memories of conversion not being accepted by Gentile family members. There did not appear to be any relation between achievement of Jewish identity and family members’ acceptance, a finding that was different than Montgomery’s (1991). Her subjects reported they felt more like Jews when they were around Gentiles because Gentiles were more apt to believe they were

Jews than people in the Jewish community were. It’s possible that converts are now more accepted by the Jewish community than they were when Montgomery collected her data. Another possibility is that her subjects experienced a range of Jewish communities while the people in this study were primarily participating in a Reform community.

Reform Judaism has made more outreach efforts than the other movements of Judaism have done. Another factor is that a higher percentage of participants in this study converted for religious conviction and, therefore, may have more motivation to establish

Jewish identities and to participate in the Jewish community. With more relationships in the new community, they may be less affected by non-acceptance in the old one.

151 Terry, who had the most difficult problems with her parents, offers one possible explanation for her parents’ behavior:

.. - while this was happening with my parents I could understand where they were coming from and very often I found myself trying to explain my fiancé to them and them to my fiancee. . . . But if you really believe in something — let’s just take Christianity - if you really believe in something and you believe it has good things to offer to you, you really want your children to be able to see those things and get those positive things from it.. .. it's very hard — any belief religion or a whole lot of other things that are really important to you - to see one of your children not accepting those things. That’s hard to deal with and it can also be taken as a slap in the face or a failure.

However, all of the parents that were living and involved with their adult children at the time of conversion or shortly thereafter (two fathers were not involved with their children after conversion), all parents at some point at least agreed to continue having a relationship with their offspring and most came to at least tolerate their offspring's religious conversion. Even Terry’s parents, who had disowned her, began having limited contact with her again.

Another interesting dynamic that arose in the current study and that no other study reports, is that three women in this study were married to non-Jewish men at the time they converted. Two of the husbands were strongly non-religious and one was strongly

Christian. Of the two non-religious men, one converted to Judaism five years after his wife did and one has not converted but does socialize with Jews a lot and occasionally attends services at the synagogue. The husband who was strongly Christian seems to have developed a strong interest in Judaism as well and is observing the Jewish Sabbath and other Jewish rituals both with his wife and, when she is out of town, he does them alone. He is also increasingly reading about and questioning his Christian beliefs and has stopped attending Church.

152 Process of Conversion

Data revealed similarities in the reported experiences of people as they went

through the conversion process. From this data, a six-stage process that people may go

through during conversion to Judaism is proposed. Each stage has its own tasks and its

own issues. At some stages, the changes that occur are more internal while, at other

stages, the changes are more external or public. There is, of course, some overlap in

these stages. Not all participants experienced all of the stages listed here and not all

participants experienced them at the same depth. In addition, participants did not

necessarily go through the stages in exactly the same order. Nonetheless, there was a

general pattern to the stages that were revealed in the stories of these ten participants.

The next section of this paper concerns these six stages, followed by a discussion of

them.

Lack of Connection to Childhood Religion

Most participants in this study evidenced very few ties to Christianity. Susan's

great grandfather was a priest; Cynthia had ministers and missionaries in her family, and

her father was rebaptised shortly before Cynthia began studying to convert to Judaism,

and Dan studied to enter a seminary but later changed his mind. Both Jean and Kate had grandmothers that were very religious, and Claire’s father was an evangelical minister, though he was conflicted and doubting his religion during at least part of Claire’s childhood. On the other hand, eight participants characterized at least one parent as not very religious (one didn’t say if her mother was very religious or not, only that she was

“quiet” about religion) and six people characterized both parents as not very religious.

153 Six people reported attending church or Sunday school regularly, though one was sent for “literary reasons” rather than religious ones. The other four attended church services off and on. Often parents would drop off the children and would not attend services themselves.

Mom taught Sunday school.. . from time to time but as we grew up it was like they would send you but they didn’t go lots of times . .. and then as we got older we kinda’ balked at it and didn’t go. (Liz)

Even though Bob’s parents did attend religious services, Bob’s impression was they did it “for the kids” rather than because of their own religious beliefs. Kate and Jean reported their grandmothers were very religious and insisted they got at least some religious education in Christianity. The two grandmothers’ interventions did not succeed in making Christianity more comfortable or more attractive to these two subjects; they both described themselves as “not religious” before their conversion to Judaism.

...every once in a while my grandmother would haul me off to Sunday School... I felt uncomfortable - didn't really want to be there, couldn’t quite get into what they were saying.... It just wasn’t hitting me at all and so I just never went.... When I became adult, I just didn’t go. It just didn’t phase me. (Jean)

After converting to Judaism, only two subjects reported missing anything about

Christianity: Liz missed some of the hymns, and Terry missed Christmas and some of the other traditions. This lack of grief may be indicative of not having strong attachments to the religion of their childhood (alternative explanations are discussed later in this paper). Even Dan, probably the most formerly committed Christian of all ten people, did not mention that he missed anything about Christianity since he became a Jew.

154 Questioning Beliefs

Virtually every participant reported they began questioning the tenets of

Christianity during high school and/'or college. While everyone continued to believe in

God, other aspects of Christianity were troublesome. In fact, when comments of respondents were tallied as to topic, discomfort with the beliefs of Christianity was the third most common topic that people mentioned in their stories. Montgomery (1991) reported that 62% of her subjects classified their early childhood religious upbringing as

‘‘an irritant” (p. 80). While no one in this study called it “an irritant.” all of the participants in this research listed disbelief with at least some of the tenets of Christianity:

.. . that burning in hell kind of thing. I had a hard time - you can tell I had a hard time with that. I could never quite get that. (Liz)

. . . trying to make some sense of the theology and where it put the Jewish people and [others] who had never heard of Jesus ... what kind of a God would doom a whole race of people [for not accepting Jesus]? (Dan)

During their high school years. Cynthia and Bob began disagreeing with the

Christian practice of using Jesus as an “intermediary” to God. Cynthia said “your path to

God was always through someone or something else to get there which I really disagreed with.”

Three people disagreed with the concept of the Trinity, one didn’t understand the

Holy Ghost, four disliked what they saw as an emphasis on the “world to come,” one complained about the concept of hell, two about “original sin,” two about the “virgin birth,” and one didn’t like Catholic beliefs about women, birth control, and abortion.

Kate and Mona complained about the behavior of adults in their congregation and how they didn’t seem to be living up to the beliefs they professed. Kate thought this was hypocrisy. Mona, who had been a very active Methodist and president of the Methodist 155 Youth Fellowship in Junior High School, reports becoming disenchanted during high school because of the behavior of adults in her congregation when they were at parties.

Most reported they did not feel comfortable with Christian ser\dces and did not go very often, if at all. Liz and Jean reported they stopped attending church as they got older.

. . . as we grew up it was like they [parents] would send you but they didn’t go lots of times .. . and then as we sot older we kinda' balked at it and didn’t so. (Liz)

Mona. Bob, and Jean reported they spoke with their ministers about their discomfort with Christianity. This was an attempt to find a way to feel better about their religion and to work out the differences. None was satisfied by the responses they received and they ended up feeling even more alienated.

While half of Montgomery’s f 1991 ) people who were dissatisfied with

Christianity “went along with the program passively.” half rebelled. Most of the respondents in this study were participating very little in Christian activities prior to their conversion to Judaism so, for the most part, they were not “going along with the program” but had dropped out of it. Most reported cognitive dissonance in that

Christianity “didn’t make sense” or didn’t “fit” them. No one seemed angry about his or her religious background. The overall impression that eight people gave was that

Christianity was largely unimportant to them as they had not really "owned” it. Dan and

Terry had been more active in Christianity and Dan, Terry, and Liz mentioned that they had changed their understanding of Jesus before they converted.

This stage includes both internal thoughts and feelings about religion and external or public parts where they expressed their thoughts and/or feelings to others. All ten

156 participants reported feelings and/or thoughts they had about not feeling comfortable or

not believing in at least parts of Christianity, which comprises the internal part. The more

external part of this stage was that three people reported they complained to parents and

declined to attend services and Church activities and three spoke to their ministers. Nine

reported that, during their childhood, at least one of their parents were not very religious

people so there doesn't seem to have been any strong pressure to continue with Church.

Exploration and "Discoverv” of Judaism

The urge to make sense is distinctively human. We find some capacity to organize in all living beings, perhaps even in inanimate nature. Higher forms of life show increasing capacity for feeling, and more flexibility and complexity in their ways of organizing experience. Healthy humans have a developing and lifelong propensity to reflect, to organize experience variously, and especially to wonder or converse about meanings. ( Orange, 1995, p. 6-7.)

With few or no deep emotional ties to Christianity and many disagreements with

Christian beliefs, participants reported they began to explore other religious options for

themselves. Not being content to settle for religion in the half-hearted way that at least

some of their parents had, they set about searching for something that “made sense” or

had meaning for them, as in the preceding quote. Given the high number of classes on

religion and college majors in religion and/or philosophy, these participants may have

had a higher than average need to find a religious approach that made intellectual sense

for them.

I want it all to be rational and Judaism is.. .. I knew I wanted to have God to have a place in my life and it’s a place that’s comfortable for me. 1 can make sense of it. 1 understand it. And I don’t make sense of or understand those other things [Christianity and Buddhism]. (Susan)

Waterman (1993) refers to this kind of exploration activity as searching for or developing a “daimon” which he describes as “those potentialities of each person, the

157 realization of which represents the greatest fulfillment in living of which each is capable”

and "can give meaning and direction to one’s life” (p. 150). Those that discover and develop their “daimon” live with a "depth and intensity” that others lack.

Seven people specifically mentioned college as a place where this exploration or this search began. Unlike the subjects in Montgomery's (1991) study that "went along with the program passively,” many of the participants in this study were actively engaged in trying to work out a religious-philosophical approach for themselves that they could accept. Mona, Liz, and Claire tried different denominations of Christianity before they turned to Judaism.

