Have you ever been told that converting to Judaism isn’t possible for you? That Judaism is closed off to converts? These myths are not only wrong — they’re rooted in antisemitism, which tries to racialize Jewish identity and deny our long history of conversion.
I’m Kochava, a Jewish convert with over 15 years of experience guiding people through the conversion journey. Having converted twice myself, I understand the deep challenges and rewards this path brings.
In this video, I unpack the truth behind these harmful myths, explore the rich history of converts in Jewish tradition, and reveal what Judaism really says about welcoming new members. We’ll also address the very real obstacles you might face, including bias and gatekeeping, and what to do if you’re told “no.”
If you’ve been discouraged or confused, this video is for you. Let’s break down the barriers and move forward with knowledge, courage, and hope.
Want access to the helpful freebies I mentioned: the Jewish Experience Tracker, Rabbi Meeting Prep Sheet, Shabbat Planning Guide, and the Imposter Syndrome Support Kit? Sign up for my mailing list in the sidebar on the right and start getting real tools and support for your Jewish journey today!
Transcript below, as always.
Transcript:
If you’ve ever been told that you can’t convert to Judaism, you’ve been lied to.
Hi, I’m Kochava. I’m a Jewish convert who’s been helping people navigate Jewish conversion for over 15 years.
And today we’re gonna break down the myths,
the truth,
and what you actually need to know if you’ve been told “no” before.
Because that no you heard probably wasn’t the whole story.
I converted to Judaism twice. It was so nice, I did it twice.
I see it in my comments all the time: You can’t convert to Judaism. Fake news.
I mean, who wouldn’t listen to a reliable news source like PenisFartMan? Obviously he knows what he’s talking about.
And all too often I hear from people who are told “you can’t convert”
either by family or friends or Jewish friends who didn’t know any better. Occasionally a rabbi, but not usually. Because of their background, their family, their race, their ethnic background, the country that they live in,
or just because the rabbi didn’t like them and didn’t want to fool with them. Remember, rabbis are human too. Some of them are jerks. Most are perfectly fine, normal human beings.
So if you run into a problem with a rabbi, it’s probably not personal. It’s probably not you. He’s probably at a bad mood. Or is a jerk. Don’t assume you are the problem.
So let’s break this down. Where does the lie even come from?
There’s this pervasive myth that Jews don’t accept converts, period.
It’s closed off, off limits, not for you.
Part of that comes from within Jewish communities. Sometimes there’s protection against proselytizing.
And sometimes for outright gatekeeping. Some of it comes from antisemites
and other people who try to make Judaism a race, not a faith and a people. That’s wrong and offensive.
And not at all what Jewish tradition teaches.
And it comes heavily from antisemitic tropes
that paint Jews as clannish and exclusionary and thinking that we’re better than other people. None of that’s true. We got jerks just like every other people group in this world. I guess that’s the theme of this video. There’s lots of jerks in the world.
But here’s the truth. Judaism has always had converts, all the way back to the Bible.
We just don’t recruit. We don’t seek out people to join our religion because we don’t believe that people have to be Jewish to get into heaven or whatever positive afterlife there might be. Oh, and did you even know that Jews don’t necessarily agree on what the afterlife is? There’s probably a lot about Judaism you don’t know.
So if you’ve been told that you can’t convert,
it’s more likely that the person you spoke to was misinformed or biased or just plain wrong.
Or maybe they said it in a very broad way, but what they meant is that a person in your situation would have a lot of difficulty. That’s also a possibility that they didn’t quite mean it the way it came out. Because yeah, if you are in some countries, it’s gonna be hard for you to convert. That’s just facts, but nothing is impossible.
So what does Jewish tradition actually say about converts and converting?
Our texts are full of sincere praise for converts.
Ruth is the classic example that most people bring up, but she’s not the only one.
Her words, ” your people will be my people. Your God will be my God”
are literally recited in conversion ceremonies.
Halacha, Jewish law, allows for conversion. No, it’s not easy, but most meaningful things in life aren’t. Spiritual transformations take time and work.
And it’s not easy to be a Jew, practically or culturally.
As hate crimes continue to just escalate again and again around us.
Yes, a rabbi is supposed to discourage a potential convert. It’s really to make them realize how serious it is
and make sure that they’re really considering all the angles and all the problems that could come up if they pursue a conversion, because problems will come up.
