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Converting to Judaism has defined my high school experience
This article was produced as part of JTA’s Teen Journalism Fellowship, a program that works with Jewish teens around the world to report on issues that affect their lives.
(JTA) — During the pandemic, my mom decided to start baking; my friend Reagan learned Osage, a Native American language; my brother taught himself how to skateboard.
I decided to channel my free time and energy into converting to Judaism.
Growing up in the Bible Belt, I was only ever exposed to Christian theology. Almost everyone around me was a Baptist. Although my parents intentionally raised my brother and me without a focus on religion, I grew up going to Christian preschool, Christian summer camps, and being surrounded by other Christians–just because there weren’t other options. While this wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, I always knew that Christianity wasn’t right for me.
At first, the idea of eternal life and an all-knowing God provided comfort, but as I got older I started to feel disconnected from Christianity. Concepts like the Holy Trinity never made sense to me, and by age 12 I thought I had given up on religion entirely.
I first started looking into Judaism towards the end of 2020. I’m not really sure what led me to this; I just stumbled upon it and found that its emphasis on making the ordinary holy, repairing the world, and the pursuit of knowledge was a perfect fit for my already existing beliefs. My parents were a little bit shocked but ultimately supportive when I told them that I wanted to convert. My mom’s main concern was that I would become the target of antisemitism. “I’m happy for you and try not to think about the what-ifs,” she said while driving me to the Jewish community center so that I could board the bus headed to the BBYO Jewish youth group’s International Convention.
In the spring of 2021, I emailed the rabbi at a local synagogue about my potential conversion. During our first conversation, he asked me if I’d heard about the custom of rabbis turning away potential candidates three times. I told him I had, but that if he turned me away I would just keep coming back. After the meeting, I signed up for conversion classes and started attending services regularly — and I wasn’t alone.
According to a 2021 Tablet survey, 43% of American rabbis are seeing more conversion candidates than before. The reasons for conversion are diverse. Some candidates fell down an internet rabbit hole that led to a passion for Judaism. Others took an ancestry test and wanted to reconnect with their Jewish heritage. Many were raised as Reform Jews but weren’t Jewish according to stricter halachic, or Jewish legal, standards and decided to convert under Conservative or Orthodox auspices. Despite the common stereotype that Jews by choice must be converting for the sake of marriage, many rabbis said that converts are less likely than ever to be converting for a Jewish partner.
After meeting with a rabbi about the potential conversion, candidates are expected to learn everything they can about Judaism. In my case, that meant 21 weeks of hour-long, weekly conversion classes in addition to independent study on Jewish mysticism, traditions, and ideas. Candidates are also expected to become active members of their local Jewish community and attend services regularly.
Once the candidate and the rabbi feel they are ready to convert, a beit din, or a court usually made up of three rabbis, is assembled. They will conduct an interview, asking the candidate about what brought them to Judaism and basic questions about what was taught during conversion classes. When the beit din has guaranteed that the candidate genuinely wants to convert, the candidate immerses in the mikveh, a pool used for ritual purification. After submerging in the mikveh, the convert is considered to be officially Jewish and is typically called up for an aliyah, ascending the platform where the Torah is read.
According to Rabbi Darah Lerner, who served in Bangor, Maine before her retirement last year, the main difference between teens converting alone and teens converting with their family is the parental approval that’s needed, but otherwise the process is very similar. “I treated them pretty much as I did with adults,” she said. For me, the only parental approval needed was my mom telling my rabbi that she and my dad were fine with me starting the conversion process. She also noted that it was easier for teens to integrate into the Jewish community because people were excited to see young people interested in Judaism.
A mikveh, like this one at Mayyim Hayyim outside of Boston, is a ritual pool where Jews by choice immerse as part of the conversion process. (Courtesy Mayyim Hayyim)
She said that the Jewish community gave the teens a place where they could ask questions and not be shut down. “If they have a pushback, or a curiosity, or a problem we allow them to ask it and we give them real answers or resources,” she said.