When my kids were small we went to the Unitarian Church...Really didn't like the Unitarian Church just because of a lack of a real solid doctrine or belief or something they could hang their hat on. (Mona)

So I did attend a couple of churches in the area and it still just didn't speak to me. It just didn’t fit. I went to a Methodist, I went to a Protestant little church in my neighborhood... I attended a couple of those Catholic things with my friend. Nothing happened overnight. I can't say that 1 woke up and said this is what I’m going to be. (Claire)

Eight of the 10 didn’t seem to really believe in Christianity or to really be

Christians; though all ten believed in God. it was more of a generic conception of God rather than a specifically Christian one. As Cynthia put it:

When I started smdying more about the tenets of Judaism, it fit ethically with what I believed. ... it’s my contention looking at both Christianity and Judaism you can still believe [in God] without believing in Jesus and that part of Christianity.... the difference is what emphasis you place on your life and how you’re choosing to live it in this lifetime as opposed to waiting for the "world to come.”

People who lack a religious connection are, in fact, just the people that Schindler

(1995) was referring to when he urged Reform Jews to "open the gates” to people who are voluntarily searching for a religion for themselves: 158 Nor do I suggest that we strive to wean people from religions of their choice and, with the boast that ours is the only true and valid faith, engage in eager rivalry with all established churches. 1 want to reach a different audience entirely, the unchurched, those reared in nonreligious homes or those who have become disillusioned with their taught beliefs, the seekers after truth who require a religion which tolerates, nay encourages, all questions, and especially the alienated and the rootless who need the warmth and comfort of a people well known for its close family ties and of an ancient, noble lineage, (p. 76).

Four participants majored in religion and/or philosophy, one prepared to enter a

seminary then changed his mind, and others mentioned taking comparative religion

classes in high school or college. These explorations included Eastern religions as well as

Western ones.

I went to college.... a semi-required course on comparative religions, which is a full year course. I found that fascinating. In reading about all kinds of different religions. It went beyond the Baha'i, you know the far eastern things which all had little bits and pieces that were interesting . . . (Bob)

Then in college just kind of explored a lot of different religions. I was a philosophy major and I took like Chinese philosophy and I read about Zen Buddhism and Taoism. (Mona)

I've always read a lot. . . . I was reading about religions — not just Judaism - and the Eastern religions which I liked the serenity of many of those but I found in particular in Thailand, their religion is not practiced the way it's talked about in print. (Kate)

This stage also has both internal and external aspects. Taking classes and having discussions with others as part of working through their thoughts and beliefs are public external occurrences, while thinking and reading are the more private or internal activities.

As a result of classes, readings, talking to Jewish people, all of the participants in this study at some point “discovered” Judaism. After comments about acceptance, comments about ways that Judaism “made sense” or “felt right” were the most often mentioned in the participants’ interviews. As noted earlier, most participants had been 159 actively exploring to find something that made sense or had meaning for them. This

‘‘making sense” included both cognitive and emotional properties (Orange, 1995) and

dispelled the discomfort and cognitive dissonance they experienced with Christianity,

which didn’t “make sense” to them. Waterman ( 1993) writes that the subjective

condition of “feeling right” is an indication that one is living in truth to one's daimon.

Nearly everyone in this study could name a time when they made their

“discovery” of Judaism. These experiences had some of the qualities of an epiphany, that

is. they began to change in some way that affected them and changed their lives.

Then for me to in like one little incident have things open up to me and a way pointed to me where 1 can settle down and have some peace for a change because I have always felt like there was something missing and I knew it was religion. I knew that but being a Jew just never entered my mind at all. I just thought I hadn’t found the right church. (Jean)

It changed my life tremendously. ... it really gave my life a lot more solidarity. (Mona)

.. . spiritually I feel much happier. I don’t feel that sense of guilt and burden type of thing. I actually feel more energized in terms of what am I giving back to society. ... it has been richer and it’s certainly not something that I have regretted. (Cynthia)

In all cases these were intellectual as well as emotional experiences. For Jean this life-changing event was a religious experience while for the others it was a series of smaller experiences that occurred in reaction to books, classes, movies, or discussions.

These were usually more internal experiences, that is, something happened inside of people. They found an answer to a philosophical or religious question that they had been puzzling over and they discovered or recognized that there was a religion that better “fit” their own approach to life and their own beliefs. Interestingly, most people don’t

160 mention changine their beliefs when they turned to Judaism but rather they speak of this experience as finding something that fit or resonated with what they already believed.

I picked up a book on Judaism and got to about page 12 and I went “That’s it! It’s already been invented. I don’t have to come up with a new religion! This is absolutely perfect exactly - 1 couldn’t have written this book better myself!” (Bob)

I really considered myself pretty much a mystic. . .. So when I found Martin Buber and he talked about this so matter-of-factly it was like it gave words to something — it was just a very powerful experience for me. (Mona)

Only three people mentioned needing to change their understanding of Jesus.

As a Protestant... the premise of the religion is that you have to believe in Jesus and that is the only way ... and I had to do something with that and eventually what I did with it was I set it aside because 1 always thought it was the same God. . . . it’s a matter of faith ... and I like the path that I see here. (Dan)

I really felt I liked the idea - which is something I hold with now ... is that Jesus existed, Jesus was a good person, a good example, but the messiah hasn’t come and we have to make more of an effort to prepare the environment for a messiah.. . . that [idea] really appealed. (Terry)

The moment when one “discovers” Judaism could be seen as an epiphany moment. There are some similarities and some differences between the experiences of these research participants and Denzin’s (1989a, 1989b) description of epiphanies:

...interactional moments and experiences which leave marks on people’s lives. In them, personal character is manifested. They are often moments of crisis. They alter the fundamental meaning structures in a person’s life. Their effects may be positive or negative (1989b, p. 70).

One difference between Denzin’s (1989a, 1989b) epiphany experiences and the experiences of the participants in the current research is that the examples that Denzin

(1989a, 1989b) uses to illustrate this phenomenon involved a crisis with alcoholism, drug abuse, or spouse abuse. The epiphany experiences in Denzin’s conception are the

“moments of truth” when the alcoholic faces who he/she has become and decides to

161 change. The participants in this research project were not alcoholics or drug abusers or victims of spouse abuse and none was in a state of “crisis,” as Denzin uses the term, when they “discovered” Judaism. As Dan puts it, “I wasn’t in a crisis of religion. I wasn’t a lost sheep.... I mean none of that was going on for me.” However, if we use the term “crisis” as Erikson (1963, 1968) uses it to mean a developmental transition, then probably most, if not all, of the participants were in a developmental transition. Four were facing the “identity vs. diffusion crisis” and/or “intimacy vs. isolation” crisis in their early twenties; the other six were dealing with mid-life issues (Levinson, 1978; Lidz,

1983), particularly issues with mortality, an issue that will be discussed later. Conversion to Judaism was, at least in part, a resolution to these developmental stages and a way for people to enhance the meaning of their lives.

Denzin (1989a. 1989b) described four types of epiphanies. First is the major event. This is a very deep change “which touches every fabric of a person’s life”

(Denzin, 1989b, p. 71). A second type of epiphany that Denzin (1989a, 1989b) described is the cumulative or representative event. This involved “eruptions or reactions to experiences which have been going on for a long period of time” (Denzin, 1989b, p. 71).

The minor epiphany is the third t>pe that Denzin (1989a, 1989b) described. He wrote that it “symbolically represents a major, problematic moment in a relationship or a person’s life” (Denzin, 1989b, p. 71). The fourth type of epiphany is the relived epiphany where “meanings are given in the reliving of the experience” (Denzin, 1989b, p.

71).

Only one of the participants in the current study could be described as having had a “major event” type of epiphany. This would be Jean when she put her forehead and

162 hands on the Wall in Jerusalem and “everything went to heck.” The experiences of the other participants have some similarities to Denzin's description of cumulative epiphanies. One example of a cumulative epiphany is Bob reading a book on Judaism for his Comparative Religion class and realizing that what was being described was in fact what he believed. Another example of a cumulative epiphany is Claire sitting in the hospital with her dying mother and realizing that her beliefs were very different than those of her Christian brother. As she puts it:

“no lightening bolt.. .. little bits add up to a lot of bits. . . . Nothing happened overnight. 1 can’t say that 1 woke up and said this is what Fm going to be.

Dan also mentions what might be characterized as cumulative epiphanies, which he refers to as “lightbulb moments.” They occurred in a variety of places: services, classes, and while reading.

The “major event” epiphany seems to be common in Christianity (Heckler, 1998:

Loder, 1981). This phenomenon is very similar to the sudden conversion experiences that were explored in the research literature ( Allison, 1969; Bragan, 1977; Freud,

1923/1961; Kildahl, 1965; Roberts, 1965; Salzman. 1953; Spellman, Baskett, & Byrne,

1971; Starbuck, 1897, 1900) reviewed in Chapter Two. William James’ (1902/1961) description was “the process, gradual or sudden, by which a self hitherto divided, and consciously wrong, inferior and unhappy, becomes unified and consciously right, superior and happy, in consequence of its firmer hold upon religious realities.” Though the experiences were “major event” types of epiphanies and the subjects were more like

Denzin’s in that their lives were overloaded with problems. Miller and C’deBaca’s

163 (1994) 52 subjects reported “increased sense of meaning,” and a “decreased sense of

something missing in life” after their “discovery” or “rediscovery” of God and

Christianity.

The data in the current study suggest some variance on how long the stage of

exploration and “discovery” lasts. Of the eight people who converted more for religious

reasons, two very quickly took the next step and moved on to the next stage of

commitment while the other six stayed in this stage for some period of time before the

next step, some for several years. They continued to read and to collect information

about Judaism and Jews and to think it over for an extended period of time. The length

of this waiting period was not always entirely voluntary. Three people were unable to

find a rabbi who would immediately work with them or a denomination (Reform) that they wanted to join in the area where they were living so they had to wait until they

moved to different locations where this was possible.

Commitment

Though internal processes continue to occur during this stage, a shift takes place

in that there is more emphasis on the external behavioral manifestations of these internal changes. In short, by calling rabbis and enrolling in conversion classes people began to make public their thoughts and their interest in Judaism. As they began to attend services and to learn and to practice Jewish ritual, they further investigated their initial impressions of Judaism to determine if they were correct and if Judaism continued to feel right for them. In part because of the requirements for study, there were no “sudden” conversions in Judaism; this period of preparation was reported to last from 4 months to 2

16 years for these study participants.

