Let’s start with the obvious: not every awkward moment in the conversion process is a red flag. It’s a deeply human, often messy journey full of growth, challenge, and—yes—imperfection. But when something feels off, when you’re constantly questioning yourself, or when a leader’s behavior starts to erode your sense of safety, dignity, or connection to God… that’s worth paying attention to.
This post isn’t about nitpicking every less-than-ideal interaction. It’s about naming real patterns that harm real people: spiritual manipulation, boundary violations, emotional abuse, and worse. Patterns I’ve seen again and again in the stories shared with me over 15 years of helping people convert to Judaism.
If you’re here, you might be carrying questions you’re afraid to ask out loud. You might be wondering if what you’re experiencing is “normal” or if it’s a sign something’s wrong. You might already know something’s wrong and be looking for clarity or next steps.
You are not alone. You are not overreacting. And you are allowed—commanded, even—to protect yourself.
In this post, I’ll walk you through common red flags in Jewish conversion spaces and how to respond in ways that honor your safety, integrity, and soul.
Let’s get into it.
Transcript below.
Transcript:
Not everything uncomfortable in the Jewish conversion process is a red flag, but if something feels off, there might be a reason.
Today I’m walking you through some of the red flags that I’ve seen in over a decade of helping people navigate the Jewish conversion process, from subtle boundary issues to full scale sexual assault,
to outright spiritual manipulation.
So that you can stay informed and empowered.
I’m Kochava. I am a Jewish convert who has been helping people navigate the Jewish conversion process since 2010 through my blog Building a Jewish Life.com,
which you might have known in its prior life as You’re Not Crazy.
I am not gonna lie. This video’s a downer, but it’s not about nitpicking every single awkward moment
or about holding rabbis or communities to some impossible standard. Nobody, no system is perfect. Even one based on Torah, because it’s full of humans.
But red flags are about pattern spotting.
They’re signals. You’re being wise to pay attention to that.
God wants you to take care of yourself. God does not want you falling prey to charlatans and abusers.
If something feels off. If you’re constantly doubting yourself in what seems like an unhealthy way. You are always walking on eggshells or you feel like you’re being pulled away from your own integrity. Those aren’t small things.
That’s your nervous system trying to protect you, saying “Danger, danger, Will Robinson.”
Spotting red flags early gives you choices.
It means you’re giving yourself the chance to course correct before things really go south
and deeper harm is done.
It is about protecting your peace, your mental health, and your integrity.
It’s also about protecting the sacredness of the conversion process. So before we get into what these red flags are, what are some of the things you might do if you spot red flags? First, pause. You don’t have to make a dramatic exit or confront someone right away,
but you do get to notice what’s happening. You can name it to yourself.
Write it down. Talk to a trusted friend.
Let it be real. Give it the time it deserves.
So then ask yourself, “is this a one-off or is this a pattern?”
Is this something you can clarify in a conversation? Or does the idea of having that conversation sound really terrifying in a way that you think is unhealthy?
Are you afraid of retribution if you have that conversation?
Is this a signal that you need to work on having strong boundaries and maybe set up some new boundaries?
Does this behavior make me feel safer and seen as I who as I truly am? Or does it make me feel less safe,
smaller, and afraid?
And if the answer you come to is that this makes you feel less safe, you don’t owe anyone your continued vulnerability. You don’t owe anyone anything. I don’t care how far you are in the process. I don’t care how respected they are. You do not deserve to be treated poorly. You are made Betzelem Elokim, in the image of God. You deserve to be treated with respect, kindness, and derech eretz (decency).
You’re allowed to take a step back, explore your other options, or wait until you can find a healthier dynamic. You also have the right to seek help.
So that might look like switching communities. It might look like consulting a second rabbi.
It might even look like pausing your conversion entirely in order to regroup and get support.
None of these choices mean that you’re failing. None of these choices are going to make God disappointed in you. I don’t want you to be disappointed in yourself.
They mean that you are protecting you. Your neshama (soul) deserves to be protected, and that’s brave.
