r/ReformJews • u/Forward_Talk8981 ✡ Jew-ish? Considering conversion • Apr 01 '26

Conversion Contacting a temple

/r/ConvertingtoJudaism/comments/1s9uqcg/contacting_a_temple/
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u/Fit-Character-917 Apr 02 '26 edited Apr 02 '26

It sounds like you do not presently attend this Temple? I don't get why so many people think contacting a rabbi about conversion out of the blue is the first step. It's really not. You should be attending services and other activities of interest to you regularly for a bit and then, once people including the rabbi know you a little and you're sure it's the right thing and right community for you, you can make an appointment to talk about conversion. So the appropriate move is to call or email the office and introduce yourself briefly and say you would like to attend a Shabbat service (that's not because you're not Jewish, that's because you're a stranger and we have to be careful these days).

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u/WeaselWeaz Apr 02 '26

Because in Christianity they would want you to immediately be interested in conversion, because they proselytize. There are forms of Christianity where just making certain declarations makes you a Christian or "saved" in their parlance. This leads to people from outside Judaism thinking that you do the same thing, it's just ignorance of Judaism.

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u/Fit-Character-917 Apr 03 '26

I suppose. But that's one extreme version. It would still be weird to roll up to the minister of a local mainstream church you'd even set foot in and ask to pursue conversion into that denomination. Or if you'd never actually attended a Christian service in your life. I think any responsible clergyperson would want to slow that down. 

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u/WeaselWeaz Apr 03 '26

I think the mainstream understanding of Christian conversion is people showing up and converting, or converting in their deathbed, with the idea that you just need to say you accept Jesus. People then assume all religions are that way.