164 While people showed enthusiasm in talking about the classes they took and their

continued learning about Judaism, some of their descriptions of their official conversion

ceremonies made them seem rather anti-climactic. In fact, one woman described her

ceremony as just that: ‘"reasonably anti-climactic.” Many don’t remember ver>' much

about what happened in their ceremonies, some because of “nervousness” and some

because of the passage of time since it occurred. For Kate it seemed more like a public acknowledgment of what had already happened internally. As she put it. ” I told the rabbi I already have most of the feelings regarding Judaism.”

Though some described it as rather anti-climactic, this is also an important stage as it is when people officially become Jews. Everyone but Bob had either a fiancée or family members present for their ceremony. Claire and Jean also had friends present and

Dan, Cynthia, and Jean reported receiving gifts to commemorate the occasion. Mona described the mikvah part of the ceremony as "symbolically kind of a rebirth” and it marked a turning point for her in that she began to think of herself as a Jew rather than as a convert.

As people begin to “come out” about their interest in Judaism, reactions of others become increasingly important in both this stage and in the next one.

Adjustment to Life as a Jew

There is much that goes on in this stage. As the convert presents him/lierself to the world as a Jew, he/she must begin to deal with the reactions of others. Gentile parents in particular can have very strong reactions to the conversion of their son/daughter to Judaism. While some parents were somewhat supportive, particularly

165 after the passage of time, stories in the last chapter showed that parental reactions could

sometimes be very strongly rejecting and angry, particularly in the beginning.

This is also a time when converts may have their first personal experience with

anti-Semitism, whether from people in their families or from strangers. Eight people

mentioned they had experienced anti-Semitic comments after they converted.

At the same time that these family and anti-Semitic issues are surfacing, the

convert must continue to deal with the new relationships they are making in the Jewish

community and with their fears that they will not be accepted. Of course there may be

some overlap between this period and the last one as many people already had

relationships with Jews before their official conversion. But. for people who become

relatively active in the Jewish community like the ones in this study, there are many new

relationships they must navigate. One of the tasks Montgomery (1991) found was

important for the Jewish community to perform was “confirming the status” of the

convert as a Jew (p. 124). The people in this study talked about acceptance by Jews 2K

times more often than they talked about non-acceptance by Jews. As previously

mentioned, the negative associations reported were very often related to the official

Orthodox and/or Israeli position or to rabbis who would not convert them. People they

knew more personally were usually accepting, though one exception was Kate who had

some in-laws who were quite rejecting.

One decision to be made during their adjustment is the convert has to decide how they are going to deal with the fact that they have converted- As mentioned earlier, there

is a tradition in Judaism that, after someone converts, others are not supposed to do or say anything to remind them of their status as a convert. If the person who converted brings

166 up the topic, it is acceptable to discuss it, but only if they bring it up. Most of the people in this study discuss their conversions quite freely though two mentioned that after the conversion ceremony, they didn’t want to focus on conversion any more and just wanted to be Jewish. Only one person reported she doesn’t talk about it at all and most people don’t know she is a convert.

Another decision that the new convert must make during this period is the decision about how active they are going to be in this new community. While Liz and

Mona began by being very active and then cut back. Bob began by being not very active and then added activities until he reached his current very active status of today.

Montgomery (1991) reported that participation in organizational activities was the

‘‘singularly most significant variable associated with any of the dimensions of Jewish social identity” (p. 128). As stated earlier, the people in this study all fit into the inner three circles of Huberman’s (1978) model so they have all decided to be at least fairly active in the Jewish community, though the amount of activity does move both up and down at different times. Montgomery (1991) also reported that the convert’s “desire for inclusion” was associated with a sense of belonging to the community (p. 125). So, if someone wants to be part of things and they get active and involved, chances are they will become part of the community and feel more Jewish also. When Huberman (1978) asked his study respondents what advice they would give to “new Jews,” the most common suggestion was to “become involved in Jewish activities — social, cultural, or religious” (p. 236).

While everyone mentioned that at least some of the beliefs of Judaism matched how they felt and believed inside, several mentioned that ritual, the outward

167 manifestations of those beliefs, seemed rather foreign at first. Because this is a religious conversion, during this period the Jew-by-Choice is also making decisions related to the level of religious observance and ritual they are going to incorporate into their lives.

There are prayers and songs to be learned, often in Hebrew.

There are also many elements to Jewish ethnic culture which converts must deal with. These include Jewish humor, Jewish food, Jewish literature. Jewish art, Jewish movies, Israeli dancing, and Yiddish language. In order to feel like part of the community, it is advantageous if the convert experiences at least some of this part of

Judaism too. Six people mentioned reading Jewish literature, one got a Jewish cookbook for a conversion gift, one mentioned learning some Yiddish, three have taken Hebrew classes, and six either mentioned having Jewish art objects or I observed them when I was at their homes.

“Culture shock” is a term that was introduced by Oberg (I960), Smalley, (1963), and Fumham and Bochner. (1986) to characterize the symptoms that people experience when they are going through the process of adjusting to a new culture. Symptoms include homesickness and longing for the old culture, frustration, anxiety, and inability to understand the communication cues of the new culture (Fumham & Bochner, 1986;

Oberg, I960; Smalley, 1963). Only two of the participants in this study reported any

“homesickness” for their previous religious culture. They are the two who reported converting for marital/family reasons.

Christmas was hugely hard for me for a number of years and a very sad day . .. my mother loved holidays. . . . I usually went to midnight mass, which was absolutely gorgeous.... I guess probably more than anything else I wanted some traditions. There were some traditions that had been very beautiful in my life. (Terry)

168 . .. it’s not until I’ve gotten older that I realize how much you remember when you’re younger.... there are certain things that are there — they just don’t ever leave you.... there are songs you know. There are songs I can sing right along with church groups and their hymns because I’ll never forget “The Old Rugged Cross” and some of those songs.... you sang them again and again and again. (Liz)

Interestingly, the eight research participants who converted because of religious conviction had few complaints that could be classified as “culture shock” and none that were severe. There are several possibilities to explain this. One is that the culture in the

Jewish community they entered wasn’t very different from the culture in the previous community. This might be the case with Kate who said “it wasn’t that different.”

Another possibility is that participants were already so involved with Jewish people that they were already accustomed to any cultural differences that might exist. A third possibility is that the Jewish emphasis on community and particularly the Reform emphasis on acceptance of converts served to cushion any difficulty. Fumham and

Bochner ( 1986) point out that the literature on “culture shock” shows that change can have both positive and negative consequences, that is, going through the stresses caused by dealing with change can have mental health benefits if the experience is shared by a group or a community (p. 180). A fourth possibility, which may be the most important one, is that the participants had few emotional attachments to Christian culture and the

Christian holidays, and they simply didn’t have that much to miss. This, combined with the very active participation of all subjects in Jewish life, may account for the lack of

“homesickness.” They hadn’t had that many rich experiences in Christian culture and the ones they did have lacked meaning for them.

Ward and Rana-Deuba (2000) investigated variables related to people who were adjusting to a new culture and found some that were predictive of difficulty. They were 169 external locus of control, loneliness, weak identification with both the previous culture

and the new one, and dissatisfaction with the quality of relationships with those from

both the old and new cultures. Social support from people in the old culture and from

people in the new culture is extremely important. It has already been reported in this

paper that the research participants in the current study have had some difficulty getting support from people in the old culture, especially family members who may be dealing with their own angry and hurt feelings brought about by the conversion of their relative.

Research participants emphasize that they mainly feel accepted by the Jewish community and, eventually, many family members did come to a point where they at least tolerated the conversion.

Jewish Identity

People who make a religious conversion of this type are not just changing religions, they are also taking on a different identity which has both a religious and an ethnic component to it. Seven people mentioned ethnicity issues in their conversion stories. When asked if he felt like he was “'really Jewish.” Dan perceptively responded,

.. when most people ask that there’s an ethnic part of that they’re asking and that’s not what Judaism is any more entirely.” He goes on to talk about feeling he is part of a community of Jews but one difference is he doesn’t "have the affinity for Israel that a bom Jew would have.” Though he supports Israel, he does not have a "burning desire” to visit there.

Liz compared her feelings about being Jewish to those of a Jew by Birth, her husband, and felt that, for him, being Jewish was more ethnic than it was for her "and the whole thing has been ingrained (in him) for generations and generations.” She

170 emphasized the religion more and had less of tlie ethnic component. This would appear to fit with Huberman’s (1978) summary that “converts tend to feel that they cannot be good Jews in ethnic terms” and that they “focus on religious rather than ethnic involvements” (p. 206). In this study, however, only two people made statements like this.

Susan, who feels she is a “Jew among Jews” has turned her lack of a Jewish ethnic background into an asset because she has more choices:

.. . not having a Jewish cultural heritage we figure we get to pick and choose which one we have. Will we be Sephardic this year or Ashkenazi this year [for Passover]? So it’s a question of are we going to eat beans and rice or are we not going to eat beans and rice?

While no one used the word "tribe.” four people mentioned that they were aware they were joining a community, sometimes referred to as “family.”

I guess the most important part of it for me was kind of the sense of family and kinship . . . that (the synagogue) really gives its membership. (Mona)

I feel a part of something bigger. Once again, the community, the family that I have here. I feel part of that. That has changed for me. I didn’t have that before. (Claire)

The new Jew may become more active in their new Jewish community, begin practicing Jewish ritual, and present him/herself to the outside community as a Jew.

These religious and social activities help to form a Jewish identity, which may be somewhat insecure at first, into something that is more secure. The experiences of the

Adjustment stage are very important in that they can validate that new and chosen identity.

It takes varying amounts of time before this stage is reached. One woman expressed she felt a solid Jewish identity I Yi years after her conversion ceremony while

171 another one had doubts 15 years after hers! One factor found in other studies (Huberman,

1978; Montgomery, 1991 ) to be important in the forming of Jewish identity and supported in the current study is the amount of participation in Jewish activities, especially educational ones. Another factor suggested in this study is the reason for conversion, with those converting for religious convictions achieving Jewish identity earlier and more easily.