“I feel extremely privileged when youth come to me with these questions and these desires,” Rabbi Rachael Jackson, from Hendersonville, North Carolina. Jackson has worked with three teens in the conversion process over the past two years. Like Lerner, she doesn’t require teens to wait until they turn 18 to begin the conversion process. However, it’s not unusual for rabbis to recommend that teens wait until they turn 18 to begin their conversion.
My conversion process has defined my high school experience. I’ve been able to connect with other Jews at my school through BBYO, which has helped me find a community at school and meet people who I might not have met otherwise. Although it’s made me feel farther from the Christian community I was once a part of, Judaism has given me spiritual fulfillment, a love for Israel, and a sense of community — both in my synagogue and my BBYO chapter.
Others who have gone through the process feel much the same way. “I wouldn’t even recognize myself,” said Haven Lail, 17, from Hickory, North Carolina. “My whole personality is based on being Jewish. That’s what I love.” Adopted into a Jewish family at age 12, Lail felt drawn to Judaism because of the loving and accepting community she found.
Raised as a nondenominational Christian, Lail attended church regularly with her biological parents, but not for the religious aspect. “It was all hellfire and brimstone,” she said. Neglected by her birth parents, she only went to church because she knew there would be food there.
Lail started the conversion process at age 12 through a Hebrew high school, and four years later, she submerged in the mikveh and signed a certificate finalizing her conversion. The process was simple, but she was shocked that so few Jews knew about the conversion process. “It was a little weird,” she said.
The Talmud says that because “the Jewish people were themselves strangers, they are not in a position to demean a convert because he is a stranger in their midst.” However, it isn’t uncommon for converts to feel alienated from the rest of the Jewish community. “There’s this fear of going to college and still being othered because you still won’t quite fit in with the people who have been raised Jewish,” said one high school senior from North Carolina.
He was shocked by how alienated he felt after making his conversion public, and wanted to stay anonymous because he worries that once people find out that he converted, they’ll see him differently. “I didn’t ever really explain it to anybody except for the people really close to me,” he said. But after his rabbi called him up for an aliyah — a blessing recited during the reading of the Torah — one woman from the congregation began to bring it up to him every time she saw him. “People don’t realize that it can be a touchy thing and very, very othering,” he said.
I usually don’t mind personal questions about my conversion, but asking someone why they converted or pointing out that someone is a convert is frowned upon by Jewish law. I used to feel like everyone could tell that I wasn’t raised Jewish, but after one of my BBYO advisors thought that my conversion was just a rumor and couldn’t believe that it was true, I realized that wasn’t the case.
All of my friends and peers who were raised Jewish have memories of Jewish summer camps, Shabbat dinners with family, and a lifetime of other experiences. I often struggle with not feeling “Jewish enough” or like I missed out, especially because so many Jewish customs revolve around the home and family. My parents will often come with me to Shabbat services, but don’t participate in Jewish customs or celebrate Jewish holidays with me. “Anything that is a ritual in the home, they don’t really have the ability to have that autonomy,” said Rabbi Rachael Jackson of Agudas Israel Congregation in Hendersonville, North Carolina.
Grace Hamilton, a student at Muskingum University in New Concord, Ohio, has struggled with imposter syndrome during her conversion. Ever since she started college, she’s been questioning her place in the Jewish community and hasn’t been practicing Judaism as much as she used to. “I haven’t prayed in a really long time,” she said. She used to tell herself that once she finalized her conversion she would finally feel Jewish enough, but after a conversation with her rabbi, she realized that wasn’t the case.
According to Rabbi Rochelle Tulik at Temple B’rith Kodesh in Rochester, New York, many converts feel like they will never be Jewish enough. “That, no matter how hard they try, how many books they read or put on their shelves, no matter how often they come to services, or how many menorahs they light, somehow they’ll be caught,” she said in a Rosh Hashanah sermon she named “You Are Not an Imposter.”
