Building a Jewish life is one thing. Talking about it with other people is something else entirely.
If you’ve ever frozen in a conversation, said too much, or walked away wishing you’d handled it differently, you’re not alone. These conversations can be surprisingly hard – especially when family dynamics are involved.
This post will give you a few simple scripts to help you navigate those moments with more clarity, without losing yourself in the process.
If you want help navigating these conversations in your actual relationships, I’m hosting a small group workshop where we’ll build scripts tailored to your real situations.
We’ll cover what to say, what not to say, and how to set boundaries without losing yourself.
It’s capped at 10 people so everyone gets personal attention.
If that kind of support would help, you can find the details here 💙
Transcript below.
Transcript:
Building a Jewish life from scratch is hard, but it gets even harder if you have confused or upset family members looking over your shoulder.
If you’ve ever frozen when someone asks you about your Jewish life or walked away thinking, “why did I say all that?” I am gonna give you a few scripts you can actually use starting today.
Hi, I’m Kochava. I’m a Jewish convert and I’ve been helping people convert to Judaism since 2010 through my blog, Building a Jewish Life.com.
Unfortunately, one video can’t tell you how to solve these problems in your relationship step by step, but it can give you a starting point, and most of the time, the starting point is the hardest place. But if you would like help personalizing scripts for your real relationships, I’m running my first small group workshop in the month of May, 2026. It’s all about how to navigate these family conversations while you build a Jewish life. You can find out more at the link in the description.
Make sure to stay to the end for the script with the most universal use.
So most conversations fall into one of two camps. There is the freezing and like “deer in the headlights” look, and afterwards being so upset, thinking of all the things you should have said.
And the other is over explaining and talking way too much and trying to convince people of something. Either way, you probably end up replaying conversations for hours, and that’s no way to live your life.
So hopefully this video will be a short one where I can get you in and out with some quick scripts to help you get through these conversations.
Situation number one, they’re curious, but being a little invasive. You need more personal space here, or you honestly just don’t know how to answer their question because you’re still figuring this out yourself. “ I am still figuring out what this looks like for me, but it’s important to me.”
Situation number two, when you get pushback or skepticism. “ I know this doesn’t make sense to everyone, but it’s something I’ve thought about carefully.”
Situation three is how to set a boundary. Tell them what you are and are not willing to do. “I am not really up for debating this, but I’m happy to share how I’m approaching it” or whatever boundary you wanna put in. “But I’m happy to show you some things,” “but I’m happy to send you an article,” “but I’m happy to get back to you at a later time.”
Situation four. The repeated questioners who just will not shut up. “I’ve already shared what I’m comfortable sharing. I’m not gonna keep revisiting it.”
Then last is our universal phrases for “what the hell do I say in this uncomfortable conversation?” “Why do you ask?” And “what makes you say that?” When in doubt, these two phrases will get you through. And if someone is acting in bad faith, the more innocent you can sound when you say that, the more it hopefully causes them to feel shame that they should feel.
Kind of relatedly you can use. “Why would you say that?” Remember that the innocent and chipper approach is necessary for maximal effect.
Yes, I do put the aggressive into passive aggressive.
So these scripts will help in a pinch. But the hard part is what happens next. Handling these conversations is unfortunately nuanced and specific to you and the person you’re talking to. Even if you figure out a good conversation strategy with one family member, it may not work with another family member. Sometimes you have to go back to the drawing board.
But if I can reassure you at all, in 95% of cases that I have seen where Judaism becomes a sticking point in their relationships with their family members, it always comes down to “what relationship did you have before Judaism entered the picture?”
Because I’m a former theater kid, and a foundational principle of playwriting is “an argument about the curtains is not about the curtains.” An argument about Judaism is not actually about the Judaism most times.
It reveals cracks and faults within the relationship that already existed. So if you had a half decent relationship beforehand, you can probably recover a half decent relationship after, but it may take several years. I would say about five years is pretty common. Possibly sped up if children are involved because people do not want access to children cut off.
But if you had a bad relationship beforehand, this may be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. And that’s not really about Judaism, it’s about the relationship that came before that.
So either way, I don’t want you blaming Judaism for this because this fundamentally isn’t a Jewish problem. It’s a relationship problem, and whatever is underneath those curtains for you and them.
So if you’re navigating complicated family relationships around your budding Jewish life, I’m running small 10 person workshops about how to navigate those relationships. We’ll walk through what to say, what to not say, how to set boundaries, and how to have these conversations without losing yourself.
‘Cause that’s the big risk of these conversations actually: that you’ll betray yourself. That you will make yourself small and insignificant. And go against your values and principles just for the sake of making peace. But that’s not peace, that’s effacement. That’s just erasing yourself. The link is down in the description if you wanna join us.
And next, you should watch my video, what NOT to do when converting to Judaism.