Achievement of a Jewish identity is probably better portrayed on a Likert scale or on a continuum than as a "yes or no” question. That being so. it is difficult to determine exactly where to draw the line on the continuum as to when the Jewish identity is present.

Therefore, it may be difficult to determine just when this stage begins. One marker might be the converted person saying they no longer care if others don’t accept them as Jews because they know they are Jewish so it doesn’t bother them what others think. Three people in this study made such statements and they all had been Jewish for some time

(36, 15, and 8 years). Here are two examples:

I also came to the point where I understood that that acceptance thing from those people who are not too sure that you are Jewish enough — that’s their problem. It isn’t my problem. (Susan)

I’ve become stronger at asserting a Jewish identity, which at the beginning right after I converted .. . was the other way around. It was more wanting to be immediately accepted.. .. And you get to a point where it stops to matter - it doesn’t matter any more and you are just accepting of yourself. Because conversion is such a personal spiritual experience anyway. (Cynthia)

None of the three newest Jews made statements like these. Susan mentioned that a marker for her was when she began to look at the world through a "Jewish lens” which was "constant” and "in place without thinking about it.”

172 Though the convert has officially been Jewish since the conversion ceremony,

people don’t always immediately feel totally Jewish. The guidebooks (Diamant, 1997;

Epstein, 1994; Kukoff, 1981) on conversion suggest that the new Jew is sometimes in a

rather fragile state.

Bom-Jev/s rarely understand the fragility and loneliness of the newly converted Jew. Even with all the support in the world — from a loving partner, a helpful rabbi, a warm congregation — it will take years before you feel Jewish, heart and soul. Typically, Jews-by-choice are hyper-aware of everything they don’t yet know about Judaism. (Diamant, 1997, p. 208)

The amount of knowledge people feel they have about Judaism emerged as an

important factor. Four people in this study reported that they thought they didn’t know as much about Judaism as they should.

I really feel at these book discussion groups [adult education at the synagogue] like 1 don’t know anything. 1 listen to people talk and there is such a wealth of in- depth understanding of Judaism and history.... but I think it will take years for me to be able to talk. (Liz)

Another woman reported that one reason she felt “authentically Jewish” was that she had taken a two-year course in Judaism.

. . . part of the process [is] you study and you learn and you learn pretty intensively. ... I can remember people who 1 encountered ... who would look at me and say “you’re the most Jewish person I know” and it was because 1 had studied and 1 had knowledge that they didn't, hadn't taken seriously and therefore didn't have. (Susan)

Jean, who had been Jewish the shortest length of time and who reported she did not feel Jewish yet, thought it would help if her status was recognized in the entire Jewish community:

I still kind of have this feeling — 1 don’t know if it’s strange or not but I would kind of like to be recognized [legally and totally] as a Jew in Israel. . .. I think in the end then I probably would go “Oh yeah, I feel like one.”

173 Variations in the process and comparisons with other models

Not every research participant went through every stage that makes up the process of conversion to Judaism. Dan and Terry, for example, did not experience very much of the 'Jack of connection to childhood religion” stage. Mona also relates that she was very active as a Methodist and was president of the Methodist Youth Fellowship in Junior

High School; during her high school years, however, she became disenchanted with

Christianity because of the behavior of the adults around her. So while she had some connection to Christianity as a child, she lost it in adolescence.

In some cases, the order of the stages may have been somewhat different. For example, the two women who converted as part of marriage to a Jew made their official commitments to Judaism before they made an emotional “discovery” of it. That is. they intellectually knew about Judaism, they studied it, and they converted to it. Terry later made the emotional connection with Judaism and with the Jewish community while Liz is still hoping to do that. Terry, for example, talked about her “struggle” to find the

“beautiful and meaningful” things about Judaism, like Yom Kippur and some of the prayers in the regular services; this occurred many years after her conversion ceremony.

There are some indications that this hasn’t happened yet for Liz though she reported she hopes it will:

I know I am (Jewish) from an intellectual standpoint because I have done what I needed to do to be there. B u t. . . it’s kind of like I am on the outside waiting to get in and whether I’ll ever — something will probably happen . . . all of a sudden . . .just an epiphany or something.

Other studies have found that some people do not make the emotional link with

Judaism or with the Jewish community and they subsequently drop out. Huberman

(1978) found 7% of his subjects did not consider themselves to be Jews and Montgomery 174 (1991) found 5% of hers made no attempt after conversion to become Jewish either

religiously or ethnically. No one in this study falls in either category' as both Terry and

Liz do consider themselves to be Jews and both are active in and are contributing to the

community, though Terry is more active.

Earlier in this paper, there was a mention of "'culture shock” literature and the

stages of adjustment individuals may undergo when they enter a new culture. This

literature did not seem very pertinent to the experiences of the participants of this study

and possible reasons for this were presented. Another literature that may have some

relevance is the literature about "coming out” experiences of gay and lesbian individuals

(Bailey & Dawood, 1998; Cass, 1979; Cohen & Savin-Williams, 1996; Gonsiorek &

Rudolph, 1991; KLitzinger & Wilkinson. 1995; Parks, 1999; Pattalucci. 1998). In fact one

participant in this study, Claire, referred to her formal conversion as a "coming out”

experience in the sense that she was making a public statement that she was Jewish.

There do seem to be some similarities in the processes of both groups. In

"coming out” gay and lesbian individuals are exposing themselves to the possibility of

danger and hatred fi-om others (Cass, 1979; Cohen & Savin-Williams, 1996; Gonsiorek &

Rudolph, 1991; Kitzinger & Wilkinson, 1995; Parks, 1999). It was reported earlier in

this chapter that 80% of the participants in the current study had to deal with anti-Semitic

incidents when they converted, including some very strong reactions of family members.

Gay and lesbian individuals also may experience significant disruption of family relationships (Cohen & Savin-Williams, 1996; Parks, 1999). The importance of acceptance issues and fears of non-acceptance by current research participants was reported earlier.

175 Researchers report that often gay and lesbian individuals “feel different” from the

majority of individuals in their society (Cass, 1979; Cohen & Savin-Williams, 1996;

Gonsiorek & Rudolph, 1991; Parks, 1999). The process of “coming out” involves a shift

in identity (Cass, 1979; Cohen & Savin-Williams, 1996; Gonsiorek & Rudolph, 1991;

Kitzinger & Wilkinson, 1995; Parks, 1999). These individuals undergo a process that begins with internal awareness, encompasses exploration and a gradual acceptance and/or construction of their new identity, and moves towards public disclosure and changes in their primary community (Cass, 1979; Cohen & Savin-Williams. 1996; Gonsiorek &

Rudolph, 1991; Kitzinger & Wilkinson. 1995; Parks, 1999). These steps are similar to the process of conversion to Judaism as the participants in the current research project described it.

There are differences in the two groups too. Gay and lesbian individuals are dealing with sexual identity rather than religious and/or ethnic identity. The way they

“feel different” involves sexual feelings rather than spiritual feelings and beliefs.

Another difference is that most researchers agree that there is some degree of an innate genetic component to homosexuality (Bailey & Dawood, 1998; Pattatucci, 1998) though there is some controversy about this “essentialist” approach as some researchers

(Kitzinger & Wilkinson, 1995) believe that homosexual identities are more a “socially constructed” phenomenon. Though anti-Semitic groups might disagree, no one has found a gene for Jewishness.

Human Development and Identity

Theories about development, especially those on the formation of identity are helpful in “making sense” of the data in the current study. It is interesting that there were

176 two ages at which many people in this study converted. The first was in their early 20’s.

This fits with theories of human development that say that late adolescence and early

adulthood are life stages where identity and intimacy issues are particularly salient

(Erikson, 1963, 1968; Josselson, 1987; Levinson, 1978; Lidz, 1983; Marcia, 1966. 1980;

Newman and Newman, 1995). Three of these four subjects began studying Judaism

while in college; Bob converted then while Cynthia and Terry began formal conversion

preparation right after graduation. Kate had decided on Judaism while in college but

didn’t convert until she was engaged to a Jewish man after college. The timing of all

four conversions "make sense” when viewed through the lens of developmental theory as

they occurred during the stage of life when identity and/or intimacy (marriage) issues are

important.

Erickson (1963. 1968) names three paits to identity; they are religious,

occupational, and political. Erikson (1963; 1968) listed an "identity crisis” as a developmental stage. Coming late in adolescence, the young person is faced with occupational and ideological choices. In Erikson’s (1963; 1968) theory, successful resolution of this crisis leads to "identity achievement.” Not resolving this stage results

in “identity confusion.”

Marcia (1966, 1980) expanded Erikson’s (1963, 1968) theory. He defined identity as “a self-structure — an internal, self-constructed, dynamic organization of drives, abilities, beliefs, and individual history” (1980, p. 159). Marcia (1980) stresses that identity achievement is a process that begins with self-object differentiation in infancy and continues into old age, though he agrees with Erikson (1963, 1968) that adolescence is a time when decisions that are made about identity are particularly crucial.

177 There are two tasks that one must accomplish to reach identity achievement. The first is exploration (which includes decision-making), the second is commitment. Marcia

(1966, 1980) was able to identify four possible outcomes of the identity crisis of late adolescence and these outcomes are determined by how the two tasks are handled.

People with identity^ achievement are “individuals who have experienced a decision­ making period and are pursuing self-chosen occupation and ideological goals” ( 1980. p.

161). They have explored, made their decisions, and committed to them. People with identity foreclosure “are also committed to occupational and ideological positions, but these have been parentally chosen rather than self-chosen. They show little or no evidence o f “crisis’” (1980, p. 161). People with identity diffusion “have no set occupational or ideological direction, regardless of whether or not they may have experienced a decision-making period” (1980, p. 161). These people have not made a commitment. Finally, people who are in the moratorium status "are currently struggling with occupational and/or ideological issues; they are in an identity crisis” (1980, p. 161 ).

People in moratorium are engaged in exploration and decision-making but they have not yet made a commitment.

