“At night, as beneath him his parents completed their routines, the banging of the old pipes as they washed their faces and the sudden thunk into silence as they turned down the living-room radiators better than any clock at indicating that was eleven, eleven thirty, midnight, he made lists of what he needed to resolve, and fast, in the following year: his work (at a standstill), his love life (nonexistent), his sexuality (unresolved), his future (uncertain). The four items were always the same, although sometimes their order of priority changed. Also consistent was his ability to precisely diagnose their status, coupled with his utter inability to provide any solutions.”
When Haruki Murakami said, “Sometimes I feel like a caretaker of a museum - a huge, empty museum where no one ever comes, and I’m watching over it for no one but myself.” And when Audrey Hepburn said, “Living is like tearing through a museum. Not until later do you really start absorbing what you saw, thinking about it, looking it up in a book, and remembering - because you can’t take it in all at once.”
My Chemical Romance, I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love (2002), Eyeball Records, 2007 2-disc release, includes a compilation disc of other Eyeball artists, as well as thr music videos for “Vampires Will Never Hurt You” and “Honey, This Mirror Isn’t Big Enough For The Two Of Us”
That’s great! I’m glad you’re on this journey. But before you start making side blogs and before you contact a rabbi, here’s some books which I think should really be the bare minimum to get you started researching. Yes I recommend them in this order.
What I Wish My Christian Friends Knew About Judaism by Robert Schoen:This is a super great resource for learning the early stuff about Judaism. Basic overview of customs and holidays, etc. I highly recommend it if you have any background in xianity whatsoever.
Settings of Silverby Stephen Wylen: This is a bit more of an academic text, but is super easy to understand and is incredibly thorough. It’s broken up into sections on Basic Beliefs, Practices and Customs, Jewish History, and Modern Judaism/Israel. I’ve included a link but it should be commonplace in most academic libraries.
To Life! by Harold Kushner. I’ve talked on this blog a few times before about how essential I see this book to be for new converts, Patrilineals, parents of Jews by Choice, and anyone who’s lost touch with their Jewish heritage and wants to discover more. It’s broken up into super easy to read sections, with introductions on every topic and a Q&A section at the end for any potential questions you may have.
Essential Judaism by George Robinson: This is a resource text with incredibly in depth answers to any Judaic question you can think of, with answers in line with that of every denomination. It’s quite weighty, clocking in at 704 pages, but I see it as a must-have in any Jewish home. (Plus you can totally find pdfs online if that’s your thing)
By this point, it should be pretty clear to you whether or not you want to convert. Your next step is not to make a blog (I don’t see why so many people make side blogs so early in their process, it’s okay to reblog pomegranates and yidquotes to your main lmao) but to start reaching out to local Jewish congregations in your area. If you don’t have a local congregation, then I suggest either finding one relatively close by that you can commute to or work with remotely, or waiting until you’re at a place in your life where you do have one.
I highly suggest A) attending services for a while (a month minimum) before talking to your local clergy about conversion and B) emailing the shul ahead of your attending so that they know you are a safe person to let in.
In the meantime, the books I suggest are:
The Jewish Home by Rabbi Daniel Syme: This book is a guide for creating–you guessed it–a Jewish home. It has super simple and in-depth explanations of rituals, holidays, how to celebrate said holidays, life events, and appropriate prayers (transliterated!) for each.
Choosing a Jewish Life by Anita Diamant: This one is quite popular with converts. It is a guide for navigating the conversion process, with suggestions for readings, prayers, your familial connections, and what the actual conversion moment looks like.
Your People, My Peopleby Lena Romanoff: very similar to Diamant’s book, this is a resource for conversion by someone who has been there, done that, got the t-shirt, and worked with converts for decades. It does take a lot of the view of people converting for marriage, unfortunately, but it is not solely dedicated to that POV. It’s incredibly helpful on the front of navigating the issue with your family: both your own and that of your future partner’s. I found it incredibly lovely this year as I spent Chanukah with my partner and a good chunk of it was celebrated on FT with their parents.
The Way of Man by Martin Buber: My partner would roll their eyes at my including this book, but despite the fact that it’s a pretty sexist Hasidic text, I think it’s an important message for converts: there is no one right or wrong way to find Hashem. The important thing is that you try your best every day to do good and be in His image. It’s a very short book, but take your time with it. Don’t read it all in one sitting.
You may be sitting there looking at this list going “whoa whoa whoa wait! That’s a lot of books! How much will that cost me??” And you’re right to. It’s not a pretty list to look at. Converting costs money, there’s just no way around it. You may or may not have to pay for whatever classes you take, and you may or may not have to become a member of your shul. But the price of these books is just encouragement to find them at a library, order them from used book websites, and most importantly: to space them out.
Becoming a Jew isn’t a race. It’s not about “saving your soul as quick as you can” because that’s ridiculous. It’s a lifelong commitment with no un-do button, so you better make damn sure this is what you want. Take your time with it. Study, interact with your community, study more, and did I mention study? You’ll never be finished learning what there is to know about Judaism, but this is a great place to start. The actual conversion process will take anywhere from 6 months to 2 years depending on what you and your rabbi think is best for you (also, life hack: the more studying you do on your own ahead of time, the shorter your process may end up being). And they’ll have their own book recommendations! In fact, three books on this list were ones my rabbi required of me!
You’ll notice I didn’t include any siddurim or even scripture on this list. Your siddur is a very important and special text, and I don’t think it should be purchased without rabbinic oversight. Likewise, I don’t suggest attempting to study Torah until you have someone knowledgeable in it who can help you study and interpret it.
Don’t rush this. It’s a beautiful thing that will take time, effort, prayer, sweat, and tears. But it’s something that will also rush past, and before you know it you’ll be a bona fide Jew. So enjoy the process of getting there, and know that your commitment to studying doesn’t stop at the mikveh.
“Your identity emerges out of your habits. You are not born with preset beliefs. Every belief, including those about yourself, is learned and conditioned through experience. More precisely, your habits are how you embody your identity. When you make your bed each day, you embody the identity of an organised person. When you write each day, you embody the identity of a creative person. When you train each day, you embody the identity of an athletic person. The more you repeat a behaviour, the more you reinforce the identity associated with that behaviour. In fact, the word identity was originally derived from the Latin words essentitas, which means being, and identidem, which means repeatedly. Your identify is literally your “repeated beingness.” Whatever your identity is right now, you only believe it because you have proof of it. […] The more evidence you have for a belief, the more strongly you will believe it.”
The Incredulity of Saint Thomas, Caravaggio // The Plaque Series, Jenny Holzer // Lucio Fontana (Italian, 1899-1968), Concetto spaziale // Wishbone, Richard Siken