Despite the struggles that many converts face, others like Rabbi Natasha Mann, who now serves as a rabbi at New London Synagogue in England, immediately felt at home within the Jewish community. “I felt like people were excited to have me there and wanted to hear what I had to say,” she said. After a family member mentioned that she might have Jewish ancestry, Mann began exploring out of curiosity. “I started looking into it, just because I felt that it was another piece of the puzzle,” she said.
Coming from an interreligious and intercultural family, she wanted to explore another aspect of her heritage, but ended up connecting with Judaism in a way that she hadn’t connected with any other religion. After two years of study, she decided to officially start her conversion process.
The Jewish community gave Mann a place where her ideas were taken seriously and she could have religious discussions, even as a teen. “I don’t know what my life would have looked like if I hadn’t found somewhere to really express and delve into that,” she said. “And luckily, I never have to.”
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The post Converting to Judaism has defined my high school experience appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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The data is in: For many in the Northeast, Christmas isn’t Christmas without Chinese food
It’s not just a myth that Jews head to Chinese restaurants on Christmas. It’s science!
Sort of. A new report from the financial services company Coventry Direct claims to have quantified the trend. The report analyzed search data for “Chinese food near me” during the week of Christmas from 2020 to 2024, and found that the Northeast dominated the results.
The top five states included Delaware, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey and New Hampshire, while New York, which is home to the largest Jewish population in the country, came in seventh place. Under the assumption that Jews are overrepresented in the Northeast, the study confirms that Coventry Direct is not peer-reviewed.
The study also analyzed Google search trends over the past year to find the top-searched Chinese food dish in each state. While Szechuan chicken was the most popular dish, taking first place in eight states, New York’s most searched item was Buddha’s Delight, a — IYKYK — vegetarian stew.
The Jewish Christmas tradition was famously referenced during Elena Kagan’s United States Supreme Court confirmation hearings in 2010 when she was asked where she was on Christmas day:
“You know, like all Jews, I was probably at a Chinese restaurant,” replied Kagan.
In recent years around Christmas, social media has also been flooded with images of a sign where the seemingly fictional “Chinese Restaurant Association” of America thanks its Jewish diners for their patronage.
“The Chinese Restaurant Association of the United States would like to extend our thanks to the Jewish people,” the sign reads. “We do not completely understand your dietary customs … but we are proud and grateful that your GOD insist you eat our food on Christmas.”
Two men enjoy Chinese cuisine prepared by Chinese chefs within the guidelines of kosher food preparation at a restaurant. (Getty Images)
But the now-ubiquitous tradition of Jews eating Chinese food on Christmas traces back to the early 20th century, when Jewish immigrants began carving out distinctly American rituals of their own. If for no other reasons, Chinese restaurants were more likely to be open on Christmas.
A classic 1993 study on the tradition, “New York Jews and Chinese Food: The Social Construction of an Ethnic Pattern,” by Gaye Tuchman and Harry Levine, traced the Jewish affinity for Chinese food to a few factors: Chinese restaurants at the time “welcomed everyone,” offered flavors familiar to an Eastern European Jewish palate and were considered a “sophisticated” dining experience for new-ish, Jewish Americans stepping outside their comfort zones.
While Chinese restaurants do not typically offer kosher fare, Tuchman and Levine also argued that Chinese restaurants were viewed as “safe treyf” because Chinese cuisine rarely mixes milk and meat and ingredients like pork and shrimp are chopped into hard-to-identify pieces.
To celebrate the longstanding tradition, a comedy club in New York’s East Village is set to host “Kosher Chinese: The Comedy Show,” with patrons enjoying kosher dumplings and an “unapologetically alternative holiday spirit we all secretly love.” In San Francisco, the 33rd Annual Kung Pao Kosher Comedy show kicks off tonight, and runs through Friday, Dec. 26.
