I didn’t build Bayit Builders because I wanted to start a community. I built it because I needed help that didn’t exist.
When I was converting to Judaism, I was overwhelmed, isolated, and constantly second-guessing myself – with plenty of information online, but most it was contradictory or “my way or the highway.” This video is the story of how that experience turned into Building a Jewish Life and eventually Bayit Builders: a structured, human approach to building Jewish life without doing it alone.
If you’ve ever felt lost, behind, or unsure whether you’re doing this “right,” this one is for you.
If this resonated, you’re welcome to take a look at Bayit Builders. Doors open to new members January 11–15. You can learn more and join the waitlist here.
Transcript below.
Transcript:
I didn’t build Bayit Builders because I wanted to build a community.
I didn’t even mean to start the blog that I started in 2010 when I was a Jewish conversion candidate.
I set out to find help. Help that was not there. And it was dumb that there was no help there because there was thousands of people who were interested in living more Jewish lives, and there were very few resources out there.
And the ones that were out there were contradictory, judgemental, ” my way or the highway.”
And the more that I learned about the Jewish community, the more I learned that’s not accurate. There was a lot of ways to be Jewish. Even within the Orthodox, there is a wide variety of practice.
Yet you get very flat portrayals of what “Jewish” looks like online, and I didn’t see myself in any of those people.
Notably, there wasn’t a single woman doing this work.
It was all rabbis and none of them had converted either.
I didn’t have a synagogue, I didn’t have a rabbi, I didn’t have a community.
So I made my own community, on Twitter of all places. And I kept asking questions and getting all these random people around the world to tweet their answers to me. People were so nice about doing it, but crowdsourcing is a really bad way to learn Judaism.
It also opens you up to some really crappy people on the internet.
I thought it was ridiculous that this is what I was reduced to when there was no reason to reinvent the wheel with every single person who wants to be more Jewish.
So I started writing down some of the answers I got so that if someone else had the same question, and I shared them so that the next person who had the question would Google it and actually get an answer instead of a confused stare back from the computer.
And it just kind of spiraled from there. Became way bigger than I ever intended it to be.
I moved on in my life: finished my conversion, got married, had some kids.
And here and there I would pop in and do some more blogging just because I cared about the people who were there. But that’s not a job!
But even now, all these years later, there’s still so few resources for people who are converting, and by extension, other people who are building a Jewish life from scratch. And it’s still ridiculous and it still makes me mad.
There is a lot of infrastructure for people who are born Jewish and rediscovering their Judaism. There is not infrastructure for people who are converting and who are not Jewish now.
There is no reason for so many people to feel lost, alone, and second guessing themselves. I went through it, it sucked. I wanna make sure that no one else goes through that again.
And somehow that is now turned into my full-time job.
” Internet influencer” was not on my bingo card when I was in law school. Really thought I would be a lawyer right now. I mean, I am a lawyer, but not practicing.
And in short, that is the story of how Bayit Builders came to be. There was a need for a place like this and no one else was doing it, so it might as well be me. I mean, I’m thankful that we’ve been going six months now and so far everyone’s really happy. Could not have predicted that myself. I was so nervous.
Honestly, I still am.
But it’s a good place and people are finding a lot of meaning there, and a lot of connections and a lot of help for the things that they need help with, that no one else in their life gets.
So if any of this sounds like you, maybe Bayit Builders is the right place for you too.
Because I am just one human being with a chronic illness and young children, I only open the membership three times a year so that that way I can spend the time in between focusing on the people who are in the group.
And your next chance to join is January 11th through the 15th You shouldn’t have to figure this out all alone.
Let’s build your Jewish life, step by step, together.
You can learn more or join the wait list at Building a Jewish Life.com/membership.