If something crosses the line into actual harm, reporting is an option. Sometimes. There may or may not be someone over your rabbi that you can report to. Or if it’s a community member, you may be able to report them to the rabbi. But if they are someone with a lot of power in the community, if they have a lot of money, a lot of influence, you may not get anywhere.
Reporting doesn’t always lead to justice. Even though we claim to have a Torah system.
Sometimes institutions and individuals protect themselves instead of you.
That’s why your first priority has to be protecting yourself. Because no one else is looking out for you.
No one cares about you as much as you do.
Talk to people you trust. Keep good records. I’m telling you as a lawyer, write everything down. I want you to write down when, where, what time, and who was present and what happened. And save them. Forever. Don’t ever delete them. You have no idea when that information might be useful to you or someone else.
Most importantly, remember that choosing to walk away is not a failure.
Sometimes it’s wisdom.
You’re not just converting, you’re building a life,
and that life deserves to be rooted in honesty, respect, and care. That is what the Torah would command from us.
Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do, as Benjamin Spock said. Trust what you see. Trust what you feel.
Stop talking yourself out of red flags.
And trust that sometimes walking away from the wrong path is a step on the right path.
So now that we’ve got that over with, let’s walk through some of these red flags.
Because naming them gives you power.
You deserve a process that supports your growth,
not one that chips away at your confidence or wellbeing.
Red flag number one, not being allowed to ask questions.
Healthy rabbis welcome questions. Judaism is a religion founded on questions and questioning. Anyone who says differently is lying to you and wants to control you.
Your curiosity should not be shut down or dismissed, even if it’s about uncomfortable topics.
Your doubts should never be dismissed or shamed. Your question should be treated with the respect they deserve.
No leader should claim to speak for God. If someone tells you that they know what God wants for you specifically in this moment in your life, for you to move somewhere or for you to give them money or for you to enter it into a romantic relationship with someone… bad, real bad. That’s cult behavior.
If you disagree or you try to leave, and that’s met with threats, vilification, or spiritual fear tactics. That’s a big red flag.
As a general rule, anytime you find a community that is based around one charismatic individual, be very cautious. We are a community. We are not a personality cult.
Red flag Number two, you should never be shamed or humiliated as a means of “testing” you. There is a difference between challenging someone and being cruel to them. Humiliation is not a mitzvah.
You do not have to prove your worth by being torn down. Again, you are made Betzelem Elokim.
Red flag number three, boundary crossing is normalized. You have the right to boundaries.
You should not be made to feel bad for having limits. As long as both sides are treating each other with respect and derech eretz.
Some examples of this would be invasive personal questions that have nothing to do with halacha. That is something that happened to me, having really detailed sexual questions asked. Had nothing to do with conversion.
You shouldn’t face silent treatment or anger if you assert boundaries.
You should never face punishment or pressure to disclose your financial or intimate details. Never, ever, ever, ever, ever. That’s not their business.
Leaders should never break your confidentiality. They should never tell your business to other people, especially not to shame or humiliate you.
That’s a method of twisting your vulnerability against you.
Intermission! If you’re noticing any of these red flags and you’re starting to get a little uncomfortable, don’t worry. I have two more videos that you can watch.
I’ll link the videos up here and down below. One is about sexual harassment and assault in the conversion process, and the other is about how suffering has too often been used as a litmus of who is “sincere” enough to convert.
Neither one of these videos is meant to scare you, but I hope they give you language and better equip you to protect yourself
as you navigate this sometimes very complex and messy process. Hopefully you’ll never need the knowledge in this video or either of the other two.
But maybe someday you or someone you know will, and I’m really glad that you’re watching this, so that you can help them or yourself.
Red flag number four, isolating you. You should not be pressured to cut off contact with your family, friends, or other people in the community. You should not be kept isolated from the Jewish community that you belong to.
This is a control tactic.
Red flag number five starts with a discussion about internet safety.
Hopefully you practice basic internet safety. You don’t believe whatever some random person on the internet says without verifying it first.
But in this case, people who are trying to convert, and especially those who are running into roadblocks in the conversion process, we become desperate and vulnerable.
And abusers can spot that a mile away.
