#like are there some halachically Jewish people who convert out of Judaism? Yes

[sorrymyrabbisaidno]

Y'all the christian landlord I have who keeps trying to proselytize to me wanted me to watch a "Jewish Christian" on youtube😭😭

[etz-ashashiyot]

I'm sorry, but actually I'm not over that comment whining about how several of the JVP ritual, uh, practices and bastardization of Judaism are being excluded and how we can't police people's identities.

Actually yes we absolutely can.

[Rant incoming]

Listen, I hate exclusion, alright? Inclusion is always the answer when it comes to people knowing who they are. Every obnoxious identity policing thing in the queer community that has divided us and ripped apart communities has been cruel, counterproductive, given platform to bigots, a distraction from the real issues bearing down on us, and honestly just dumb as a box of rocks. Okay? Okay.

But Jewish identity works differently, because it isn't about YOU. Becoming Jewish is about taking on Jewish culture and religion, a closed ethnoreligious culture, through the narrow path consented to by the collective Jewish people. There IS a path, but it is a highly supervised one. Otherwise it's just appropriation and cultural theft; something Jews have been subjected to for millennia. And if you do legitimately convert you do so because you love the Jewish people - the whole Jewish people - and want passionately to be a Jew for its own sake. You want to join our nation-tribe. You want to join our family.

And the crazy thing to me, the thing that still blows my mind, is that this is allowed! Even after millennia of appropriation, oppression, violence, expulsions, and genocides, Am Yisrael still accepts genuine gerim. It would be so understandable if they had closed the path entirely and tried to shut out outsiders who might bring in danger on their heels even if they themselves were not dangerous.

But they didn't. We didn't. To me this is a miracle, a blessing, and sign of true faith and hope. It is a privilege to be here.

Yet in the same turn, you gotta respect the process! You can't just declare yourself a Jew simply because you feel like it — it doesn't work like that. You can't just declare yourself an Argentinian one morning either without becoming a citizen first, even if you have Argentinian ancestry. And sure, if you do have some of that ancestry, you are connected to the nation, but that's different from being given a vote y'know?

Using a totally unsupervised, totally unsanctioned, brand-new neo-pagan ritual to unilaterally declare your membership in a tribe does not make you one of us. If anything, it proves why you never will be.

Now! Let's assume for a moment that we are referring only to the provably halachic Jews whose connection and backgrounds are beyond reasonable questioning.

You can never really leave the tribe, but you absolutely can apostasize. Plenty of Jews do it. There are plenty of Jews who find that Judaism is not spiritually fulfilling for them but something else is, and they convert out. There are halachic Jews who have walked away from Judaism in order to practice any other number of religions: Christianity, Islam, Neo-paganism, Hinduism, etc.

That is their prerogative, but by doing so they turn away from their people in a serious way and cannot be said to be practicing Judaism. There is of course room for many different types of Jewish practice, but conversely, there are practices that are too far removed from Judaism to meaningfully be considered as such. Otherwise, it's no longer a coherent group identity. And because Judaism is a collective identity, that actually matters.

The Jews as a people have decided that worshipping gods that are not Hashem is not within the realm of Judaism, which is why messianic "Jews" are not practicing a valid form of Judaism even if they are halachicly Jewish and/or have Jewish ancestry. Worshipping Jesus makes you a Christian or at least adjacent. That is a hard boundary.

And yeah — if you change the basic meaning of holidays, if you bring in lots of practices that are brand new and have no halachic or even historical basis, are often highly individualistic, and would not be accepted as Judaism by the vast majority of Jews, then it absolutely falls outside it. If I started practicing a religion that made little icons of Muhammad to pray to once a day and celebrated my ingenuity with pork roast and a nice glass of wine, I don't get to say that I'm practicing Islam.

These people are doing the Jewish equivalent. It is something else entirely. Especially because so many of these practices spit in the face of major tenets of Judaism and go against Jewish values.

