Posts Tagged ‘conversion’
Converting to Judaism: How to Become Jewish (and Why Not To).
1. I have been threatening for some time to publish my thoughts on how the conversion process works, does not work, and ought to work.
2. I have now done so: How to Become Jewish (And Why Not To) is now in print. It describes itself as an impractical guide to the conversion process, and is certainly not intended to be an authoritative or comprehensive manual. It is written carefully from a point of view likely to annoy all sides of the religious spectrum equally, although it purports to be an orthodox publication and will therefore (probably) annoy the left a little more than the right.
3. The book is available on Amazon and can be ordered through booksellers – ISBN 978 – 1 – 906645 – 96 – 0. But the cheapest way of acquiring it is direct from me at cost (about £6.50, depending on method of payment and delivery requirements): email me at dgreenberg@hotmail.co.uk.
4. The book consists of a series of questions:
Question 1 – Why would anyone want to become Jewish?
Question 2 – How do “regularisation” cases arise?
Question 3 – How do “marriage” cases arise?
Question 4 – Why does anyone want to become a “real” convert?
Question 5 – What exactly is conversion?
Question 6 – How does the process work today in the United Kingdom?
Question 7 – How does the process work in America?
Question 8 – How does the process work in Israel?
Question 9 – What are the basic skills a candidate needs to master?
Question 10 – How much does conversion cost?
Question 11 – How long does the process take?
Question 12 – Will I need to be circumcised?
Question 13 – Which is the best country to convert in?
Question 14 – Which Beth Din should I choose?
Question 15 – Why should I have an orthodox conversion?
Question 16 – Is it really necessary to be so hard on prospective converts?
Question 17 – Why does Judaism not proselytise?
Question 18 – What status do converts have in the Jewish community?
Question 19 – So what does the convert get out of the process?
Question 20 – What kind of Jew should I become?
Question 21 – Need conversion cut me off from my family and friends?
Question 22 – Do I have to be a Zionist to become Jewish?
Question 23 – What most needs to be changed?
5. I have not been able to discover that it is against the rules to use this Blog site for an advertisement – but if anybody knows that it is, please let me know and I will remove this at once. Many thanks.
The who is a Jew crisis – whose fault?
1. The British Jewish community is now in serious trouble, its right to have schools for Jews threatened on two sides. The High Court is about to decide whether JFS can apply its admissions criteria by reference to exclusively orthodox criteria of Jewish status. And the government has recently changed, and is currently in the process of a critical examination of the application of, the laws of selective admission as they relate to faith schools.
2. The surest way to resolve both crises is to determine whose fault they are.
3. In typical style the British Jewish community has already offered a number of possible public answers to that: the Chief Rabbi, the London Beth Din, the parents of the children challenging admissions.
4. In other words, everyone except the rank and file of the British Jewish community: but it is we who have brought this on our selves.
5. A reform leader went on the BBC Radio 4 this morning to explain that the JFS crisis is because orthodox rabbis do not recognise “all” decisions of the reform, so that “technically” the child is not Jewish.
6. An orthodox rabbi was asked to reply to that – so he said “Judaism is not a democracy – you have to abide by the rules.”
7. Which is the point. When judges or Ministers examine our community to see these selective rules in application, they will see that we enforce them strictly only against people on the outside looking in. Once a person is accepted as “technically” Jewish, they can eat what they like, do what they like, and nobody regards them as beyond the pale of the community. But the product of a reform conversion, who may observe more of the rules of kashrut than 90% of our community, who may pray to God more often than 95% of our community, is dismissed as unworthy to mix with our children because of being not Jewish.
8. This attitude is halachically sound, but spiritually bankrupt. While we as a community hold our own rules of religion in apparent contempt, why should we expect judges or Ministers to accord respect to any of them?
9. In the tochahah warnings, God warns that if we behave as if the world is without a ruler, He will allow the world to carry on as if it were. Here too, if we behave as though being Jewish is a matter of mere genetics, God will show us the emptiness and futility of that approach.
10. So the only real answer is, as always, nachpeso derochienu venoshuvo – to sort out our own communal behaviour. If we can live in a way which gives the impression that the rules of the Torah and the rabbis are worthy of respect, perhaps others outside the community will be encouraged to follow suit.
The Sceptic Blog 