That’s in the Talmud, but it’s supposed to be a respectful “reality check”
kind of discouragement, not a brick wall, and not an insult.
We teach that a person should be discouraged three times. That means there’s an end. Most people don’t really actually count how many times you have been discouraged, and maybe you’ll be less, or maybe you’ll be more, but if you keep moving forward, the discouragement stops.
Even in the most discouraging of discouragement camps.
If you wanna get a better grasp on what these stages of conversion are, I have a freebie on my website that can walk you through it. If you go to Building a Jewish Life.com and join the mailing list. It’s in the Resource Library that has a whole slew of freebies, that can help you if you’re considering conversion or building a Jewish life from scratch.
So before we go further, let’s ground this conversation in the text. After all, we’re Jews, that’s what we do. We talk about texts.
Because the Torah and the Talmud don’t just allow for conversions. They elevate them.
First, we’ve got Ruth,
the ultimate blueprint for a righteous convert.
She wasn’t born Jewish. But her loyalty, her choices, her chesed (her loving kindness),
brought her into the Jewish people.
And not just that, Ruth becomes the great-grandmother of King David, the greatest king the Jews ever had. Not bad for a convert, right?
And Jewish belief is that Moshiach, the Messiah, is going to come from the line of David. So Moshiach is going to come from the ancestry of a convert.
Then there’s Yitro, you might know him as Jethro.
Moses’ father-in-law, Moshe’s father-in-law. He was a priest of Midian
who converted to serving Hashem after hearing what God did for the Israelites in Egypt.
Another famous convert in the Hebrew Bible
is the prophet Obadiah.
He’s credited with writing the book of Obediah, which is the shortest in the Tanach.
His story is a powerful example that not only can converts fully belong,
they can become leaders and prophets within the Jewish people, and converts have throughout time.
The Torah tells us over and over again, love the ger, the righteous convert, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. It is one of the most repeated mitzvahs in the entire Torah. It is an important one.
Conversion isn’t an aberration. It’s baked into the very fabric of Torah and Judaism,
and it didn’t stop with the Bible.
Throughout Jewish history, there have been converts who changed the course of Jewish history.
Ironically, for most of our history, conversion has been extremely dangerous, both for the convert and their Jewish community,
sometimes even punishable by death.
Nevertheless, there have always been converts joining the Jewish people, no matter the cost.
Just a couple of famous ones from earlier in our history, Onkelos, I’m never sure if I’m saying that right. It’s one of those words you see in writing all the time, but you don’t really know how it’s pronounced. He converted in the Roman period.
He gave us the Aramaic translation of the Torah that we still use today.
The next is Queen Helena. Or in Hebrew, Heleni.
A queen who converted in the first century CE.
She’s famous for her generosity and for building infrastructure in the city of Jerusalem.
And fun fact, one of my daughters carries her name.
Then there’s a Abraham bin a Abraham, known as the Righteous Convert of Vilna, which is a city.
He was a nobleman in Poland who gave up a lot to become a Jew
despite mortal danger.
And his story remains powerful, especially in Hasidic circles.
Converts have always been part of the Jewish story as leaders, scholars, supporters, community members, and family.
So if anyone tells you that Judaism doesn’t allow converts, history disagrees.
As I said, Judaism is not a proselytizing religion. We do not go out seeking converts. We actually discourage them. So you won’t find massive celebrity lists of famous celebrities who converted to Judaism. But there’s quite a few.
Probably the most famous is Marilyn Monroe. I’m guessing it wasn’t an Orthodox conversion.
One of the most famous converts that I feel like is becoming less famous as the older generations pass on is Sammy Davis Jr., who was a musician and a member of the Rat Pack. He was a black man in the fifties, converted to Judaism after an experience with a car wreck.
Elizabeth Taylor converted in the 1950s.
You’ve probably heard of Ivanka Trump, president Trump’s daughter.
You might not have heard of Isla Fisher again, not sure how that’s pronounced. She is married to Sasha Baron Cohen, who is a comedian you might know better as Borat.
Dr. Laura Schlesinger, Schlesinger, uh, the famous radio host
Tom Arnold. If you watched Roseanne back in the day, like I did in the nineties, he was the husband of Roseanne Barr. And he converted around his marriage to her.
