A woman converting to Judaism?

I've been raised Jewish, and these are certainly some pretty deep questions. I don't know much about how it would have been in 1960 in London, but I can tell you a bit how it is in my synagogue in 2007 in North Carolina. I'm also Conservative, so if he's Reform or Orthodox...well, it might not be the same (definitely not the same if he's Orthodox).

To answer your first question, she probably would not be allowed to convert to Judaism just to marry him. Tradition usually states that a person is turned away for conversion three times before they are even considered for it, but if they show strong enough interest and desire, things go on. They study Judaism, a lot, and might learn to read Hebrew. Then, after a long time when they are sure they want to be Jewish, they go to the mikvah, or sacred bath, I guess, (it's usually full of natural rainwater; my synagogue's is about six-by-six maybe, perhaps three or four feet deep... I've only seen it once). Then, I'm not sure what prayers are said, but I do know the one being converted submerges him/herself fully under the water while nude as part of the process. I'm sure Wikipedia would have more information, maybe even links to Jewish websites.

However, today at least, a conversion isn't always necessary before marriage. After the conversion process, the couple can go and have a Jewish ceremony to make their marriage legal before the synagogue, and it's usually alright, I think.

As for having a child before marriage... Well, it's usually, if not always, considered a very bad thing, still joyous because new life is new life and babies make everyone happy and are a big celebration, but still often viewed as being shameful, especially if the mother isn't Jewish (since being Jewish passes to the child from the mother). I'd certainly expect his parents to be angry at her, possibly even hate her for it, and would likely be angry at him, too, depending on what they're like.

I hope this has helped you. I would try finding a site on Judaism to read more about it, though, because every synagogue is different, and what might be the norm at my synagogue could be hundreds of years away from the norm at one in London.

----------

That's really helpful - thank you.

I may well drop the older child born out of wedlock then and make the engagement longer. The female does want to convert for more then marital reasons. Her family is a very fractured chaotic family with little love. She meets her fiance and sees how much family means to him, how his are loving and involved in each others lives and that speaks to her on a deeper emotional level, and she finds the teachings feed into this need.

Would such motivations be acceptable for a conversion?

Thanks again.

It depends on the rabbi, and what kind of synagogue he belongs to.

Reform rabbis can perform conversions, however in most instances, those conversions are not recognized by the State of Israel, or Conservative and Orthodox rabbis.

I don't think she'd be required to learn to read Hebrew in the 60s. She will have to learn the prayers in Hebrew, though.

----------

http://montchan.blogspot.com - my personal blog

I converted to Judaism in 1999. First I met with the rabbi and told him I wanted to become Jewish; he gave me a long lecture on all the reasons why I shouldn't do it, including antisemitism, increased religious obligation, etc. I still wanted to do it so he agreed to teach me. For a little over a year, I met with the rabbi once a week to learn about Judaism. I was in college, so I took Hebrew as my required two years of language. I went to synagogue every Saturday morning and often attended an open-discussion Torah study after services.

When I was ready, we planned a date. First I had to meet with a beit din, three well-respected educated Jews (mine was two rabbis and the synagogue president). We talked about Judaism for a half-hour or so; they questioned me about my beliefs and practices to gauge my level of sincerity and commitment. Then it was time for my mikvah.

Our synagogue didn't have an indoor mikvah full of rainwater, but any natural body of water (not tap water) is a mikvah. It was a beautiful day in June so we drove out to a lake. One of the synagogue members owned a cabin on the lake and the synagogue used this for a mikvah; there was a long rope anchored between the shore and a point fairly deep out, for holding onto. I took off all my clothes and jewelry, brushed my hair, removed all my makeup. Nothing can block the water from touching any part of the body (oh, and you can't be on your period for this, it has to have been at least five days since your period ended). I blew my nose and cleaned under my nails (no nail polish), and brushed my hair. When I was ready, I wrapped up in a towel and went outside with the rabbi and my then-fiance. They stayed on the shore while I went out into the water. Once I was out where the water came to my shoulders, I hung the towel on the rope and enjoyed the feeling of being naked in the lake on such a pretty day.

The rabbi called out the blessing over conversion for me to repeat. I immersed in the prescribed way - legs parted, arms out, eyes closed but not too tightly, all the way under so the water covered every part of me. I picked my feet up off the bottom and hung suspended in the water for a moment, then came up. I recited the blessing for immersion and immersed two more times. Afterward I took a little moment to myself, looked up at the sun, and savored those first moments as a Jew. Then I wrapped my wet towel around myself, came out of the lake, had a quick shower and dressed. My fiance and I went out to dinner to celebrate.