Waterman (1982) investigated identity formation in undergraduate college students at three colleges. While other researchers mainly focused on occupational identity. Waterman et al., in a series of studies (Waterman, Geary, & Waterman, 1974;

Waterman & Goldman, 1976; Waterman & Waterman, 1971) investigated three dimensions of identity formation; occupational identity; political ideology identity; and religious identity. They found “college clearly facilitates identity development in the area of vocational plans” (Waterman 1982, p. 347). The findings on political ideology

178 were less clear with over half of students still not having a clear political ideology at

graduation. In the area of religion, “college experiences appear to undermine traditional

religious beliefs without necessarily helping the students to establish alternate belief

systems” (1982, p. 347). Significant decreases were reported in the foreclosure group on the religious domain at the end of college. At one school there was an increase of people

in the identity achievement status and at another the increase was in the number of students in the identity diffusion category in the religious domain.

Interestingly, in the current study the eight study participants who converted for religious conviction all mentioned in their stories that they explored religious and/or philosophical beliefs while they were in college. According to the theory, this would signify that they were in the moratorium stage of identity formation, at least in the religious domain. That means they were exploring and attempting to find a belief structure that fit with their sense of personal identity and their beliefs. Four people began the process of making a commitment to religion at that time; Bob. Kate, and Cynthia began studying and converted to Judaism, while Dan committed himself to Christianity.

Thirty-five years later, as a result of family affiliations that caused him to be exposed to

Judaism, he changed and made a different commitment. Jean also made the commitment to Judaism while she was in college though she was 36 at the time and was not in an adolescent period of life.

Mona mentions continuing to explore religion after college:

... I was really searching. . . . I just would always read about religious philosophy ... I went through a period where I read the Tao Te Ching. .. . we lived out in the country at the time with the woods and I used to take that and go out in the woods and just kind of meditate . . . I never considered myself a Taoist by any stretch but if s a religious connection.

179 Susan and Claire mention continuing to read about Judaism after college. The three would probably be classified in the moratorium stage, at least in the religious domain. during that time as they continued to explore options and to make up their minds about religion. As they began to tell others of their interest by taking classes, finding rabbis to study with and otherwise preparing for conversion (commitment), they began to move into the identity achievement stage in the religious domain.

Once again, the two people who converted more for marital/family reasons than for religious conviction, had different pathways. Both made a commitment to Judaism after some intellectual study of it. Terry later explored it more personally and emotionally. As she described the beauty and meaning that Yom Kippur holds for her, it became apparent that she has deepened her initial commitment:

I made my own Judaism. It’s not necessarily official Judaism... . Yom Kippur to me is a beautiful and meaningful day. ... [at services] I will find a word or phrase or a paragraph and I may even forget to sit down because I get thinking about that but I like it as a reflection time.

Liz, after making her initial commitment to Judaism 15 years ago, seemed to be beginning to explore what she believes religiously:

... sometimes I believe in reincarnation. It depends on where you catch me ... I have a hard time believing that it’s just one pass through because why would God waste all this time for such a short time when you know so little.. .. You’ve got to be able to leam something and be able to move on through some other way.

She is also contemplating what it means to be a Jew and trying to understand the ethnic component to Jewish identity:

180 ... with [my husband] it was so different because I mean I have known lots of people who were Catholic or were Methodist or whatever but I never considered them a Methodist. They were a person, they were a nurse, they were a friend, or whatever. But with [my husband] - and it didn’t take very long to figure this out — what he was was a Jew. It wasn’t a religion, it was a Jew .... [my husband] could no more leave Judaism than he could fly. I mean where would you even begin?

Marcia (1980) writes that “resolution of the identity issue at adolescence

guarantees only that one will be faced with subsequent identity ’crises’” (p. 160).

Though adolescence is a particularly important time in this process, “the identity process

neither begins or ends with adolescence” (p. 160). Middle age is a time of life where

“there is an emphasis upon introspection and stocktaking, upon conscious reappraisal of

the self ’ (Neugarten, 1976. p. 17). Decisions made earlier are reappraised and sometimes

changed and people begin to realize that the mortality of themselves and others is real

(Levinson, 1978; Lidz, 1983; Neugarten, 1976). Six people in the current study were

either in the transition to mid-life or were in mid-life when they converted to Judaism.

Four people were in their late thirties, one person was 47, and one person was 57. Some researchers (Levinson, 1978: Lidz, 1983) have reported that mid-life transitions often commence during the forties, the deaths of parents (and one participant’s personal experience with cancer) may have caused these four participants to deal with mid-life

issues a little earlier than the norm. As can be seen in Table 5.3, many of them had experienced deaths of parents or others by then.

181 Subjects Age at Conversion Deaths experienced

Bob 20 None

Cynthia 22 Grandfather

Terry 23 None

Kate 20’s None

Claire 36 Mother and Father

Mona 38 Mother and son

Liz 38 Mother and Father

Jean 38 Father

Susan 47 None

Dan 57 Father

Table 5.3: Age at time of conversion and deaths experienced by then.

Four of the six people who converted in middle age spoke about dealing with the realization or experience of death. In Mona’s case the death of her son changed her relationship with God and seemed to push her out of the moratorium stage where she continued to explore and into commitment and conversion:

.. . the sense of awe ... it’s a very precious kind of feeling but... if that’s your sense of God and you go through the kind of tragedy of losing a family member, especially a child ... it doesn’t do much for you. . . . at that point I realized what it meant to then choose God and to choose a belief. .. actually up until that time I had read the words ... about belief and oh sure, I believe in God . .. but then I really understood ... because it (awe) doesn’t go very far in the face of real life challenges. Commitment is a very good word for it.

182 Jean mentions the awareness of her own mortality:

I used to have times where I would — just in the night — I would just be thinking about death and I’d just be terrified-... it seems so inevitable and at the time it’s like what’s going to happen? Am I just going to cease to exist?

Claire had not only lost both of her parents but she had also had cancer ten years earlier.

Dan also had been dealing with mid-life experiences:

I guess your religion is called into play more through trying times than they are through calm times. I’ve gone through a heart attack and deaths of friends and other o f the life challenges.

Though no questions were asked on the subject, five participants mentioned that one of their parents became more religious in mid-life: Terry’s father became a “much more practicing Catholic” after her conversion; Bob’s mother became “very, very active” in a church; Cynthia’s father “rededicated” himself to his Baptist Church at 50; Claire’s father returned to his evangelical pulpit in the Salvation Army; and Mona’s father made several attempts to find a church but became “disenchanted” and stopped going.

This section of this paper has covered many topics. First, the participants of this study were compared to those of other studies on conversion to Judaism. Second, family responses to conversion were discussed, particularly as they relate to acceptance. Third, conversion was broken down into a six-stage process. Fourth, theories about human development and identity formation were discussed in relation to the conversion process.

Next is a shift of focus where conclusions and limitations of these findings will be discussed, implications for policy are listed, and last, suggestions are made for further research.

183 Conclusions

The goal of this project was to answer three research questions: ( 1 ) What is the experience like for people who convert to Judaism? (2) How does conversion to Judaism occur? (3) Is there a pattern of experiences or stages that can be identified that takes place during the conversion process? To answer these questions, this researcher asked ten people who had converted to Judaism to share their stories in a semi-structured interview. These stories were presented in chapter four and show what the experience was like and how it occurred for each person who went through it. It can be seen that many issues are involved in the conversion experience. To name but a few, the conversion experience involved family relationship issues; religious and ethical beliefs: identity issues; changes in religious observance, community, attitude, and feeling state; human developmental stages; and feelings about mortality and aging. In short, conversion to Judaism is about life and about finding a way to live it and to understand it that '"makes sense.”

To answer the third question about identifying stages in the process, the interviews and life stories of these participants were compared and analj'zed with one another. Chronological charts were made for each participant and compared to see if there were similarities in experiences and, while there were also differences among the participants, there were in fact some similarities in the process they had gone through.

Six stages were identified. They were (1) Lack of connection to childhood religion; (2)

Questioning of religious beliefs; (3) Exploration and '"discovery” of Judaism; (4)

Commitment; (5) Adjustment to life as a Jew; and (6) Jewish identity. Over all the movement was from internal processes like thinking, reading, and feeling to external

184 process of making a public statement and commitment to a new identity, a new religion, and a new community. Variations in the process were also noted and it was compared to anthropological models of adapting to a new culture, where there were few similarities, and models of the "'coming out” process of gay and lesbian individuals, where there were more similarities.

To ensure that the findings listed above were "'worth paying attention to” (Lincoln

& Guba, 1985, p. 290), many techniques were used for ""trustworthiness,” the term qualitative researchers use for their form of validity and reliability checks (Lincoln &

Guba, 1985). Patton (1990) uses the term '"credibility" for this and he lists three questions that must be asked in evaluating ""credibility” in qualitative research. The first question is ""what techniques and methods were used to ensure the integrity, validity, and accuracy of the findings?” (Patton. 1990, p. 461 ). The second question pertains to the qualifications of the researcher and the third is about paradigm orientations and assumptions that underlie research. Question number one as it relates to the current study will be discussed first.

Patton (1990) lists two techniques that enhance the quality of analysis. They are trying out rival explanations and themes and noting negative cases. Both the peer debriefers and the dissertation committee helped with the first by making suggestions and asking questions. Negative cases have been reported in the results and discussion sections.

Patton (1990) lists four types of ""triangulation,” another technique that help to insure ""credibility.” The first involved using both qualitative and quantitative methods.

The only quantitative methods used in this study were when references to themes were

185 tallied. This helped to discover and discuss trends in the data. All other techniques used were qualitative as there were no measures or questionnaires administered to participants.

Another form of triangulation has to do with using multiple sources of data.

Since this was an emic study, I participated in the same Jewish community that most of these subjects were in. This gave me a chance to make observations on behavior in natural settings and in multiple settings. Behaviors were consistent with what was reported in interviews.

