Then it occured to me... aha! They're asking if I'm a convert! This is an issue which I thankfully don't have to grapple in my personal life. Both my fiancee and myself were born into our religion.
According to Ha'aretz, a recent Hillel poll of American Jewish students "found that 90 percent of the young people with two Jewish parents defined themselves as Jews. On the other hand, when only the mother is Jewish, the number of young people identifying themselves as Jewish is just 40 percent. When the father is Jewish and the mother is non-Jewish, only 16 percent identified themselves as Jewish. These figures confirm the stronger influence of the mother in developing the child's awareness, and its significance is nothing new to Jewish experts either, even if the relatively small impact of the father's influence surprised many."
Anyhow, given the depletion of Jewish demographics, some people are interested in encouraging conversion to Judaism -- that's right, bring on the dreaded word, "proselytization."
Moment magazine has an article on the debate this month.
One thing that has always set Jews apart from Christians and Muslims, something we point to with pride, is that Jews don't push their religion on other people. Jews don't tell non-Jews that they're going to hell, that they'll be denied salvation if they don't accept the halachic yoke. Jews don't proselytize.
But we sure used to. Most Jews today may not be aware of it, but Judaism has a long history of not only welcoming, but encouraging gentiles to become Jewish. From the day Abraham picked up a flint and performed his own circumcision, thus becoming Judaism's first convert, ancient Israelites openly spread their teachings among the nations they encountered.
Jewish proselytizing was so successful, it's estimated that by the first century C.E. fully 10 percent of the Roman Empire was Jewish, close to 8 million people.
... Jews only stopped open proselytism because of pressure from Christian and then Muslim rulers, beginning in 407 C.E. when the Roman Empire outlawed conversion to Judaism under penalty of death. But the internal, theological impetus to be "a light unto the nations" (Isaiah 42:6) persisted through the centuries, albeit undercover, advancing and retreating along with Jewish fortunes in the Diaspora.
... "I welcome the idea of freshening up the gene pool," says San Francisco sociologist Gary Tobin, president of the Institute for Jewish and Community Research and author of Opening the Gates—How Proactive Conversion Can Revitalize the Jewish Community. "We're doing a great mitzvah if we help make more Jews."
What does "making more Jews" mean? Not just welcoming new converts once they convert, which virtually all Jewish leaders say they advocate, or being more open to inquiries from potential converts—here the Orthodox are more circumspect than the other denominations—but actually encouraging non-Jews to consider choosing Judaism.
... Many people oppose a more active policy. Some fear that Jewish missionary efforts will antagonize Christians and lead to increased anti-Semitism. Some believe that proselytizing is un-Jewish, and by engaging in such activities Judaism will somehow become "Christianized."
But the main opposition Jewish outreach workers encounter is a feeling, deeply held by many, if not most American Jews, that they are special because they are few, endangered, and members of a select blood tribe.
The debate over encouraging conversion turns on competing visions of what the Jewish community is supposed to be. Is Judaism an elite club that only a chosen few may join, or a moral and ethical construct that many people could adopt?
... Some Orthodox and even Conservative rabbis follow the tradition of turning away potential converts three times, a stance based on Ruth's mother-in-law, Naomi, telling her three times to return to her people (Ruth 1:8,11,12).
Orthodox Rabbi Yaacov Lerner of Young Israel in Great Neck, N.Y., runs Project Identity, an outreach program directed at disaffected Jews, not gentiles, although some non-Jews have participated. "I take a very traditional Orthodox stance," he says. "We don't go out and market Judaism. God gave us the Torah not because we were numerous among the nations, but because we were the smallest. We are interested in quality, not quantity."
... it's a matter of setting priorities. Faced with limited resources and personnel, many of these leaders say the Jewish community should focus its attention on "core Jews"—born Jews who have drifted away from Jewish practice and identification—rather than on creating more Jews.
Rabbi Ephraim Buchwald, founder and director of the [Orthodox] National Jewish Outreach Center, tells Moment that "We need to stop the hemorrhaging before we can start proselytizing." But should Judaism seek out more Jews, better Jews, or more better Jews?
Hands down, it's the Reform movement that goes furthest in opening the spiritual doors to non-Jews. Faced with growing numbers of non-Jews in their own congregations, Reform rabbis and educators have come up with programs both to make these people feel comfortable with synagogue life and—gently—to encourage them to explore the conversion option.