----------

-
Script Frenzy Participant: Connected (2008)
NaNoWriMo Winner: The Track (2007)

Wow Kelilah, that sounds beautiful, thank you for sharing that.

You guys have been really helpful, though any more advice is always welcome!

Ok- let me give you the rundown from the Orthodox POV:
1) The first issue is getting into a conversion programme. this is NOT easy- and deliberately so. Since Judaism believes that anyone who adheres to the 7 Noahide laws is righteous, we do not see it as necessary for anyone to convert- and when somebody converts they take on an extra 606 laws- for a total of 613- meaning they have just made life MUCH harder for themselves.
2) People whose reasons for converting are suspected- i.e. if they think it is only for marriage, for business reasons etc. However, to prevent the loss of Jews to Judaism- it has long been the practice that if it is suspected as only being for marriage, BOTH people in the relationship have to attend classes. Some communities started doing this as early as the fifties- other communities in the 50s and 60s turned people away and did not follow this ruling.
3) The convertee has to go to lessons to learn how to live a jewish life, how to follow a service, be able to read hebrew etc. In other words, they have to learn enough to be able to function as a Jew in Jewish society. And yes- converts have always had to learn hebrew- we see this as far back as in the Book of Ruth where Ruth says "your people shall be my people and your God my God" thus taking on the culture and practices of Judaism as part of her conversion.
4) Once the lessons are completed the person has to immerse ina mikveh in the presence of two kosher witnesses (nowadays it is generally two Rabbis from the Rabbinical court that will issue the conversion document)
5) A conversion document is issued by a Rabbinical court with a member of three judges.

no orthodox rabbi would convert someone who was only doing it to get married (and i don't think coservative loves it either). you said your character likes her fiance's family relationships and lifestyle. well, that's a better start- but she still has to really care about and believe in following the Jewish lifestyle, which does entail a lot of restrictions, a lot of which might be hard for her to accept or understand at first. if she's not converting orthodox it will be simpler, but she'll have to take classes and demonstrate a certain level of knowledge and committment before she actually converts. she has to convince the bet din (rabbinical court) that she knows what she's getting into and really means it.

about having a child out of wedlock: Jewish conversion is a total change- going into the mikvah is a kind of rebirth. you come out of it a new person, a different person, and what you were before has no bearing on your future in God's eyes, although it will still have repercussions on your own life. so technically, what she did or didn't do before she became Jewish shouldn't matter. but socially, it might be a little awkward for her and her child to explain themselves. if her new community is welcoming and tolerant, than hopefully they would take her situation in stride and accept her for who she has chosen to be.

and it won't be enough for her to convert- her child would have to also, go through an individual ceremony. and then at the age of 13 for a boy or 12 for girl, the child would have to make and absolute decision about whether he/she wants to be Jewish or not.

If the child is still young, however, it'll usually be considered as if the child were born Jewish. (My mother actually converted to Conservative Judaism as well, so I know this is true because my two older siblings were converted with her.) The Bar/Bat Mitzvah (meaning, respectively, "Son/Daughter of the Commandments") is the coming-of-age ceremony for young Jewish men and women (at thirteen for boys, or at twelve or thirteen for girls), when they first make aliyah, or read the prayer before the Torah is read, and often read from the Torah as well. The Bar/Bat Mitzvah is usually preceded by years of study in Hebrew school, where the child learns about Jewish holidays and customs, learns to read Hebrew, and learns to recite the prayers and lead services.

This ceremony, though, is not usually an absolute, life-long decision. In fact, I've seen more of my friends stop observing Judaism after their Bar/Bat Mitzvahs than before it, because after that, Jewish studies aren't as enforced as before. My synagogue has a Jewish community high school, though, which ends with a confirmation ceremony, in which these individuals say what it means to them to be Jewish and then lead services, if I recall correctly (I've not been to confirmation services since my brother's a few years ago, and mine is not for some time, either; as well, all synagogues are likely to have some variations in their practices, and I'm speaking as it in in my synagogue today, not what it was in 1960).

----------

Nope- outoftowner is correct. In Orthodox Judaism children born before the mother converts have to be converted seperately. This can be done when they are babies, but it does have to be done- a boy circumcised and all children taken to the mikveh

Also, once a jew, always a Jew. Whether or not you observe the Jewish laws, you are Jewish once you have converted regardless og how much you observe post your bar/bat mitzvah (Strangely, Reform, though the most liberal of the major Jewish movements, does use nominal adherence and identification as a jew as part of their criterion to decide of someone is Jewish- which can lead to the situation that someone Jewish according to Orthodox Judaism is deemed non-Jewish by Reform!)

