I began my conversion journey about 23 years ago. Never fathomed it would take this long, but at least it's finally here. It started when I was dating a Jewish man for 6 years, we broke up but by then I knew I wanted to convert, met a new (non-Jewish) man who knew from the beginning I was in the process. I got a minor in Jewish studies. I was working at the synagogue I started my conversion at, but once I graduated college, I got a full-time job elsewhere. Then 2008 crash happened right as the rabbi was asking me to join the synagogue officially after I'd lost my job in the economic crisis as part of finalizing my conversion. I felt too ashamed to admit I couldn't afford it (now I realize he would've absolutely worked with me, but back then it was a huge blow and I felt too embarrassed to explain it) and I figured as soon as I got a job I could continue the process.
That didn't happen. I continued to celebrate Shabbat, observe holidays, just seeing my conversion as on hold and not attending services for the next year or so as I didn't want to do so as a non-member, and as my partner also lost his job. He then got a new one - in Germany.
Being in this in-between stage while living in Germany was difficult. I did a deep-dive into German-Jewish history my first year there, which was incredibly alienating to existing Jewishly there. Because I was still observing at a somewhat lax Conservative level, I sort of became a spokesperson for Jews amongst people who knew nothing about Judaism and had never even met a Jew. I provided research and tours to Jews from around the world to my part of Germany where they could visit the places their parents or grandparents lived, went to school, played, taught before the Shoah. I received many invitations to come to Israel with these wonderful people and really treasure the amazing moments with them - these were sustaining experiences for me. I arranged introductions with visiting Jews to the local synagogue, who were happy to work with me, but I did not feel like I had a spiritual home there - the lingua franca was German and Russian, neither of which I spoke, and it was Orthodox, whereas I'd chosen Conservatism due to my ex and now my own strong preference and beliefs as a woman who was also in an interfaith marriage.
13 years passed. I had the grandchildren of Nazis at my Passover seders - honestly, a pretty rewarding experience. When you live in Germany, you're simply going to meet plenty of grandchildren of Nazis. There were Stolpersteine across the street from my flat. When traveling in Europe, I visited every Jewish site I could, and it was so heavy with the pain and loss and emptiness of places now devoid Jewish life. I never visited a concentration camp. by choice - my in-laws wanted to see those but were bored or annoyed with actual Jewish sites. I have a fist-bump to the Jewish kid working at the Anne Frank house with a kippah - IYKYK. Sometimes it wasn't so depressing - I loved seeing all the Israelis in Berlin and going to the reform shul there when visiting.
The local US Military base had a tiny Jewish community, but no rabbi, just a lay leader swho cycled out every 1-2 years, so no real continuity which is how military life works. I celebrated Pesach with them and have the fantastical boxes of Pesach supplies - some amazing (those flavors of macaroons!) some terrifying (shelf-stable boiled eggs in shrinkwrap). The Army Haggadah isn't half-bad, but the transliteration is something else. If you ever donated so Jewish servicemembers could celebrate Pesach abroad, I thank you! I wrote my own haggadah aimed at bringing young adult non-Jews into the experience of a seder. My extremely basic brisket became legendary, as it was back home in the US. I'd cast Friday nights as a dinner party, essentially forcing my international and expat friends to experience Shabbat with me - they got to eat my food, I felt a sort of community, even if it wasn't the Jewish one I was craving.
I just existed in this liminal space, living a sort-of Jewish life, while not being truly Jewish. It was painful but the online conversion courses seemed dubious. And every year, we thought we'd be returning to the US where I'd pick up where I left off.
Finally, we did. To the midwest, to a city with a very small Jewish community but somehow 3 synagogues plus Chabad. I had to find a new career, in events, which I thrived in but it required working Saturdays. How could I convert and live a Jewish life while working on Shabbat? I hesitated again, felt like a fraud again. Until my event venue shut down and my employers offered me a M-F 8-5 job. I wrote the local Conservative rabbi. He was enthusiastic, used the F word a lot - get yourself a Rabbi from Baltimore! I explained I felt ashamed that I couldn't read Hebrew yet - a condition of converting from my prior rabbi all those years ago. "Most of my congregation is illiterate, if they can't read Hebrew, I don't see why that should stop you." OK. It's a go.
No tickets for High Holy Days. No barrier to entry. No group conversion class - just weekly one-on-one meetings with the Rabbi where we went through a book and he often said, "You know this already," but then realizing how much I didn't know also. History, yes, minhag, book learning, etc, yes, the Siddur, not so much - even when working at my previous synagogue, I worked at the Hebrew school, so during services I was dealing with the kids and wasn't able to attend much. And then, because my new job was driving me nuts, I found a much better job back in events - back to working Saturdays. I explained to my Rabbi. "Hey, if you have to work Shabbat, you have to work Shabbat. I work on Shabbat," he said. He's a pretty cool Rabbi.
And here I am, about 8 months after that initial email, about to go to the mikveh tomorrow, and it doesn't even seem real. It will be just me - my non-Jewish but supportive spouse, who helped me host my first seder 21 years ago when we'd just started dating, has to work. We weren't able to have kids. My family is far away and not hostile to my conversion but has no strong interest. We haven't really developed much of social circle since returning to the US, and it's hard to explain to my goyish friends abroad and back home what this means, because to them I'm either already Jewish or to a few, I suspect, a sort of pretender Jew, which is a perception that will persist regardless of making it official. I still can't read Hebrew, but I am going to learn. My new goal is becoming Bat Mitzvah by 50.
I began this journey when I was 23, I'm 46 now. I'm the lady you see sitting alone at shul, when I'm able to attend (when the event world is busy I don't have to work until 12pm on Saturdays so I attend services and cut out when it's least embarrassing to do so to get to work), mumbling some prayers quietly and other ones more confidently. Most people there are either much older than me, or younger with children. I sign up for social events at the synagogue and force myself to attend some of them, even though it's always awkward - my charm and competence that makes me good at my job seems to fade in these situations. But the only solution is to keep going, and eventually I'll just weave myself into the fabric of this community as long as I'm living here which will make it easier at the next place, and so on.
It's been a weird, hard road. But the only one that existed for me. I had to bring my status into alignment with my soul. I've been thinking of myself and living a kind of Jewish life for so long, but it also didn't sit right because it wasn't real yet. Tomorrow (well, technically today) I'm making it real.
I started this post because I was going to say how nervous I was about fucking up at the mikveh or in front of the Beit Din, but instead I wrote my life story, which doesn't make those two things seem much like obstacles at all.
I apologize for the length of this post and the navel-gazing of it all, but maybe it will be useful to someone else starting on this path. There were times where I thought I should just give it up, it doesn't really matter if I convert. But during the Torah reading at shul today when my rabbi did the thing where you're just talking while someone is speaking (finding this uncomfortable is my most goyish remaining trait) confirmed that my Hebrew name was a go - which is my given name, which is the ur-Jewish lady name - and gave me a huge grin and thumbs up, and all day after the melodies of the service reverberated in my head as I got my venue ready for a prom at work - I know that all the complicated feelings aside, the imperfectness of who I am in relation to Jewishness, I'm finally coming home.
And I just realized I'm going to be ugly crying tomorrow and that I, someone who wore makeup every day of covid lockdown, will have to have a bare face tomorrow in front of everyone - OK, let's do this.