Five “peer debriefers” (Creswell & Miller, 2000; Lincoln & Guba, 1985) served as a check on "credibility” which is another form of “triangulation.” Two of the peer debriefers helped with identifying and coding themes. These two plus three other people read a draft of the complete dissertation and commented on it. All five people were asked to be especially sensitive to the issue of bias on the part of the researcher. Three were familiar with interviewing and research, both qualitative and quantitative. One of the peer debriefers was a rabbi who is very experienced in working with converts to

Judaism and one was one of the study participants.

The research participants themselves each read the life stories that were written about them based on their interviews; this technique is called “member checking”

(Creswell & Miller, 2000; Lincoln and Guba, 1985). The main question they were asked to respond to was: “Did I get it right?” They were asked to comment on accuracy and also on their comfort with the steps I had taken to camouflage them to protect confidentiality. A few changes were made, mainly where further information and/or explanations were added. These additions were identified as such.

1 8 6 Patton (1990) pointed out that “sampling errors” could be a problem in qualitative

research. In this study, this was handled through use of "thick description” (Denzin,

1989a). That is, the participants were described in some detail as to demographics and

reasons for conversion and the sample in this study was compared with subjects in other

studies on conversion. This allows the reader to judge if these findings can be

generalized to other people (Creswell & Miller, 2000; Lincoln & Cuba, 1985; Patton,

1990). However, this study does not claim to pertain to all kinds of conversions and all

types of converts.

Traditional quantitative researchers might believe that a limitation of this study is

there were ten participants in it. One peer debriefer, who is a quantitative researcher,

stated, however, that he would be able to design a much richer and better quantitative

measure if this type of study were done first. There were eight participants who fit the

category of converting for religious conviction and this was enough people to identify a

six-stage process that people go through when they convert under these conditions. The

group who converted more for family-marital reasons, however, included only two

people. While they had some similarities in experiences and stages, they may experience

some of the stages in a somewhat different order, though there were not enough people to

define this for certain.

One other limitation was the way that research participants were gathered. People who volunteer for a study about conversion to Judaism may or may not be similar to people in general who convert. They may be more outgoing or they may be more

interested in the topic of conversion. They may feel they have resolved all their issues about conversion and want to help others or they may feel that they still have problems

187 related to their experiences and need to talk about them. The positive side of having people volunteer is that these particular people had stories they wanted to share, were

interested in the topic of conversion, and have given a great deal of thought to it, and had psychologically wrestled with the issues of it.

Patton’s (1990) second question that helps to determine “credibility” is about the qualifications of the researcher. He wrote that “for better or worse, the trustworthiness of the data is tied directly to the trustworthiness of the evaluator who collects and analyzes the data” (1990, p. 476). Information on this researcher was presented in Chapter 1 so the reader could understand the personal context within which this project was undertaken. I would add to this that I have been a clinical social worker/clinical counselor for 25 years and have much practice in dealing with different types of people who come from different types of backgrounds and many cultural and psychological differences, sometimes in very intense situations. I also have much experience in interviewing and writing up findings as case histories. Five peer debriefers and four dissertation committee members also watched over my work.

Another technique used was that an audit trail was kept so that this research could be checked for accuracy (Creswell & Miller, 2000; Lincoln & Cuba, 1985). Audiotapes, transcribed interviews, notes, charts, responses to member checking, coding symbols and categories have been preserved.

Patton’s (1990) final question that needs to be asked to insure “credibility” is about paradigm orientations and assumptions that underlie research. This particular project used a qualitative interpretative approach. In this approach there is an assumption that there are multiple truths rather than one absolute truth. The job of the researcher is to

1 8 8 discover the truths and/or meanings that experience has for the participants and to analyze and report this. One assumption of this paradigm is that totally objective and unbiased analysis is not possible. As mentioned previously, the section on the researcher

in Chapter I helps the reader to judge for him/herself the personal context of the researcher in this particular project.

Even with all of these precautions however, there is always a possibility of bias in this and every other research project and this should be listed as a possible limitation.

Implications for Policy

Although Jews have had a history of some ambivalence towards accepting people for conversion, the Reform movement has made a commitment to “open the gates” to people who desire conversion to Judaism. That is why the Union of American Hebrew

Congregations (central organization for Reform Judaism) has an outreach department and why they have designed “Introduction to Judaism” classes. Perhaps the “voices” of the participants in this research can provide feedback to Reform Judaism’s policymakers so these programs can be improved.

For example, the fifth step. Adjustment to Judaism, is one where the new Jew must face many issues with their families, are often dealing with their first personal experiences of anti-Semitism, are making decisions about religious observance, and are forming and navigating new relationships in the Jewish community. Some people are also adjusting to married life and relations with in-laws. All this is usually happening at the same time when conversion classes and sessions with the rabbi are ending. Perhaps

189 an occasional post-conversion discussion group could help people at this point, though it is important that converts not be separated out too much as that might impede their assimilation into the Jewish community.

Another problem people mentioned is not being accepted by bom Jews. Though few people listed actual experiences of non-acceptance in their personal lives, there was some perception that at least some parts of the Jewish community are not accepting of them. Studies like this can help to give converts a “voice” so bom Jews can better understand the process of conversion and the psychological tasks it involves. This might also help to dispel any lingering stereotypes some Jews might have that all converts only convert so they can marry a Jew and are not really committed to either Judaism or the continuation of the Jewish community.

Several participants in this study mentioned having difficulty finding rabbis who would work with them on conversion. While the caution some rabbis have shown about converting people that are married to non-Jews is understandable in that they don’t want to damage marriages and families, it is equally possible that conversion could enrich an existing marriage and family. All three of the women in this study who were married to non-Jews reported that this was indeed the case for them. While there may be situations where conversion is not advisable, a blanket policy of never converting someone married to a non-Jew would not seem to be warranted.

Future Research

Future research should test and refine the six-stage process of conversion to

Judaism that is proposed here. A longitudinal approach could be useful and would not have the limitations that come fi-om cross-sectional sampling which doesn’t take into

190 account different historical conditions at the time of conversion and from retrospective interviewing which relies very much on memory. It could also better define a model for those who convert primarily for marital/family reasons since in this study the suggestions for this model were based on only tw^o participants.

One intriguing finding in this study was the lack of paternal presence the research participants had at the time of their conversion. It would be interesting to see if this is a more widespread finding and, if so, what meaning it has. Attachment theory could be helpful in such an exploration. Mayer and Avgar ( 1987). when they compared intermarried spouses who converted to Judaism with those who did not. found that the most significant difference between the two groups was that those who converted were more likely to describe their fathers as not at all religious or as anti-religious. Given that research on conversion to Christianity shows a tendency for converts to have difficulty with fathers, it would be interesting to explore whether fathers play some kind of role in the religious choices of their children. A study by Kirkpatrick and Shaver (1990) investigated attachment patterns with parents to see if they were mirrored in the relationship people envision having with God and found they were not. The relationship with God was found, at least initially after conversion, to be more compensatory in nature. That is. people used the relationship with God to make up for some of the qualities they were unable to find in their parents. Another possibility is that people may sometimes hope that a religious community will make up for some of the qualities they were unable to find in their parents or are unable to find now that parents are deceased.

This could be especially true in a conversion to Judaism, given there is so much emphasis on belonging to a community. In some cases this could be a healthy adaptive response

191 but, if carried to extremes, could lead to unrealistic expectations and resultant

disappointments. Further research could help to test this possibility.

Am area that could yield some interesting data is to look more at the process of

choosing a religion. Do certain personality types tend to choose Judaism as opposed to

Christianity? Research shows they seem to be people who value study and learning, but

are there other personality characteristics that Jewish converts have? A smdy by Miller

and C’deBaca (1994) reported that Christian individuals who had undergone a religious

epiphany experience were overly represented in the “feeling” category on the Myers-

Briggs Type Indicator (Myers & McCaulley, 1985) when compared to U.S. norms.

Given the degree of education of the participants in the current study and also their

emphasis on wanting a religion that makes intellectual sense to them, it is possible that

converts to Judaism may tend more toward the “thinking” as opposed to “feeling”

category.

The current study data reveal conversion can cause major disruptions in family

relations. Studies exploring whether families also go through stages of adjustment when

a member converts may help to understand family relationships not only in religious

conversions but in dealing with other changes as well.

This paper explored the psychosocial process of conversion to Judaism. The

“stories” of ten individuals who have converted were presented, interpreted, and

analyzed. Some common themes emerged from the stories and these were discussed in

relation to theories of human development and family relationships. There was also a

commonality of experiences that people reported and a six-stage process was proposed to explain and portray this process. This process was then discussed and compared to

192 anthropological theories about adjustment to new cultures and to psycho-social models that explain and portray the “coming out” experiences of gay and lesbian individuals. It is hoped that the findings reported here will contribute to the endeavor of all social science researchers to “make sense” of human experiences, behavior, and emotions.

193 EPILOGUE

Self-Reflections

I began this research because my own conversion to Judaism and the psychological process that accompanied it were interesting to me. I wondered what this experience was like for others. Now. after completing this research, I have a conception in my mind of steps that make up the process. Having this map helps me to see where I am in the process and where I am going. Talking to these other people, some of whom are years ahead of me in this process, has meant a lot to me both intellectually and personally. I feel honored to have had the privilege of hearing these stories and I only hope my analysis and conclusions have done them justice.

When one of my peer debriefers asked me if I felt “really Jewish,” I answered,

"mostly yes, though I occasionally feel a doubt.” One of the people I interviewed perceptively pointed out that there is an ethnic component to a question about being

“really Jewish.” Most of the examples of feeling “really Jewish” that occur to me involve ethnicity, like understanding Jewish jokes (which I almost always do) or Yiddish words

(which I sometimes do), or cooking Jewish food (which I often do). An example of

“feeling Jewish” religiously is my comfort at services has increased greatly since I converted and I have memorized many of the prayers and music and can easily find my way around the prayerbook.

194 Another topic in this paper I could relate to was middle age and conversion.

When 1 turned 4 0 ,1 began taking ballet lessons. At 4 5 ,1 went back to school to work on a doctorate. When I turned 50, I officially became Jewish. I guess I am realizing my life will not last forever and I had better stop putting off some of the things I have dreamed about before it’s too late. I don’t know what 1 will add to my life when I turn 55 or 60.