From Massachusetts to Ohio, Jewish delis have also planned their own Chinese-inspired menus to mark the tradition.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post The data is in: For many in the Northeast, Christmas isn’t Christmas without Chinese food appeared first on The Forward.
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StopAntisemitism names Tucker Carlson ‘Antisemite of the Year’ as 2024 winner Candace Owens ramps up anti-Jewish rhetoric
(JTA) — The activist group StopAntisemitism has awarded the conservative personality Tucker Carlson its ignominious honor of “Antisemite of the Year,” citing his frequent invocation of classic antisemitic stereotypes.
The announcement comes as Carlson sits at the center of controversy on the American right about whether extremists should be welcomed in the Republican Party. It also marks the second year in a row that StopAntisemitism has selected a right-wing figure for its accolade, after years of awarding the mantle to mostly left-wing figures.
“Carlson mainstreams antisemitism by platforming and praising Holocaust revisionists and Nazi apologists, while hiding behind irony and plausible deniability,” the group said in a statement. “By legitimizing extremist voices and weaponizing conspiratorial imagery at massive scale, he has helped drag antisemitic ideas back into the mainstream.”
A watchdog presence with more than 300,000 followers on X, StopAntisemitism regularly mobilizes against activists and social media posts. The group has faced criticism for what some perceive as an inordinate focus on Muslim personalities, pro-Palestinian actions and non-prominent individuals. Its defenders deny that, pointing out that StopAntisemitism also regularly spotlights neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers on the right.
Its finalists for Antisemite of the Year included pro-Palestinian celebrities Ms. Rachel, Cynthia Nixon and Marcia Cross; mixed-martial-arts athlete and Holocaust denier Bryce Mitchell; two personalities associated with left-wing network The Young Turks; and social media personalities on both the far left (Guy Christensen) and far right (Stew Peters).
Carlson received the accolade on Sunday night, at the end of a weekend in which he was a keynote speaker at the convention of Turning Point USA, the young-conservatives group founded by Charlie Kirk, who was assassinated this fall. In its announcement, StopAntisemitism noted Carlson’s speech at Kirk’s memorial service, in which he described the murder of Jesus in a way that both his critics and fans interpreted as implying that Jews or Israelis had been behind Kirk’s assassination.
At the convention, the Jewish pundit Ben Shapiro continued his campaign against Carlson and Carlson declared himself to free of the anti-Jewish animus that he has long been criticized as propagating.
“Let me just affirm one final time. Not only am I not an antisemite — and I would say so if I was — I’m not an antisemite for a very specific reason,” Carlson said in his speech. “Not because it’s unpopular or my donors don’t like it. I don’t have any donors. I’m not an antisemite because anti-semitism is immoral in my religion. It is immoral to hate people for how they were born.”
It was the same explanation that Vice President JD Vance offered earlier this month when he said in an NBC News interview that he believed antisemitism is wrong.
In his own speech to Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest, Vance again refrained from criticizing extremists in the Republican Party, saying that he opposes “purity tests” for inclusion in the conservative movement. He also said he believed that antisemitism in the United States was being fueled by “a real backlash” against U.S. aid to Israel..
As the convention was underway, last year’s “Antisemite of the Year,” the right-wing streamer Candace Owens, embarked on a four-hour broadcast eviscerating Shapiro; amplifying antisemitic theories, including that Jews controlled the slave trade; and promoting a classic work of antisemitism by August Rohling, a German Catholic who believed in the blood libel and argued that the Talmud is a secret guide used by Jews for nefarious purposes. Rohling died in 1931.
The post StopAntisemitism names Tucker Carlson ‘Antisemite of the Year’ as 2024 winner Candace Owens ramps up anti-Jewish rhetoric appeared first on The Forward.
