I am never sure what to say when people assume that I have always been Jewish; all you Jews by Choice (JBC) out there know what I am talking about. It’s the moment when you are standing in the hall of the shul waiting for Hebrew school to get out and the woman standing next to you is reminiscing about her bat mitzvah and says to you, “you know what I mean?” Then you are faced with a dilemma. Do you say, “yes,” and laugh while scrambling for a change of topic in your head? Or do you say, “well, no. I am a convert.” And then you wait. Invariably, her face changes, and what ensues is a conversation about why you converted, when you converted, and the usual “oh, you converts…I bet you know more than I do!”
Now, see. That’s where I believe you are wrong. Because, while it’s true that we’ve most likely taken a conversion course, studied further with a rabbi, and gone through a formal conversion ceremony, we don’t have that comfortable feeling that people who were raised will have. Born Jews most likely went to synagogue at some point….and if they have had a bar or bat mitzvah, they’ve been through a pretty rigorous, years-long education. There’s not a time they can remember not knowing what they know. And that’s something you cannot “convert” into, and that it what makes JBCs feel like you born Jews will always know more that we do.
Most JBCs will tell you that they converted for their own personal reasons, and that’s mostly true. In my case, I converted for me and for my husband. When I started the conversion classes, everything made sense. Everything. I realized that making this step wasn’t so big for me. It was like finding a perfect-fitting dress (rare and wonderful). My conversion was also creating a unified household of shared beliefs. To be simple, it made me happy, and as a bonus, it made him happy.
Yet, with all that knowledge, every time I go to shul, I feel a little out of place. I suppose if I went more, I would know more. It’s all the standing and sitting…the bowing and the taking three steps…and the Hebrew…that just seems like everyone else knows, except a few of us in the audience. And then you have deal with all the idiosyncracies of the religion, like bringing salt and a broom to a new house. Or “pooh-poohing” at the evil eye….or not wearing leather during the high holidays. That’s the kind of education that comes through a long line of grandparents and parents teaching you, and frankly, the times you born Jews sat in shul thumbing through the siddur (most likely bored with the sitting, bowing, and stepping) and reading the commentaries and the stories throughout the book.
Some things I can make easier—like learning Hebrew, so I don’t feel lost while everyone else is chanting prayers they’ve heard since they were six months old. Recently, I started studying Hebrew at my local state university and also studying the prayers with my shul’s education director. I was so proud of the progress I made and was lying bed trying to decipher the words on the page, when my husband (who hasn’t studied Hebrew since his bar mitzvah and rarely goes to synagogue) leaned over and chanted—perfectly—the prayer I was painstakingly working on. Now, he didn’t know what he was saying, but he could do it and was perfectly comfortable doing it. I was jealous. It’s going to take me years to get there, but I will. I know that the only way I am going to get comfortable is to work at it.
Sometimes the best resources are close by and if you are very lucky, you’ll be able to use your partner’s grandparents and parents to help you. I know I was lucky enough to have my husband’s grandmother who didn’t mind all the questions and prying to get her recipes, so I could make my husband’s favorite matzah balls. My mother in law always lets me help her in the kitchen and watch her cook. We talk a lot, and it’s during those times when I know that this what generations of Jews have done, and I start to feel a little bit more Jewish.
My children are growing fast, and they’ve started the Hebrew school thing—and I am studying right along with them. At dinners, we compare the vocabulary we’ve learned that day. I know that they are comfortable with their identities and proud to be Jewish. I am starting to feel like I’d better have a bat mitzvah before my daughter does, just so I can stand up there on the bima and participate.
And so when the next time someone says, “you know what I mean?” while reminiscing about their bar or bat mitzvah, I can say, “yes.”
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