To treat it otherwise is to treat it as an absolutely meaningless aesthetic rather than a living breathing ethnoreligious tribe of people who get to decide our own community's boundaries and practices collectively.

And for the naysayers who still disrespect Judaism and Jewish identity and peoplehood so much that they think that they get to define Judaism more than actual rabbis? Look, we can't physically stop you from calling yourself Jewish, but by the same turn, YOU can't force US to recognize you as one of us. You can be mad, but that's the thing about group cultural identities — that cultural group gets to decide whether they claim you or not.

[To be clear: this is not about politics — there are plenty of Jewish non-Zionists and anti-Zionists who are 100% Jewish. This is about this one specific shitty organization and this particular type of behavior.]

[ask-jumblr]

You guys never published my question! What’s wrong with wanting to have a space for people who were born Jews? I’m not saying we shouldn’t be welcoming of converts, they just never experienced the anti-semitism growing up or the experiences of growing up Jewish.

Mod (singular) here. Yes, I didn’t post your original ask because it wasn’t consistent with this blog’s standards, although I did make a post recognizing that it was (1) sent in, and (2) didn’t meet content standards. It might be time to clarify or expand the current guidelines; anyone who thinks that’s the case is welcome to reach out. Back to your ask...I know that having a not-posted ask can sting, and I’m sorry you’ve gotten this far through life without your community providing you with the knowledge for you to understand why your proposal is inappropriate and dangerous.

I’m going to remind everyone blog is welcoming of converts. From this blog’s stance, except when there are halachic nuances followed by certain communities, converts should not be treated any differently than born Jews.

Converts don’t need to be treated any differently than born Jews (excluding those halachic nuances relevant for certain communities), because those differences you’re thinking of, anon, they’re not true for all converts. There are very few experiences that couldn’t be shared by a born Jew and a convert. Your generalizations about converts are causing fallacies in your logic. I’m including some stories below the cut that I hope will give you a more complex understanding of the breadth of experiences among people who have converted to Judaism. The stories I’m sharing are all made up, but most of the nuances, the catches that it’s easy to forget are lived experiences. Many are borrowed from friends, friends of friends, or famous Jewish figures.

You mentioned experiencing antisemitism growing up; I suspect that you’re hurting, but you will find converts who hurt for the same reasons; please don’t shut them out.

However, even besides the issue of treating converts differently (1) generally breaking custom/halacha, and (2) being pretty pointless because many will share experiences of born Jews, creating spaces that exclude converts is also dangerous. Converts, like some other groups in Jewish spaces (e.g. JoC, Jews with disabilities) already experience hostility, exclusion, and isolation in Jewish spaces. Building spaces that intentionally exclude them for some reason perpetuates the problems we need to fix in our communities.

Folks are welcome to add to or correct this response. However, I hope that my own response and the standards I’m setting about respecting converts as fellow members of the broad Jewish community will eliminate the need for me to moderate any anti-convert sentiments on this post. Another ask that I’m linkng here might be a better place to discuss the situations where converts are differentiated and/or any Jewish communities that do not recognize converts. If it’s getting another round of activity, I’m happy to reblog it again.

Jessie’s parents converted in a Modern Orthodox community when she was 3. She and her siblings, age 5 and 8, were converted along with their parents. A year later, her baby sister was born Jewish.

Brad’s father raised him celebrating Jewish holidays at home. Brad’s mom stopped being Christian long before they met, although they sometimes visited her parents and exchanged Christmas gifts under their tree. At school, Brad was bullied for being Jewish. When his mom was offered a job in a local city, Brad’s family decided it was long overdue to move to a community where they felt more welcome. In the city, Brad was able to attend a Pluralistic Jewish High School. In college, Brad’s experience with Chabad led him towards an Orthodox Jewish community, and he converted so that he would be halachically recognized as Jewish.