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Senior Hamas Official Vows Terror Group Will Never Disarm, Rejects Foreign Pressure
Hamas official Osama Hamdan speaks during a press conference, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Beirut, Lebanon, June 4, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Mohamed Azakir
Hamas has once again rejected calls to disarm, warning against “foreign interference in Palestinian affairs” as the terrorist group’s senior officials met with Turkish leaders to discuss the next phase of the US-backed peace plan for Gaza.
In an interview with the Yemeni news outlet Al-Masirah on Tuesday, Hamas Political Bureau member Osama Hamdan reiterated that the Islamist group will never hand over its weapons to foreign powers.
“The resistance rejects any foreign attempt to disarm us or seize the weapons the occupation failed to take,” the terrorist leader said. “The idea of surrendering our arms is one the resistance will never accept.”
“In the second phase of the Gaza agreement, the guarantees must be clearer, and the commitments more detailed,” Hamdan continued. “The Zionist enemy does not abide by the agreement. Israel’s failure to open the [humanitarian] crossings signals its intention to resume aggression against the Gaza Strip.”
On Wednesday, senior Hamas officials met with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan in Ankara to discuss the ongoing ceasefire and coordinate the next steps in advancing the second phase of US President Donald Trump’s peace plan to end the two-year conflict.
“The Americans want to impose hegemony on the region, with the Zionist entity [Israel] as its foundation,” Hamdan said during the interview. “Disarming the resistance would give Israel absolute control over the entire region.”
“The resistance is capable of continuing the fight, and I am confident the outcome of this conflict will be the demise of this entity,” he continued.
According to media reports, Hamas officials told Turkish counterparts they had fulfilled their ceasefire commitments, but accused Israel of violating the deal while blocking progress to the next phase of the agreement.
Since the start of the ceasefire in October, both sides have repeatedly accused each other of violations. Israel has carried out several operations targeting terrorist operatives as the Palestinian group ramps up efforts to reassert control over the war-torn enclave.
According to the US-backed peace plan, the second phase is expected to establish an interim administrative authority — a so-called “technocratic government” — deploy an International Stabilization Force (ISF) to take over security in Gaza, and begin the demilitarization of Hamas.
However, efforts to advance the ceasefire deal have stalled, with no agreement on crucial next steps, including the start of reconstruction in the enclave and the deployment of the ISF.
Turkey, a longtime backer of Hamas, has been trying to expand its role in Gaza’s post-war reconstruction efforts, which experts warn could potentially strengthen Hamas’s terrorist infrastructure.
While Turkey insists on participating in the ISF, Israeli officials have repeatedly rejected any Turkish involvement in post-war Gaza.
Turkey has even sought to shield Hamas from disarmament by pushing for the terrorist group to hand over its weapons to the Palestinian Authority or place them in secure international storage, rather than requiring it to disarm.
Israeli officials have rejected these options as unacceptable, arguing they would allow the terrorist group to maintain its influence in Gaza, which Hamas has ruled for nearly two decades.
Under phase one of Trump’s peace plan, Hamas was required to release all remaining hostages, both living and deceased, who were kidnapped by Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists during the group’s invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
In exchange, Israel freed thousands of Palestinian prisoners, including many serving life sentences for terrorism, and partially withdrew its military forces in Gaza to a newly drawn “Yellow Line,” roughly dividing the enclave between east and west.
According to the ceasefire plan, the Israeli army is required to withdraw further as the disarmament process unfolds. However, Israel has made clear that it will not pull back until Hamas disarms and other conditions are met.
Currently, the Israeli military controls 53 percent of Gaza’s territory, and Hamas has moved to reestablish control over the other 47 percent. However, the vast majority of the Gazan population is located in the Hamas-controlled half, where the Islamist group has been imposing a brutal crackdown.
Since the ceasefire took effect two months ago, Hamas has targeted Palestinians who it labeled as “lawbreakers and collaborators with Israel,” sparking widespread clashes and violence as the group moves to seize weapons and eliminate any opposition.