So, the issue with a child or baby converted before bar/bat mitzvah actually works like this. The child's conversion is considered provisional until they are old enough to accept the mitzvot for themselves- in other words bar/bat mitzvah. At that age, they can either ratify the conversion by publicly doing a mitzvah or by verbally stating so. However, they DO have the option to annul the conversion by stating that they refuse the conversion- and they are retroactively considered to have never had the conversion. BUT, this is an one shot deal- they have to do it before they publicly do any mitzvah or state they are Jewish. There is no such thing as a confirmation service in halachah- if Conservative or reform have introduced it, then they have done so for theor pown reasons- none of which relate to Jewish law. In fact, making a big deal over a bar or bat mitzvah is a new innovation of only the last couple of centuries- before then it just meant that on the first public Torah readinf after the boy's thirteenth birthday he had the right to an aliyah. In the 1960s, bat mitzvahs were not commonly celebtrated in Conservative and Reform and virtually unknown in Orthodox communities.

Ditto with what was said earlier--My (Orthodox) family friends adopted a girl who wasn't Jewish by birth, and they converted her as a baby--same conversion ritual as described above.

When she turned 12 she publicly accepted Judaism so her conversion would remain valid (although I am not convinced that she really had to have done it publicly, not refusing to do it would have been enough)

But it would totally depend on what stream of Judaism the family belonged to...

----------

(First novel: Castle Island)
Nano '06: The Lemon Tea Summer
Screnzy '07: Eight Weeks of Pizza
Nano '07: The Twelfth Stone

I am not Jewish, but I worked with a woman who converted to Judaism. At the time she was divorced from her first husband, and had a five year old son from that marriage. She was planning to marry her Jewish boyfriend, whom she had met after her divorce, but she told me that after meeting him and discovering Judaism she was so fascinated and delighted by the religion she would have completed the conversion even if they had broken up. She did it through a Conservative temple, and she said her son was converted with her. Her ex-husband didn't object, but he was pretty much out of their lives by then anyway.

Her fiance was Israeli, and at one point he realized that a Conservative conversion wouldn't be recognized in Israel. He told her to find an Orthodox rabbi to oversee her conversion. She found one, who insisted that the fiance come to see him. To the fiance's surprise, the rabbi berated him for living with a woman who was not yet his wife, for not keeping kosher and for not going to temple. The rabbi told my friend to move out of her fiance's apartment until they could be married according to Jewish law. She started packing up to move back in with her parents, and her fiance decided that a Conservative conversion would be good enough, after all. They never went back to the Orthodox rabbi!

I was a guest at their (Conservative) wedding, which was quite lovely. During the ceremony the bride read Ruth's speech to Naomi from the Book of Ruth. I was told by some of the other guests that this is not actually a requirement, but that these days it is often included in weddings involving converts, to stress that converts become part of a family, just as Ruth did.

----------

Those with no dreams can never have any dreams come true.

Anonymous

My novel involves a similar story with a twist. Here's hoping one of you can help me with this one.
My MC was raised in an Orthodox Jewish community since childhood, and finds out at 18 that her mother never converted to Judaism, ergo she is not Jewish either. Her mother wants her to convert but she's confused and unsure.
From the perspective of the conversion process, would my MC get any breaks, like less of a waiting time (because she already knows everything and was practicing) or would there be any other special considerations or factors involved in her special case? I thought it might be fast-tracked, but I've recieved information to the contrary....
Any help would be greatly appreciated :D

If she was raised Jewish, knows her stuff, and wants to stay that way, she shouldn't have a hard time converting - most of the reason it usually takes a while is that the person has to get up to speed on knowledge and practice, and has to convince the Bet Din that she is really committed for the right reasons. in your case, she has the knowledge and should be able to prove that its what she really wants without too much trouble. in the case of some communities of Jews whose halakhic status is disputed (Ethiopians, descendants of Marranos), people choose to convert just to make sure of things, and Im pretty sure its easier for them if they were already religious - more of a formality.

but her mother (and her siblings) would have the same choice and process to make, too. im assuming there's a whole situation around why her mopther hasnt converted yet - if her father has been Orthodox all this time, it's surprising that he'd marry a person who hadnt converted properly.