Melanie was adopted by a Jewish couple as an infant and was converted shortly after. For as long as she can remember, her personality has consistently clashed with her birth mother and they had a tenuous relationship. They cut ties when Melanie turned 20. Melanie doesn’t remember a time before she was Jewish. When it came time for her Bat Mitzvah at her adoptive family’s Open-Orthodox synagogue, her decision was easy to reaffirm her Judaism as a Jewish adult. When she started looking for someone to marry, her friends were surprised when they tried to set her up with a Kohen, and despite their sparks she didn’t want to go out on a second date. Until then, they hadn’t known that Melanie had converted, growing up they’d assumed her birth mother was Jewish.

Sam’s mom is Episcopalian and their dad is Jewish. They were raised with both sets of holidays, attending both a church and a Reform synagogue. However, in high school, Sam started going to youth group at a Conservative synagogue with some of their friends. They really loved the Conservative Jewish community they found at the youth group and its associated synaogue. With their parents’ support, Sam decided to convert so they would be able to count in a minyan and have aliyot at the Conservative synagogue.

Maya’s family is Jewish. While knowledge of their Jewish status was passed down, clear documentation of ketubot/gravestones/etc. was lost when they were fleeing persecution. When she wanted to get married, her fiancé’s parents wanted to ensure their grandchildren would be recognized as Jewish. Even though her fiancé was against it, they encouraged her to complete a conversion to dot i’s and cross t’s. Maya decided it was easier to complete a conversion than deal with her in-laws’ pressure. She also didn’t want her children to have to deal with the consequences of a murky Jewish status. A rabbi connected to the family quietly arranged for a conversion so the Jewishness of Maya and any children she should have would be documented and undeniable.

Josh’s dad is Jewish, but his mom isn’t. His dad didn’t raise him as Jewish and he didn’t even know he was Jewish until his mother told him when he was 15. His mother explained that his dad was a child survivor of the Holocaust, and he didn’t want his new family in the U.S. to be burdened by his Jewish identity. However, Josh didn’t feel burdened. Now, he finally understood whyn his father had suffered from nightmares and depression. During high school, Josh taught himself about Judaism behind his father’s back; he didn’t want to upset his father further. After graduating high school, Josh moved out from his parents’ house to attend nursing school. Josh joined a local Reform synagogue, where the rabbi encouraged him to complete a ‘reclamation’ conversion and helped him fill in the gaps in his Jewish education.

When she was in kindergarten, Sarah’s mom remarried, forming a blended family with a Jewish man and his two kids. Sarah’s father isn’t in her life, so she only lived with her mother and new step-father for most of her childhood. A few years after their marriage, Sarah’s mother converted through their local Reconstructionist Synagogue. However, Sarah’s mom wanted to make sure Sarah had the freedom to make her own decision. While Sarah wasn’t converted, she did celebrate Jewish holidays with her family. Shabbat was Sarah’s favorite day of the week; sometimes her family would go to synagogue, but even if they didn’t, they would make time to spend together as a family. When Sarah turned 13, she wanted to have a Bar Mitzvah like her older step-brothers. Her parents and the local rabbi encouraged her to think through her decision, and her parents offered to throw her a big 13th birthday party without her reading Torah. However, Sarah really wanted to be fully recognized as a Jewish adult in her community. A few months after she turned 13, she completed her conversion and read Torah at their synagogue for the first time.

Complicated stories like these happen all the time.

[jewishconvertthings]

At what point do I count as not goyim? Like I know I shouldn't call myself Jewish until I finish conversion or at *least* start it but. Where is the line on goyischeness? Have I left that now when I haven't contacted any rabbi yet but try to follow the holidays and traditions? Or when I start converting? Or am I still in that category until it's finished? I just. Want to know when I stop counting as not Jewish

Hi anon,

So on the one hand, this is an interesting and somewhat tricky area to negotiate that deserves a full answer, but on the other, I have to admit that the way you’ve framed the question here is suspect. Although this may not be the case, it reads a lot like tumblr’s particularly unhelpful brand of identity politics. That being the case, I’m going to preface my response by reminding all of us that until we have fully completed the conversion process, we are still guests here and our opinions on all things Jewish should be weighted accordingly.