God willing, but I am certain I will do something ......

I am left with one question: Isn’t there an inexorable mystery to all of this too?

There may be something here that we may never fully understand, even with all the best research in the world. Who’s to say why God may speak to some people through one religion and not another. Or. maybe a better question is why are some people able to hear and relate to God through one religion and not another?

I leave you with this quote:

Every conversion story is fascinating, unique, precious. Every conversion story is the story of a journey, of a family, of a spiritual quest, of accidents that, in retrospect, don’t seem like accidents at all. Because every conversion story is touched by holiness. (Diamant, 1997, p. xxi)

195 APPENDIX A

Glossary of Jewish Terms

Aliyah — To be called to the Torah to make a blessing. Also to move to Israel. Hebrew for “ascent.”

Ashkenazi — Jews who lived in the Northern (both East and West) part of Europe.

B.C.E. — Before the Common Era. Jews use in place of B.C., which Christians use to mean Before Christ.

Baal T'shuvah - A secular Jew that becomes a religiously Orthodox one.

Bar or Bat Mitzvah — Ceremonies where young people take on the Jewish covenant with God to obey the commandments.

Beit Din — A court of Jewish law. Used, among other things, for conversion to Judaism.

Bimah — Raised platform in the synagogue from which the worship services are led.

C.E. — Common Era (to replace A.D.).

Chanukah — An eight day festival commemorating the Maccabean victory over the Syrians in 139 B.C.E.

Chuppah — A canopy the bride, groom, and rabbi stand beneath during a wedding ceremony.

Conservative Judaism - Movement developed in the U.S. in the twentieth century. Not as liberal as Reform, nor as traditional as Orthodox.

Halachah — Jewish law.

Havurah — Small friendship groups that meet for study, prayer, and/or celebration.

Kaddish — A prayer associated with mourning. Considered to be an affirmation of life, it does not mention death.

Kashrut — Laws that govern what Jews may and may not eat.

196 Kosher — Foods deemed appropriate for eating, according to Kashrut.

Mezuzah — A small container affixed to the doorway in a Jewish house. Contains the Sh’ma and some writings from Deuteronomy.

Mikvah — A ritual bath or immersion.

Mishna — Code of Jewish law completed in 200 C.E. Part of the Talmud.

Orthodox — A traditional Jew that believes Jewish law is literally the word of God and therefore binding.

Passover — Spring festival celebrating the exodus from Egypt and slavery.

Patrilineal Descent - Reform Jews recognize as Jews children whose father or mother was Jewish, if the children were raised with Jewish upbringing. Orthodox only recognize Jewishness if the mother was Jewish.

Pogrom — An organized massacre of Jews.

Reform — Form of Judaism begun in 19'*’ century Germany. Believes Halacha is God- inspired rather than the literal word of God and therefore can be interpreted and reinterpreted in consideration of current social conditions

Sephardic — Jews from the Mediterranean area.

Seder — Meal that is eaten at Passover and includes ritual readings and foods.

Shabbat - Hebrew for Sabbath.

Sh’ma — Jewish statement of the oneness o f God.

Shiva - Seven-day mourning period that begins the day of the funeral.

Talmud - Compilation of rabbinic thought, lore, and law. Has two parts: the Mishna and the Gemara and was completed around the 5 ‘‘’ century C.E.

T’shuvah — Repentance.

Yiddish — Language formed from combining German and Hebrew; used by Ashkenazi Jews..

Yom Kippur — Day of Atonement. Part of the High Holy Days and includes fasting and repentance.

197 APPENDIX B

The Two-Minute Speech that took 34 Years to Write

I wasn’t bom Jewish like most of you. I never had a Jewish grandmother and I didn’t go to Hebrew school when I was a kid. But there are other roads to Judaism.

Mine began when I was around 16. I was at that age when I was questioning everything and trying to decide what I believed about religion and philosophy. A high school teacher loaned me a book on Jewish history. I remember thinking to myself that I should have been bom Jewish. That book was the beginning of the journey that has brought me to this Bimah tonight.

For the next 34 years I continued to be intrigued by this religion called Judaism.

And with every book I read, every lecture or meeting I attended, every TV show and movie I saw on the topic, I became a little more Jewish in my heart. Eventually I became so Jewish on the inside in my heart that I felt the need to make it official and become

Jewish on the outside too.

There were four things that were necessary for this inside and outside transformation to occur. The first was intellectual understanding of Judaism. Of course I am still working on this one as this is a life-long task. Second this kind of decision is never a purely intellectual one; it also was an act of faith for me to pay attention to that quiet little voice inside that has been urging me in this direction all along. Three, this act of faith also required some determination and courage on my part. Fourth, none of this would have been possible without help from others. And, while there have been several 198 people who helped me along the way, I particularly want to thank Rabbi Huber, Jeff and

Susan Alexander, and my family (esp. my husband and daughter). All those people who pointed me to books, movies, and classes, who taught me, who answered my questions, and who asked me questions in return helped bring me to this place.

So you will be seeing me around the synagogue. You may pass me in the hallway or maybe you will see me at Friday evening services. And 1 guess it's time for those

Hebrew classes to begin. Because here I am!

199 APPENDIX C

Guide for Research Questions

1. Go back to your first contact with Judaism. What do you remember? What things drew you to Judaism? What was your religious background? When did you first think of converting?

2. Tell me about the process of converting. What was first phone call to the synagogue or rabbi like? First meeting with the rabbi? Did you have individual study sessions with a rabbi? Did you take a class? How about the conversion ceremony. Private or Public or both? Did you make any promises, give a speech, have a mikvah? How much have you and/or your life changed since? In what ways?

3. Think back to the period during and after your conversion took place. How did others react to your conversion? What experiences do you remember that were particularly helpful to you? Any that were hurtful? Do you feel like you are “really Jewish?” Why or why not? Is there anything else you would like to add that is important that I haven't asked?

200 REFERENCES

Allison, J. (1969). Religious conversion: regression and progression in an adolescent experience. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. 8 (1). 23-38.

Bailey, J. M. & Dawood, R. (1998). Behavioral genetics, sexual orientation, and the family. In C. J. Patterson & A. R. D’Augelli (Eds.), Lesbian, gav. and bisexual identities in families: Psychological perspectives (pp. 3-18). New York: Oxford University Press.

Bragan, K. (1977). The psychological gains and losses of religious conversion. British Journal of Medical Psychology. 50 (2), 177-180.

Buber, M. (1958). I and Thou, second edition. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.

Buchbinder, J. T., Bilu, Y., & Witztum, E. (1997). Ethnic background and antecedents of religious conversion among Israeli Jewish outpatients. Psychological Reports. 8 1 (3,pt. 2), 1187-1202.

Cass, V. C. (1979). Homosexual identity formation: A theoretical model. Journal of Homosexuality. 4 (3), 219-235.

Chase, S. E. (in press). Taking Narrative Seriously: Consequences for method and theory in interview studies. In R. Josselson and A. Lieblich (Eds.), Interpreting Experience: The narrative study of lives. V. 3. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Church, A. T. (1982). Sojourner adjustment. Psychological Bulletin. 91.(3). 540-572.

Cohen, K. M. & Savin-Williams, R. C. (1996). Developmental perspectives on coming out to self and others. In K. M. Cohen & R. C. Savin-Williams (Eds.), The Lives o f Lesbians. Gays, and Bisexuals (pp. 113-151). New York: Harcourt Brace.

Creswell, J. W. & Miller, D. L. (2000). Determining validity in qualitative inquiry. Theory into Practice: Getting good qualitative data to improve educational practice. 39 (3). 146-154.

Denzin, N. K. (1989a). Interpretive Interactionism. Newbury Park, CA: Sage

Denzin, N. K. (1989b). Interpretive Biography. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

201 Denzin, N. K. (1998). The Art and Politics of Interpretation. In N. K. Denzin and Y. S. Lincoln, (Eds.), Collecting and interpreting qualitative Materials (pp. 313-344). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Diamant, A. (1997). Choosing a Jewish Life: A handbook for people converting to Judaism and for their family and friends. New York: Schocken.

Dubner, S. J. (1998). Turbulent Souls: A Catholic son's return to his Jewish family. New York: William Morrow and Company.

Emerson, R. M., Fretz, R. I., & Shaw, L. L., (1995). Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Epstein, L. J. (1994). Conversion to Judaism: A guidebook. North vale, NJ: Jason Aronson.

Erikson, E. H. (1968). Identitv. Youth, and Crisis. New York: Norton.

Erikson, E. FI. (1963). Childhood and Societv (2"^ ed.I. New York: Norton.

Fink, N. (1997). Stranger in the Midst: A memoir of spiritual discovery. New York: Basic Books.

Fishman, S. B., Medding, P. Y., Rimor, M.. & Tobin. G. A. (1991). Intermarriage and American Jews today. In L. Sternberg. G. Tobin. & S. Fishman. (Eds.), Changing Jewish life: Service delivery and planning in the I990N. New York: Greenwood Press.

Foster, B. & Tabachnik. J. (I99I). Jews bv Choice: A study of converts to Reform and Conservative Judaism. Hoboken. NJ: Ktav Publishing House.

Freud, S. (1961). A religious experience. In J. Strachey (Ed. And Trans.) The standard edition of the complete psychological works of Sigmund Freud (Vol. 21. pp. 167- 172). London: Hogarth Press. (Original work published 1923).

Fumham, A., & Bochner. S. (1986). Culture Shock: Psychological reactions to unfamiliar environments. New York: Methuen.

Gonsiorek, J. C., & Rudolph. J. R. (I99I). Homosexual identity: Coming out and other developmental events. In J. C. Gonsiorek & J. D. Weinrich (Eds.), Homosexuality: Research implications for public policy (pp. I6I-I76). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Goodman, M. (1995). Proselytizing in Rabbinic Judaism. In L. J. Epstein, (Ed.), Readings on Conversion to Judaism (pp. 33-45). Northvale, NJ: Aronson.

