The Kibbitz
We’re much better than we were 30 years ago, and obviously much bet- ter than we were 75 years ago. That’s just a question of time. That’s being replaced by the fact that people are converting and Jewish families are being created that look different from the Ashkenazi norm. The more that happens, the better off we’ll be. Those converts who look different know which shuls are welcoming and which aren’t. But you and I know that’s true for us too—if we don’t wear a black hat, not every shul is right for us. So we make a big deal about it with con- verts, but the truth is it affects even us Ashkenazi Jews. Do you think the non-Orthodox world has its own blind spots by hav- ing an open-door policy on conver- sions? I mean, for them it largely makes sense — they want more Jews, they It’s very hard to judge sincerity. The only thing we can judge is commitment. I don’t know what someone’s thinking when they say Sh’ma Yisrael, but if they’re going to shul, that’s a certain type of committment.
potential converts in that area? Or is the rabbi’s job just to handle the reli- gious components? The social piece is very important. There are rabbis who won’t officiate at the weddings of converts, making things very difficult. My conversions will never have the same standing as RCA conversions. They have created a monopoly where they’ve gotten the Chief Rabbinate of Israel to accept their conversions and not mine. I’m blocked out through the front door. As the old saying goes: if you can’t get in through the front door, go through the window. But it’s always easier through the front door. Even converts who come in the front door have trouble socially integrating. Con- verts who come in through the win- dow, that’s all the more complicated. To add to that: when something does go wrong, when a convert isn’t ac- cepted by the community, we tend to say the person didn’t try hard enough. The community is generally seen as blameless, without asking whether we had the right structures in place to truly welcome that person. Obviously, that’s right. A communi- ty that truly works with people on the margins is the exception. Converts are among those people on the mar- gins where we’re not doing a good enough job. I want to look at the demograph- ics of people being converted, be- cause it’s an area people don’t quite have language for. There’s this no- tion of “not looking Jewish,” which we know really means “not look- ing Ashkenazi.” Historically, look- ing Jewish meant someone felt safe, they were part of the group. How do we hold that reality while acknowl- edging that “you don’t look Jewish” is problematic and racialized?
want more in-marriage. The problem is: are they really Jewish? You can have a more lenient policy about what’s required for conversion, but if you have no policy at all, it’s hard to say they’re Jewish. The downside is they’re creating Jewish families that aren’t really Jewish families. That’s a serious issue. Sometimes it’s fan- tastic, but sometimes they’re creating Jewish families that aren’t really prac- ticing or acting as Jews. We have to talk about what it means to live a real Jewish life, to be converted to a real Jewish life. There doesn’t seem to be much data about conversion and long-term re- tention, though anecdotally, it can be spotty. Wouldn’t the conversion process be so much better if we had the right follow-up tools and data? For sure. We’ve now introduced a post-conversion class and have seven people in it. It’s very hard — we converted 191 people and I have seven in the class, because I don’t hold anything over them. It’s only people who want to learn. That doesn’t mean only seven are actually living Jewishly. But it’s very, very hard to get people to commit post-conversion. What’s one thing you’d suggest to other conversion programs, Ortho- dox or not? You’ve got to give people a finish line, and you have to honour that finish line. You can make it hard. You can re- quire a lot. You can say it takes three years, and you have to know Modeh Ani. That’s all fine. But, when they get to the goal line, you have to allow them to score a touchdown. Part of the problem with some of these pro- grams is [would-be converts] get to the one-yard line, and [the communi- ty] builds a wall at the one-yard line. That’s not acceptable.
16 SUMMER 2026
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