With that out of the way, the most accurate answer is that yes, we are still goyim/gentiles/not Jewish until we’ve finished. However, there’s a bit of a grace area given to the awkward liminal space between Jewishness and truly being non-Jewish for conversion students who are actively working with a rabbi towards conversion. That is, while halachically and in the most accurate sense we aren’t Jewish yet, Jewish people tend to have the common decency to include us in a sort of probationary way and not rub our non-Jewishness in our faces.

Ergo, while I wouldn’t encourage conversion students to refer to themselves as Jewish yet, I also wouldn’t encourage you to refer to yourself as goyish either - particularly because of the damage that would do to your duty to develop a Jewish identity. You’re a conversion student. Period. It’s a weird space to be in, and it’s awkward and kind of sucks. But that’s where you’re at, so it’s best to just be real about it.

All of that is for people who are actually in the process of supervised conversion. Prospective students are a whole other question. I would say that, barring some exceptional circumstances, I would not count yourself as Jew-ish yet in the same way that active students should. If you do want to label your connection to Judaism at this stage, I would again encourage blunt honesty and say that you’re interested in converting and/or describe yourself as a prospective convert.

Good luck, and I hope that helps!

[antisemitism-eu]

A couple of responses to my "Jews who convert are not Jewish" post:

                                                                                                                            Anonymous said:                                                                      

I was under the impression that even if someone converted out religiously that if they were halachically Jewish they simply became a Jewish apostate rather than becoming non-Jewish? And that's part of why conversion TO Judaism is such a big deal (because it's irrevocable) and why Jews who leave can make teshuva and come back...? Like socially, culturally, I get why someone leaving makes them no longer an authority on Jewish issues, but am I wrong about the religious side of this here?            

and

curlyhumility replied to your post “I realize this is a very difficult concept for people to understand,...”

                       This article may shed some light on why, by Jewish religious law (secular law can do its own thing), an apikoros is still a Jew even after embracing a pagan religion. http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/1269075/jewish/Is-a-Jew-Who-Converts-Still-Jewish.htm                    

So, first - yes, I was wrong.  I went overboard with my argument.   A Jew is a Jew is a Jew.   An apostate Jew is not a non-Jew.  All of that is true.

I also found that Chabad article, and learned a lot from it.

BUT

I still think that “A Jew is always a Jew” can live side by side with “A Christian is not a Jew”, and that Jews have been living with it quite nicely for generations.

(the big exception, of course, is somebody who was forced to convert, which is a completely different story)

As I’ve said from the beginning, if Milo would be interested in recovering his Jewish heritage, the door is wide open.

If he married a Jew (somehow), he would be required to give a Get, because of the doubt as to whether it’s a Halachik marriage.

But as long as he’s a Christian, he is not a Jew in the sense that he’s not part of the Jewish community.   He cannot say “we Jews” and then go to Church.

There’s a big difference between a Jew who announces he doesn’t believe in God, and a Jew who announces he believes in another religion, even though they’re both “apostate Jews”.  

Despite what Chabad says, I wouldn’t suggest any convert try to “return to his pagan ways” and see if the Beth Din would hold by the “he’s still a Jew” rule.   It all sounds nice in theory, but the Beth Din could just as easily decide that your conversion wasn’t a real one to begin with.   (unless the convert who converted back comes converting again, and even then...).

And take a look at this very recent real-life case, when a ‘Jews for Jesus’ couple asked to get married in a Jewish wedding:

The decision in the case of this couple was that they are considered apostates who don’t ascribe to the laws of “Moses and Israel” so therefore their request for a Jewish marriage was rejected. “However, if they declare before the Rabbinical Court that they reject their Christian faith totally including leaving their missionary congregation and they immerse themselves in a Mikvah to become Jews under the auspices of the Rabbinical Court and believe in one G-d only the G-d of Israel, they will be Jews and their request for marriage can be resubmitted for consideration by the Rabbinical Court.”