... It was only in 1994... that the Reform movement came up with ... a three-session course called "A Taste of Judaism," conceived of as a "first taste" of Judaism for non-Jews at the initial stages of interest.
Since its inception, the Reform movement's national outreach director Dru Greenwood says 45,000 people have completed the course. About half were non-Jews. A survey of the first 2,000 graduates found that 14 percent of the non-Jews went on to convert.
Indeed. My friend Martha is a recent convert to Reform Judaism. She spent a year of study, effectively trying to cram into after-work and weekend study sessions all the culture and religious teachings someone like myself picked up by experience. And she is not doing too badly. But she still has a long way to go...
Some Jewish leaders from other denominations say the Reform movement's active outreach to interfaith couples, and the fact that many Reform congregations accept non-Jews as full members, actually discourages conversion. Why bother to convert if you and your children are already part of the synagogue family?
Greenwood says that's a spurious complaint. The evidence she's collected shows that proximity to Jewish life breeds love for it, not contempt. Rabbis in the field report that non-Jews in their congregations begin by attending services, then they enroll their children in Hebrew School, and by the time the kids reach bat or bar mitzvah age, the non-Jewish spouse is often ready to convert.
Other denominations have their own responses.
Since 1986, Rabbi Neal Weinberg has directed the Miller Introduction to Judaism Program at the University of Judaism in Los Angeles—the Conservative movement's West Coast flagship institution. About half his students are non-Jewish, many of them involved in interfaith relationships. But growing numbers of his students aren't involved in an interfaith relationship at all. More than 8,000 students have come through his course in the past 15 years. About 2,000 have converted ...
To critics who charge that he's running a conversion mill, Weinberg responds that in 16 weeks of three-and-a-half-hour classes, he gets to know each student personally and is able to judge the sincerity of their intentions as well as or better than a rabbi who meets weekly with conversion candidates one-on-one, the traditional method of pursuing conversion to Judaism.
Weinberg strongly believes that the Conservative movement should be "more proactive" in promoting Judaism to the outside world.
... The Orthodox view is that Judaism does have a universalistic mission, but it is to spread Judaism's ethical teachings among the gentiles without necessarily converting them to Judaism. Typically, an Orthodox rabbi approached by a potential convert will suggest that the person instead consider obeying the seven Noahide Laws—a Talmud-derived moral code God supposedly gave to the nations of the world, while the Torah was reserved for the Jews, his "chosen" people. The Noahide Laws prohibit idolatry, blasphemy, murder, sexual immorality, theft, and cruelty to animals, and mandate the establishment of a legal system (Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 56a).
Rabbi Harold Schulweis, longtime spiritual leader of Congregation Valley Beth Shalom, a Conservative synagogue in Encino, Calif., rejects the Orthodox approach. "If seven laws are good, 613 are better," he asserts. Turning potential converts away by telling them the Noahide Laws are good enough for them, whereas Judaism's treasures are to be saved for an elite few, is, Schulweis argues, promulgating a particularist notion of Judaism that is profoundly un-Jewish.
Schulweis... feels there's no reason to hesitate. "Jews need to be convinced they have something unique to offer the world," he says. "It's all up to the rabbi and the congregation to make these people feel welcome. The synagogue should say, 'We want to meet you. We want to help you.'"
Update: John Tabin takes issue with my look at being Jewish because I failed to examine matrilineal Judaism:
There's another factor at work here that neither Ha'aretz nor Howard mentions: the fact that everyone with a non-Jewish mother is told "you're not a real Jew" (an aspect of Jewish law abandoned by the Reform movement). A little halacha can be dangerous in the hands of cruel children.
I'm very much in favor of the spousal outreach common in Reform temples (they converted my mom), but I must admit I'm uncomfortable with outward proselytizing. It's not that I have a good argument against it, I just have a general cultural aversion to the idea. I'm not sure how valid the concern is that it would increase anti-Semitism; considering how a-religious types feel about Christian proselytizers, this might be worth thinking about.
Responding to the declining Jewish identity of halflings, many rabbis strongly discourage intermarriage. This annoys me for obvious reasons. When I was subjected to one such sermon at Conservative synagogue during a friend's bar mitzvah, I felt like I was being persecuted in temple. (Okay, I tended to overdramatize such things in my head as a 13-year-old.) Encouraging parents to instill at least some Jewish identity in their children is one thing, but if you ask people to choose between love and temple, don't be surprised when they turn their back on the religion.
<< Home