If you’re exploring Judaism and conversion online, you might come across people who claim to be rabbis. Or worse, might actually be real rabbis
who are sliding into your dms or the comment section and act like they’re doing you a favor.
Red flag. So much red flag. No Jew on Earth is seeking out and recruiting people to convert to Judaism. No one.
No Rabbi is recruiting conversion candidates in the comments sections of YouTube, TikTok, Facebook groups, none of it.
Real rabbis don’t chase. They present their work: lectures, books, blogs. Yes, social media posts.
And they let you come to them.
If someone is approaching you,
and especially if they’re doing it with urgency or flattery or “special access,”
What’s really happening is they’re a shark who sees blood in the water.
They see vulnerability, and for predators, that’s an invitation.
Conversion is sacred work.
It deserves boundaries, transparency, and mutual accountability. Not secret WhatsApp groups and rabbinic saviors sliding into your inbox. So here’s the rule. If someone comes to you offering you help to convert, run. You don’t even need to worry about verifying it. Run. They are not legitimate.
If you’re interested in what they have to say, great. You can watch their public posts, do it from afar, do your homework,
and approach them through public verifiable channels if and when you’re ready.
You don’t owe anyone your story, your trust, or your timeline.
Especially not some random dude you met on the internet who says he’s a rabbi.
Stay safe, stay discerning, and don’t mistake charisma for credibility.
Red flag number six. Financial pressure or exploitation. It is normal to pay for classes, supplies, even maybe your rabbi’s time.
You might even be asked to donate. But guilt, vagueness, manipulation, and a lack of transparency about what that money is for, those are red flags. Examples include surprise charges for things you had been told would be free.
Relatedly, the price mysteriously rising.
Not giving receipts or contracts or clear financial obligations when they’re appropriate.
When your conversion process is tied to monetary “appreciation.”
Anyone saying that poor people are less desirable converts, or less sincere in their conversion.
Discouraging you from free or more affordable resources, especially if they are the ones offering those higher priced resources.
And a really big one that surprised me how common it is: you should never be pressured to provide free labor or promised special consideration if you do free labor. This could be paperwork, it could be house cleaning, or babysitting. I’ve seen all of those,
and this has historically been one of the biggest early signs of grooming for further abuse. You should be paid for your time.
You can volunteer in a way that everyone else in the community is volunteering. You should never feel pressured or like you aren’t going to progress as well if you don’t give this free labor. The Torah has very clear rules about business and about the treatment of workers.
And more importantly, a lot of these things have been used to get conversion candidates alone in places with rabbis who do not mean them well.
And kind of just a last little bit to sum up this section,
it’s a bad sign if someone says, “if Hashem really wanted you to convert, you would find the money” when they know very well that you do not have that money at this time.
If they are using that to pressure you to pay for things they know you cannot afford, that is spiritual abuse.
Red flag number seven. This one is usually really early in the process. It’s love bombing. You might have heard of love bombing from like podcasts about true crime cults and stuff. But love bombing is when a person overwhelms you with loving behavior, and it’s a tactic to like take your defenses down, to rush intimacy, to make you get too ingrained in the group too fast that you feel like you can’t leave.
It could be excessive affection, especially physical affection. It could be excessive praise, gifts, or extreme amounts of attention. And notably, it turns real cold real fast if you ever express any discomfort with how fast things are moving.
On the surface, it might feel flattering or even magical, like someone is finally helping you with this process that you may have been struggling with for years.
But love bombing isn’t genuine care. It’s a control tactic.
The goal is to create emotional dependency, lower your defenses, and fast track intimacy so that you feel obligated, indebted, and unable to walk away when things start to feel off.
It’s a way to secure loyalty, obedience, and silence fast.
And now just some like general additional red flags that don’t need a whole lot of explanation.
It’s a red flag if the rabbi or any community member wants to meet you in overly private spaces.
And that includes romantic dark restaurants. Yeah, that’s happened.
Your rabbi should never ask you on a date. Yes. That also happens.
Flirting or flirtatious touch.
Gaslighting telling you that what you know isn’t real, that you misinterpreted or saw something else, or that you didn’t see what you really saw.
