Posted in Israel, Conversion on May 2nd, 2008
Through this post at Jewschool, I learned about this Israeli High Rabbinical Court ruling that invalidates all conversions done by the State of Israel’s own Conversion Authority under the current head of that government agency, former Knesset member Chaim Drukman. The High Rabbinical Court ruled this because they examined a woman who had converted 15 […]
Posted in Conversion on Mar 7th, 2008
If you ever wondered why The New York Times is considered home to the best newspaper writing in the country, consider the following introduction from Dana Jennings’ essay “Religion Is Less a Birthright Than a Good Fit,” from last Sunday:
I WAS raised a Protestant in a Rockwellian New Hampshire village that was the proud home to stout, wood-frame […]
Posted in Israel, Conversion on Mar 4th, 2008
In a recent NY Times article about Israeli society, Gershom Gorenberg described the increasingly negative attitude of the Israeli rabbinate toward North American Jews. The story shows how a Jewish Israeli kibbutznik who was the child of an American immigrant had trouble getting the rabbinate to recognize that she was a Jew so she could […]
Posted in Interfaith identity, Conversion on Feb 13th, 2008
I want to share two stories about the strange priorities of the Orthodox today. One’s nasty, one’s nice.
The nasty one comes from London, where the JTA reports that an Orthodox day school has repeatedly refused admission to the daughter of a convert and teacher in the school. Says the brief, “The office of the chief […]
Posted in Popular culture, Conversion on Feb 8th, 2008
Opening on Valentine’s Day is a romantic comedy starring Ryan Reynolds and Abigail Breslin called Definitely, Maybe. Yawn.
But Jewdar, a blogger on Heeb magazine’s website, points out that two of the three leading women–Elizabeth Banks and Isla Fisher–are converts to Judaism. Banks converted in 2003 upon marrying her college boyfriend, Max Handelman, and Fisher recently converted […]
Posted in Conversion on Jan 31st, 2008
About four months ago, I signed up for Facebook. Several of my younger friends in the Jewish communal world had been clamoring for me to join. They had “tagged” photos of me in their profiles, whatever that meant. I was skeptical. I’d spent some time on MySpace. It was a disorganized mess. I had set […]
Posted in Conversion on Jan 23rd, 2008
How’s this for an unlikely story? A non-Jewish Korean professor of Jewish history at Brandeis does anthropological research that debunks cherished Jewish-American myths about shtetl life in 19th-century eastern Europe.
In The Forward, Gabriel Sanders profiles ChaeRan Freeze, who showed in her first book, Jewish Marriage and Divorce in Imperial Russia (2001), that Jewish divorce rates […]
Posted in December holidays, Outreach, Popular culture, Conversion on Dec 28th, 2007
It’s a little late, but I need to pass along this amusing story of the Jewish daughter of a Jewish mom and a Christian dad named Sarah Christmas.
The Forward has a wonderful story about a group of 55 African-Americans who converted to Judaism in Cairo, Ill.–home to 40 churches and only 4,000 people.
Also in The […]
Posted in Conversion on May 21st, 2007
Is it OK for Jews to proselytize?
A terrific new article in the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles tackles the question by looking at the Reform movement’s “Taste of Judaism” program. “Taste” is a three-part class that teaches the basics of Judaism to anyone who is interested–Jewish, non-Jewish, interfaith partner, whatever. Since its launch in […]
Posted in Israel, Conversion on May 1st, 2007
The (New York) Jewish Week broke the news last week that the Chief Rabbinate of Israel has agreed to recognize all conversions by the Rabbinical Council of America, the largest Orthodox rabbinical association in North America. In exchange, the RCA will set up regional conversion courts that will follow the strict standards requested by the […]
