Moses Weeps: American Jews Under Attack

Growing up in NYC--which I believe has the second-largest Jewish population globally after Israel--I knew plenty of Jews, but I never met one person who had converted.

Not one.

We are not a proselytizing religion, for starters. We never have gone out and tried to get non-Jews to become Jews. Chabad tries to get non-observant Jews back in the fold, but that's entirely different.

So when I joined a shul for the first time in my adult life after Oct. 7th, 2023--wanting to be among people like me--I was sort of stunned to find out how many converts my new temple had. I think I have met at least six so far. 

To be totally honest, I'm not sure I am on board with it. Why? Because Jews have a history that goes back thousands of years---more than any other religion. Besides being a religion, we are also a culture--or several cultures, truth be told, due to the diaspora that spread Jews all over the globe.

The primary demarcations are Ashkenazi--the Jews of Europe---and Sephardic, the descendants of the Jews who were kicked out of Spain in 1492 by Isabella and Ferdinand (yeah, the same ones who funded Columbus' sailing ventures) and landed in North Africa and environs.

There are Jews everywhere, but the vast majority tie back to one of these two groups.

I am 99.3% Ashkenazi, meaning my DNA meshes with other Jews of European descent almost to a tee. The remaining .7 is Northern or Western European. So I am about as pure a Jewess, genetically speaking, as they come.

Here's the thing: you can study the history of Jews, but it's not the same as having family lore going back hundreds of years that defines who you are. Because being Jewish has always been--and continues to be---troublesome to all the goyim (non-Jews) of the world, for reasons I cannot explain to you. Neither can anyone else, but there it is.

So I'm not sure how a bunch of non-Jews coming on board will color that history over time. Will they embrace Jews for Jesus--the most ridiculous concept ever? Will they even understand the struggles and pain and triumphs on a visceral level? I'm not sure they can.

And it troubles me.

I understand that with intermarriage, there are 1/2 Jews and 1/4 Jews, and it's tantamount to being biracial: you have some aspects of both cultures, and are also kind of your own culture. 

But just converting because you want to convert? Honestly, I don't get it. The most I've been able to discern so far in talking to these folks is that 1) they either married a Jew or 2) they didn't like whatever they grew up with. 

I'm not sure either of those are compelling reasons to become a Jew, if that's even a real thing.

My guess is that most people won't understand any of this. But the one thing we have is pride in having survived insane efforts to annihilate us over and over and over and over, over the course of thousands of years. How do you embrace that if it's not in your DNA?

I don't have an answer. I'm not sure the converts do either.

Am Yisrael Chai.