They shouldn’t blame you for things they did. They should not be shifting blame in order to avoid accountability. No one likes to be held accountable, but like. When you’re in a position of leadership in a community, you need to learn to take accountability. Grow up.
And you should never be the subject of mocking that is disguised as “just telling a joke.”
Well, we’re done. Thank God. I know that that sucks. I didn’t like it anymore than you did,
but let’s just talk a little bit more. Red flags don’t always mean walk away. Quite frankly, you can’t always afford to. I get that. I couldn’t walk away from my conversion when it turned into active sexual harassment and bullying.
I see you. I know what it’s like.
The people who are supposed to be protecting us are not protecting us in a lot of cases.
These red flags should make you pause and reassess.
They’re invitations to check in with yourself, ask hard questions,
and decide if what’s unfolding aligns with your values and Torah values.
You are allowed to advocate for your safety, your dignity, your peace, and your spiritual wellbeing.
That’s not selfish,
That’s spiritual maturity.
This process should grow you, not shrink you.
If something starts to chip away at your wholeness or your sense of self,
it’s okay, more than okay
to step back, get clarity, and get help.
Protect what matters most, and that’s you. I know many of us come into this process with some low self-esteem and thinking that we don’t deserve these things, but you do. See yourself the way God sees you.
And again, if something crosses the line, reporting is an option. If there is someone over the rabbi that you can report to.
But let’s be real,
it might not actually protect you the way it should.
Institutions often close ranks and speaking up can come with costs. I’m not gonna bullshit you on that either. The people who report are often the ones turned into villains. I got lucky in my case that it wasn’t that bad. Um, but that’s because I had a lot of people in my corner fighting for me. A lot of people who had
Influence. My case was unusual.
That is why so many of us are caught between a rock and a hard place when we face red flags.
So protect yourself first.
Talk to people you trust. Document everything. Again, I am begging you. My very legal license begs you to write down things. I am not your lawyer, but every lawyer will tell you to write this down. I want you to write down who, where, what happened, when it was, and who was present.
And again, never delete it. You don’t know when you or someone else will need it.
And most importantly, know that walking away is not a failure. It’s a form of resistance and self-respect. This is not the price that God asks for your conversion.
Sorry. I know I can be a bit of a Downer Debbie. I have been accused of that a few times in my life. Converting can be amazing and thankfully it is for many people. But we have way too much abuses. Any abuses in the system is too many and there is too many.
Most abuses are not at the level of tragedy. Most abuses are not sexual assault. Most abuses are emotional abuse or financial abuse with a really healthy sprinkling of sexual harassment.
It is not your fault if you end up being one of the statistics of people who have a crappy conversion experience. It’s their fault. They’re bad people who do bad things, and who should know better and who should be held accountable by our community, and generally are not.
So whether your conversion is amazing
or it’s really super messy or lonely, or full of unexpected detours. That’s kind of what my work is here for. I’ve been blogging about Jewish conversion since I was in the process in 2010. I have 15 years of trying to help people navigate this really messy process, and it’s pretty much always messy. Like don’t get me wrong, there’s always annoyances and there’s always miscommunications.
It’s never easy.
But you don’t have to do it alone. We have been left to do it alone for a very long time, and quite frankly, I condemn our community for doing that.
You deserve practical tools and support.
The Torah commands us to love the Ger (convert), and we spend all that time focusing on the person only after they convert. If we even treat them with respect after the conversion. That’s a different rant.
So I’m out here yelling into the void, creating tools to try to help past me. if you want more help. You can always go to my blog at Building a Jewish Life.com. If you join the mailing list, you’ll get access to a Resource Library that has some printables and trackers and other tools that I really wish I had had earlier in my process. And I do also offer one-on-one coaching and consulting if you are dealing with specific problems and need clarification and next steps.
God willing, more people will see this work and more people will start offering these resources and you will not have to do this alone anymore.
So if you’re still here at the end of this video. Which has been a little unhinged, let’s admit. Subscribe if you want more content that is no fluff and no fakery. Just tools to stay safe, sane, and yourself, because that’s who God wants you to be.
Shabbat Shalom.
