I am a convert, not a Jew by Choice. I put in the work. I didn’t flip a switch to be Jewish. I went through a change in family relationships, in practice, in community, and in adjusting to a different belief system. Because of that my role in our family is “nudge-in-chief” when it comes to Jewish observance. I didn’t make this effort to be lapsed.
I grew up in an Episcopalian family in a small town in Connecticut. I went to Sunday school and was an altar boy. But my parents taught me to befriend kids of any religion. I had many Jewish friends and applied to and got into Brandeis, but couldn’t afford it. My interest was rekindled when I met my beshert Linda at the State Department, where we were both in the Foreign Service. I began a journey to Judaism that spanned the Western Hemisphere.
I had been assigned to go to Peru when I proposed, but Linda could not get an assignment there right away and I was alone for a while. I had decided to convert before I went. I wanted our family to be a singularly Jewish family. Rabbi Lindemann at Linda’s home synagogue in New Jersey guided me conversion, and I studied (in Spanish) with Rabbi Bronstein in Lima (in Spanish). He and his wife befriended us, and I had my beit din in Cherry Hill at the age of 39. (The two rabbis only common language was Hebrew, which is how they communicated about my studies in Lima.)
We lived in Canada and Uzbekistan, with two young children, and set down our roots in 2004 in Northern Virginia when I didn’t have to go overseas again. We sent the kids to the JDS, joined Olam Tikvah and checked off on the Men’s Club application that I would help with youth programs. A fateful night in October 2004 when my Sox were playing the Yankees for the pennant, the club membership chair called and asked if I would help. I said okay simply to get off the phone, and that day began my decades of involvement with the FJMC.
We were a Modern Jewish Family. My conversion meant that Linda and I could share making a Jewish home for the kids while equally pursuing our careers. Linda had to go overseas again before she could retire, and was assigned to Tajikistan, a small former Soviet republic in Asia. Zach’s bar mitzvah was coming up, and Vega was in AP classes, BBYO, etc., and very active, and there was very little in
Tajikistan for either of them. So we stayed home and I became a single Dad for two years, putting dinner on the table every night, working with Zach on the bar mitzvah, and looking at colleges with Vega.
Embracing a new identity at one’s mid-life has challenges Jewish organizations have not fully addressed. While it is important to include interfaith families (we started as one) the new USCJ report also notes the need for a shift from dissuasion and requiring a lengthy, intensive process (of conversion) to encouragement and creative facilitation. The report, however, does not address what happens after conversion, to integrate the new convert into the community. My experience was, Congrats, you’re one of us. Pay your dues. Make sure you don’t take anyone’s seat. And understand that we are going to honor the people whose families have belonged here for generations. One of the hardest transitions for me was not having a Jewish social connection, no Jewish geography for a guy who had been at YMCA camp as a child.
Rabbi Adam Greenwald in “Left dripping at the mikveh” concludes “When we leave a new convert dripping at the mikveh, we squander one of our most precious resources, one of the keys to growing a robust Jewish population.”
I know this. A 40-year-old new Jew is another underserved community upon which our Inclusion Initiative should focus.
Written by
Bob Watts, VP for Programming for Men’s Life
FJMC International
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