202 Greene, J. C. (1990). Three views on the nature and role of knowledge in social science. In E. C. Cuba (Ed.), The Paradigm Dialog (pp. 227-245). Newbury Park. CA: Sage.

Grossman, L. (1987). Conversion to Judaism: A Background Analysis. New York: American Jewish Committee.

Grotevant, H. D. (1993). The integrative nature of identity: Bringing the soloists to sing in the choir. In J. Kroger (Ed.). Discussions on Ego Identitv ( p p . 121-146). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Guba. E. C., (1990). The alternative paradigm dialog. In E. C. Guba (Ed.) The Paradigm Dialogue (pp. 17-27). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Heckler, R. A. (1998). Crossings: Everydav people, unexpected events, and life- affirming change. New York: Harcourt Brace and Company.

Hendler. L. M. (1998). The year mom got religion: One woman's midlife ioumev into Judaism. Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights Publishing.

Homolka, W., Jacob. W.. & Seidel, E. (Eds.) (1997). Not bv birth alone: Conversion to Judaism. London: Cassell.

Huberman, A. M. and Miles, M. B. (1998). Data management and analysis methods. In N. K.. Denzin and Y. S. Lincoln, (Eds.) Collecting and Interpreting Qualitative Materials (pp. 179-210). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Huberman, S. (1978). New Jews: The dynamics of religious conversion. Unpublished Dissertation.

Huberman, S. (1981). Conversion to Judaism: An analysis of family matters. Judaism (Summer, 1981), 312-321.

Huberman, S. (1982). From Christianity to Judaism: Religion changers in American society. Conservative Judaism. 36 (1), 10-28.

James, W. (1961). The Varieties of Religious Experience. New York: Macmillan. (Original work published in 1902).

Josselson, R. (1987). Finding Herself: Pathways to Identitv Development in Women. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Kertzer, M. N., & Hoffman, L. A. (1993). What is a Jew? (Rev. ed.). New York: Simon & Schuster.

203 Kildahl, J. P. ( 1965). The personalities of sudden religious converts. Pastoral Psychology. 16. 37- 44.

Kitzinger, C., & Wilkinson, S. (1995). Transitions from heterosexuality to lesbianism: The discursive production of lesbian identities. Developmental Psvchologv. 3 1 CD, 95-104.

Kukoff. L. (1981)- Choosing Judaism. New York: Hippocrene Books.

Lamm. M. (1991)- Becoming a Jew. Middle Village. NY: Jonathan David Publishers.

LeCompte, M. D. (2000). Analyzing Qualitative Data. Theory into Practice: Getting good qualitative data to improye educational practice. 39 (3). 146-154.

Lester. J. (1988). Lovesong: Becoming a Jew. New York: Arcade Publishing.

Leyinson. D. (1978). Seasons of a man's life. New York: Knopf.

Lidz. T. (1983). The Person: His and her development throughout the life cycle (Rev, ed.). New York: Basic Books.

Lincoln, Y. S.. and Guba, E. G., ( 1985). Naturalistic Inquirv. Newbury Park. CA: Sage.

Loder. J. E. 1981). The Transforming Moment: Understanding convictional experiences. San Francisco: Harper and Row.

Lysgaard, S. (1955). Adjustment in a foreign society: Norwegian Fulbright grantees visiting the United States. International Social Science Bulletin. 7. 45-51.

Marcia. J. E. (1966). Development and validation of ego identity status. Journal of Personalitv and Social Psvchologv. 3. 551-558.

Marcia. J. E. (1980). Identity in adolescence. In J. Adelson (Ed.) Handbook of Adolescent Psvchologv (pp. 159-187). New York: Wiley.

Mayer, E. and Avgar, A. (1987). Conversion among the intermarried: Choosing to become Jewish. New York: The American Jewish Committee.

Mayer, E. (1995). Why not Judaism? In L. J. Epstein (Ed.). Readings on conversion to Judaism (pp. 99-110). Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson.

Medding. P. Y., Tobin. G. A., Fishman, S B., & Rimor, M. (1992). Jewish identitv in conversionarv and mixed marriages. New York: American Jewish Committee.

2 0 4 Miller W. R. & C’deBaca, J. (1994). Quantum change: Toward a psychology of transformation. In T. J. Heatherton and J. L. Weinberger (Eds.), Can Personalitv Change? (pp. 253-280). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Mitchell, S., (Trans.), (1988). Tao Te Chine. New York: Harper Collins.

Montgomery, S. E. (1991). The integration of Jews by Choice into the Philadelphia Jewish Community. Unpublished dissertation.

Myrowitz, C. H. (1995). Finding a home for the soul: Interviews with converts to Judaism. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson.

Newman, B. M., & Newman, P. R. (1995). Development through life: A psychosocial approach (6th ed.). Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole Publishing Company.

Oberg, K. (I960). Cultural shock: Adjustment to new cultural environments. Practical Anthropologv, 7, 177-182.

Orange, D. (1995). Emotional Understanding: Studies in psvchoanalvtic epistemologv. New York: Guilford Press.

Paloutzian, R. F. (1981). Purpose in life and value changes following conversion. Journal of Personalitv and Social Psychology, 41 (6), 1153-1160.

Parks, C. A. (1999). Lesbian identity development: An examination of differences across .generations. American Journal of Orthopsvchiatrv. 69 (3), 347-361.

Pattatucci, A. M. (1998). Biopsychosocial interactions and the development of sexual orientation. In C. J. Patterson & A. R. D ’Augelli (Eds.), Lesbian, gav. and bisexual identities in families: Psychological perspective (pp. 19-39). New York: Oxford University Press.

Patterson, D. (1993). Pilgrimage of a Proselyte: From Auschwitz to Jerusalem. Middle Village, NY: Jonathan David Publishers.

Patton, M. (1990). Qualitative evaluation and research methods. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Petsonk, J. (1996). Taking Judaism Personally: Creating a meaningful spiritual life. New York: The Free Press.

Prager, D. (1995). Judaism must seek converts. In L. J. Epstein (Ed.), Readings on Conversion to Judaism (pp. 79-97). Northvale, NJ: Aronson.

Roberts, F. J. (1965). Some psychological factors in religious conversion. British Journal of Social and Clinical Psvchologv, 4, 185-187. 205 Rosenblatt, P. C. and Fischer, L. R. (1993). Qualitative family research. In P. G. Boss, W. J. Doherty, R. La Rossa, W. R. Schumm, and S. F. Steinmetz (Eds.),.Sourcebook of Family Theories and Methods: A Contextual Approach. (pp.167-177). New York: Plenum.

Rosenzweig, F. (1971). The Star of Redemption. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.

Salzman, L. (1953). The psychology of religious and ideological conversion. Psychiatry. 16. 177-187.

Samet, M. (1995). Who is a Jew (1958-1988). In L. J. Epstein (Ed.), Readings on Conversion to Judaism (pp. 163-186). Northvale, NJ: Aronson.

Sama, J. D. (1995). Reform Jewish leaders, intermarriage, and conversion. In L. J. Epstein (Ed.), Readings on Conversion to Judaism (pp. 121-130). Northvale, NJ: Aronson.

Schiffman, L. (1999). Generation i. San Francisco: Harper Collins Publishers.

Schindler, A. M. (1995). Presidential Address. In L. J. Epstein (Ed.), Readings on Conversion to Judaism (pp. 69-78). Northvale, NJ: Aronson.

Schwandt, T. R. (1990). Paths to inquiry in the social disciplines: Scientific. constructivist, and critical theory methodologies. In E. C. Guba (Ed.). The Paradigm Dialog (pp. 258-276). Newbury Park. CA; Sage.

Seidman, I. E. (1991). Interviewing as Qualitative Research: A guide for researchers in education and the social sciences. New York: Teachers College Press.

Smalley, W. A. (1963). Culture shock, language shock, and the shock of self-discovery. Practical Anthropology. 10. 49-56.

Snow, D. A., & Machalek, R. (1984). The sociology of conversion. Annual Review of Sociology. 10. 167-190.

Spellman, C. M., Baskett, G. D., & Byrne. D. (1971). Manifest anxiety as a contributing factor in religious conversion. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. 36. (2), 245-247.

Starbuck, E. D. (1897). A study of conversion. American Journal of Psvchologv. 8. 268- 305.

Starbuck E. D. (1900). The Psvchologv of Religion: An empirical study of the growth of religious consciousness. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.

2 0 6 Strauss, A. and Corbin, J. (1998). Basics of Qualitative Research: Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory 2"^ éd.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Telushkin, J. (1994). Jewish Wisdom: Ethical Spiritual, and Historical Lessons from the Great Works and thinkers. New York: William Morrow & Company.

Ullman, C. (1982). Cognitive and emotional antecedents of religious conversion. Journal o f Personalitv and social psvchologv. 43 (I), 183-192.

Ullman, C. ( 1989). The Transformed Self: The psvchologv of religious conversion. New York: Plenum Press.

Waterman, A. S., Geary, P. S.. and Waterman, C. K. (1974). A longitudinal study of changes in ego identity status from the freshman to the senior year at college. Developmental Psvchologv. 10. 387-392.

Waterman, A. S., and Goldman, J. W. (1976). A longitudinal study of ego identity development at a liberal arts college. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 5. 361- 369.

Waterman, A. S., and Waterman, C. K. (1971). A longitudinal study of changes in ego identity status during the freshman year at college. Developmental Psvchologv. 5, 167-173.

Watennan, A. S. (1982). Identity development from adolescence to adulthood: An extension of theory and a review of research. Developmental Psvchologv. 18 (3), 341-358.

Waterman, A. S. (1993). Finding something to do or someone to be: A Eudaimonist perspective on identity formation. In J. Kroger (Ed.), Discussions on Ego Identitv (pp. 147-167). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Ward, C. and Rana-Deuba, A. (2000). Home and host culture influences on sojourner adjustment. International Journal of Intercultural Relations. 24, 291-306.

Wouk, H. (1959-1987). This is mv God. Boston: Little Brown and Company.

Zapfl M. K. (1993). Remote practice and culture shock: social workers moving to isolated northern regions. Social Work Journal of the National Association of Social Workers, 38 (6), 694-704.

207