I’m not a rabbi.  I am speaking only from a deep-seated conviction that as long as a Jew upholds another religion, he is not a Jew.    I think this conviction is borne out by history.

It’s quite possible I’m completely wrong.  Wouldn’t be the first time...

I suggest people ask their rabbi.  Don’t talk theoretically, ask specifically.  Would they marry a “Jews for Jesus” couple?    If yes, why?  If not, why not?

If anybody discovers their rabbi would marry that couple while they still profess belief in Jesus, I’d be interested in understanding how they explain it.

[elliedas-blog1]

Am I a Jew?

בס"ד It's a quiet, cool night at the hospital. When work is slow, it often leads me alone with my thoughts. The question that has been on my mind lately is, "Am I a Jew?" As an aspiring convert, I often use the excuse that I am not Jewish yet to get away with not keeping a certain part of halacha because of difficult circumstances. Yet, when goyim ask me what I am, I always respond, "I'm Jewish." Despite this, there is a real question. That is, "Am I a Jew?" I was not born to a Jewish mother. I didn't know what a synagogue was until I was in Jr. High. I knew nothing of Torah or mitzvot until I was 20. Yet again, I ask, "Am I a Jew?" While many of my Orthodox friends are quick to point out that I am not, I like to think if I could ask the sages, they would disagree. In many of their writings, they argue that the convert was always a Jew. A very famous passage of the Talmud says that the souls of the gerim were at Mt. Sinai when Hashem gave the Torah to the Jewish people. On the other hand, some people may question of my soul is really Jewish. How do I know? I am only human. Who am I to know what Gd wants for my life? Who am I to say that The Holy One, blessed is He, is wrong for having made me a gentile? For surely the person who is careful to keep the laws of Noah is spiritually equivalent to the Cohen Gadol! Yet, I feel compelled that I must be a Jew. The Rabbis said that a person who knows that his life purpose is to be a Jew and delays doing so, is commiting a major sin. I've wondered why this is. Some part of me thinks that maybe they said this because the person who is to convert was, is, and always has been Jewish, and that by not pursuing Torah and mitzvot, he or she is commiting a sin through negligence. In fact, you could almost compare it to someone who is Jewish but due to unfortunate circumstances, was raised in a household where he or she was unaware that he or she was Jewish. Thus, upon making the discovery that one's life purpose is to be a Jew, pursuing Torah becomes an obligation rather than a passive interest. I'm sure many people would critique me on such a bold topic. I acknowledge that I am not halachically Jewish and cannot be held responsible for violations beyond the universal laws in the eyes of man. However, I do not hold or judge myself by the standards of man. I hold myself to the standards that The Holy One, blessed is he, has set for me. Those goals are to be greater and to reach higher—to better myself and to better His world. Again, I ask, "Am I a Jew?" What makes a person a Jew? Is it one's mother or father? Is it the way one dresses or acts? Is it how often one attends a synagogue or davens? No. Although Jewishness is passed through the mother, one's mother does not make him or her a Jew. Furthermore, although Hashem expects us to be modest and kind, that in itself does not make one a Jew. In addition, although we have an obligation to pray, that in itself does not make one a Jew. What makes a Jew a Jew is Torah. Before Sinai, WE were nothing but one of the nations. Until Gd gave us the Torah, Jews or Judaism did not exist. We were just a people keeping the mitzvot in which we were obligated—6 negative mitzvot, 1 positive. The children of Avraham were obligated in an 8th mitzvah of circumcision. What unites us all what the Torah. It was the most monumentous event in all of history. Thousands of people witnessed Gd speak. No other religion in history can claim that it started with such a multitude of witnesses. Very few people today deny that it happened. As Pesach and Shavuot approach over the next couple of months, we will recall these events. To answer my question, "Am I a Jew?" I will say, "Yes, I am." My soul was there at Sinai when the Torah was given. I know that I am supposed to be a Jew. I'm also pretty sure that the sages would agree with such a sentiment. —Dassah