More of a deep cut. For people who may not know, there is a rapper named Shyne, and there is another rapper named Nissim Black.
You probably don’t know that Connie Chung converted to Judaism, the Chinese American journalist.
More recently, Amar’e Stoudemire, a retired NBA player who I believe is now living in Israel.
Now, let’s be real about something.
While Judaism is absolutely something you can convert to, not everything within Jewish life is. You can’t convert into being Ashkenazi or Sephardi or Mizrahi, the different ethnic backgrounds. There are more ethnic backgrounds than that, but that’s a good starter list.
These are ethnic and lineage based identities with generations of history, language, foodways, and and specific cultural experiences that have been passed down through the generations.
For example, both of my conversions were through Ashkenazi beit dins, which is a rabbinical court, which you were converted by a rabbinical court of usually three rabbis.
And the Ashkenazi experience is the most common here in the United States.
But that didn’t make me Ashkenazi. I’m not Ashkenazi. I married Ashkenazi. And so just like any mixed ethnic marriage, my husband and I both bring cultural traditions to the table. And some of those are Ashkenazi. And I do some things that are Ashkenazi, and I generally follow Ashkenazi Jewish rulings.
But I am still not Ashkenazi. I am married into that community .
I wasn’t born into that ethnic lineage.
And there are family experiences, Yiddishisms, and cultural memories that I will never inherit.
That said, it’s completely normal and even beautiful
to adopt cultural practices from those lineages when it’s appropriate to do so. Cultural appropriation is a real problem.
And honestly, that confusion, the idea that Jewishness is intrinsically linked to ethnicity and racial structures
is exactly what fuels a lot of antisemitism.
Antisemites want to racialize Jewishness.
Treating conversion as fake or impossible because they see Jews as a bloodline, not a people or a faith. They wanna believe in the superiority of genetics, their genetics.
That’s both incorrect and deeply offensive.
Judaism has always included converts.
The Torah explicitly tells us that there is only one law for both the born Jew and the converted Jew.
So while you may never be Ashkenazi by culture or Mizrahi by family, you are 100% Jewish
through your covenant, your community, and your commitment. And you’re part of the living, evolving story of the Jewish people, no matter where you started.
Now, let’s be real. There are barriers. I mentioned this a little bit at the top. Sometimes it’s racism, sometimes it’s classism. Sometimes it’s just because a rabbi is not a great human being.
If you’re in a small town, you probably don’t have access to a rabbi and a Jewish community. And as you’ll see, if you watch any of my other videos, a Jewish community is absolutely necessary. You cannot do Judaism by yourself because it is a peoplehood. We are a people, not just a faith.
And if you’re pursuing an orthodox conversion, there is even more layers of obstacles that you may face and fewer communities where you can successfully convert.
I will link up here a video about having your first meeting with a rabbi because it’s extremely nerve wracking,
but it’s really not that bad. In most cases. Your mileage may vary.
So what should you do if you’ve been told no?
If you’ve been told no, it’s not the end. Sometimes no just means not yet. Or not with this rabbi or not in this community.
You’re allowed to talk to other rabbis, you’re allowed to move to somewhere else.
And if you’re gearing up to have that first real conversation. I have the free Rabbi Meeting Prep Sheet in my Resource Library. If you go to my website, Building a Jewish Life.com and join the mailing list.
It’ll help you plan what to say, what to ask, and how to prepare.
And if you’re in a period where you just can’t take steps forward, that sucks. But it’s the reality for a shocking number of people. You can keep learning and waiting for the right circumstances to come along.
I understand the waiting. I was delayed a couple of years because I was in law school and I couldn’t move, so I just had to wait out school. It was awful. But you can keep working towards your conversion even during that time. You can be learning, you can be taking on practices. I would suggest learning more about Shabbat and starting to practice Shabbat.
You don’t have to take it on all at once. Everyone starts small. Everyone starts somewhere. You don’t have to do everything all at once. You will get overwhelmed and you will get burnt out, and you will never do it again.
If you would like a saner approach to taking on the practices of Shabbat, again in my Resource Library, I’ve got what’s called a Shabbat Menu that walks you through a very easy three step process for bringing more Shabbat into your life. And again, that’s at Building a Jewish Life.com.
So in the comments I want you to tell me if you’ve ever been told that you can’t convert,
what reason were you given?
Let’s talk about it.
