I started blogging in November 2004. I was working in London, and I wanted to find a way to tell the story of my new life without sending mass emails to friends who may or may not have been excited to hear from me. Blogs were a new type of website that allowed an individual … More »
No Conversion Required
Are you a Green Bay Packers fan?” was the first question Nana, my future husband’s grandmother, asked me when we met more than 10 years ago. I wasn’t — I had never even thought much about the NFL, let alone the Packers — and I realized that as far as my non-Jewish husband-to-be’s family was concerned, I was … More »
NiSh’ma - Leaders by Choice
“From one perspective, a ger [convert] is closer to becoming a tzaddik than a person born Jewish. If a ger continues serving God with the same self-sacrifice he exhibited during the geirus [conversion] process, he will ascend to untold heights. Perhaps this is one reason why gerim are mentioned before those born Jewish in the … More »
Learning from One Another: A Democracy of Spirit
When Ruth Calderon, a member of Israel’s Knesset for the political party Yesh Atid, delivered her first Knesset speech after the recent Israeli elections, a video of the event went viral. Calderon masterfully taught a passage of Talmud, deriving from it a lesson about prioritizing human relationships. She argued that our sacred books belong to … More »
Multicultural Legacy and Gateways
As a child, I moved among three cultures, societies, and languages: My mother is German; my father is Swiss; and we lived in Germany and the United States. That multicultural upbringing influenced my sense that we are masters of our identity: Identity is not determined solely by the country of one’s birth or childhood. I … More »
Whose Collective Past?
In the Mishnah, the foundational text of rabbinic Judaism and the first to institutionalize conversion to Judaism, we find the following intriguing ruling about limitations to the inclusion of a convert in the Jewish collective: A convert (ger) also is obligated to offer the first fruits of the produce of his land to the Temple, … More »
Rabbinic Life Partners: Do They Have to Be Jewish?
Two rabbinical students at the Hebrew Union College–Jewish Institute of Religion exchange letters explaining their positions on a policy about whether or not to accept rabbinical students who are intermarried. Should that policy change? “If we’re concerned about the rich Jewishness of a Jewish leader’s home, then we must ask [questions about] identity, not merely whether one’s partner is Jewish? ‘Intermarried’ is no longer a synonym for ‘apathetic.’” … More »
Radical Choices: Conversion and Leadership
Numbers & Definitions Determining even an approximate number of “Jews by choice” in the population of American Jews is extremely difficult. Respected sociologists comment that any estimate is unreliable, as some convert through rabbinic-led programs and others become Jewish through personal means, by coming to identify as Jewish or “partially Jewish” after many years. With … More »
Choosing Twice
Jewish communal leaders have always been “Jews by choice.” They have chosen to make their Jewishness a central part of their public lives. Rabbis, synagogue presidents, educators, and nonprofit leaders have been more than simply “Jews by birth.” They have chosen publicly Jewish lifestyles and careers. They have opted for professions in which their Jewishness … More »