One of the most common questions I get from teenagers is whether they can convert to Judaism before they turn 18.
The answer is usually no – but that doesn’t mean you have to put your Jewish journey completely on hold.
In fact, there is a tremendous amount you can do right now to learn, grow, and build a foundation for a future Jewish life. The challenge isn’t usually a lack of things to learn. It’s figuring out what is safe, appropriate, and actually worth your time while you’re still living under your parents’ roof.
In this video, we’ll talk about what conversion looks like for minors, what steps you can take before 18, and how to navigate family relationships, online communities, and Jewish learning in a thoughtful and responsible way.
Transcript below.
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Transcript:
 You would be shocked how many teenagers under 18 are really interested in converting to Judaism.
Hi, I’m Kochava. I’m a Jewish convert, and I’ve been helping people convert to Judaism since 2010 through my blog, buildingajewishlife.com.
And if you’re trying to build a Jewish life from scratch step by step, join my mailing list. I send practical resources, honest encouragement, and practical tools for helping to figure this stuff out.
So let’s talk honestly about what it means to convert to Judaism when you are not yet 18 years old. I’m not gonna bury the lead. There’s probably not anything you can do until you’re at least 18 years old.
The few people who do convert under 18 are almost always converting with a parent, or it’s an adoption. But you probably already guessed that was the answer, ’cause we’re really cautious about that stuff now. We try not to mess with other people’s kids in any topic, but especially in religion.
Can you imagine how horrible it would be and how much antisemitism would come out of the woodwork if there was a rabbi teaching some 16-year-old how to be Jewish against his parents’ wishes?
Some parents would literally believe that he was a demon trying to lure their child to hell. I’m not even exaggerating. There is a lot of spiritual warfare stuff out there.
We don’t mess with kids, and that’s before you even get to the risk of, like, sexual harassment and sexual abuse. Rabbis don’t wanna play with fire, and I cannot blame them.
And you probably get it, too, even if you don’t like it.
In some cases, if parents give consent, some rabbis may be willing to work with you before 18, but your mileage will vary on whether that is true in your community. Most of you aren’t anywhere near a Jewish community, so this is all kind of theoretical in the first place.
I’ll link up here and down below to my video about what you can do when you live far from a Jewish community. But yeah, so a rabbi’s probably not gonna talk to you. What can you do now? Know your parents. If they’re antisemites, you probably don’t want to have Jewish content laying around. It’s probably best just wait until you’re 18.
But lots of people have worked towards conversions even when their parents were not happy about it. That actually happened to me. In something that feels like it wouldn’t happen nowadays, um, I actually converted to Catholicism when I was 16. But I was growing up in the Bible Belt, so of course people wanna be Christian, and of course no one would object to that.
But what’s important to remember is that even though my parents weren’t excited about that, it, it still worked out. I was still able to read books and learn things, watch videos, celebrate holidays.
But There is a risk there. My mother was an abusive person. She’s dead, so I feel a little more able to discuss that she was not a very nice person, and she used my religious feelings against me as punishments, and some of my religious participation became part of her abuse.
So if that is a situation you are in, know that that is a risk. Would I still have done it if I had known that was gonna be the outcome? Probably, yeah. But I want you to be able to make informed decisions.
Some families are supportive, and of course, some are hostile. But for the most part, most of your families are just gonna be confused.
Let’s be honest. This is not normal teenage behavior. This is not a problem that your parents ever expected to encounter. Like, one of my oldest jokes is that, that my parents from very rural Tennessee would have never predicted in their lives that their daughter would grow up to be a New York City Jewish lawyer.
Not on the bingo card.
Your parents are probably gonna feel the same way, and that’s okay. Have some compassion for that. No one likes being surprised with big stuff. It’s pretty unsettling.
But on the bright side, what I have found is that if there was a preexisting positive relationship of some sort, most converts and their families come around to some sort of coexistence within about five years.
It’s not a guarantee, but your odds are good, but it does take pretty significant time. Five years is a long time to have a lot of really passive-aggressive fights. And you may never fully get rid of the passive-aggressive fights, but you’ll come to some sort of new normal.
And of course, all of these conversations take on completely new significance when you’re financially dependent on your parents, which may not end after you turn 18.
18 isn’t always quite the freedom date that we think it is. When you’re financially dependent, those practical realities matter.
Your job right now isn’t to force everyone around you to understand They may never understand, and honestly, that’s okay. You can still convert even if they don’t understand it one bit.
Your job right now is to just grow steadily and safely.
So what else? You can learn Jewish history. That’s a really big one. The most important history book you can read is A Convenient Hatred, which is about the history of antisemitism. Know what you’re getting into. It’s not always fun.
You could take steps towards learning Hebrew.
The younger you learn Hebrew, the easier it’s gonna be. And remember, you really only need to start with reading Hebrew. You don’t have to be able to say what the words actually mean. You just need to be able to read the print from a prayer book.
You can watch classes and videos. The internet options are just so wide now compared to when I was a teenager.
You can take that time to learn a lot about the different denominations of Judaism and find the right place for you. I’ll link above and down below to my video about choosing a denomination when you’re converting.
If your parents aren’t opposed to these things, you could start celebrating holidays in at least a basic way, taking on a few practices here and there.
You could do the same with Shabbat each week, and also with keeping kosher. You could do simple things like cutting out pork, cutting out shellfish. Those are the easy parts that don’t affect other people that much, and that are likely to be things that parents might be willing to work around, similar to having a vegetarian child.
And of course, you could start learning Jewish prayers and blessings. There’s really not a lot you can’t do before 18. The question is, how do you learn it? That’s your sticking point. Who is able to work with you, and what resources can you access?
Even if you’re doing this all on your own, I wanna reassure you, you’re not playing pretend or putting on a costume.
As long as you’re doing it respectfully.
What you’re actually doing is building familiarity and connection. You’re building a foundation of a Jewish life.
I actually know a couple of people who started the journey to Judaism around that 15 to 16 area, and they converted pretty quickly after they turned 18 because they had all of this experience for years before.
Your prior experience counts.
But here’s what I don’t want you to do. I don’t want you to get trapped by this idea that you need to, like, prove your sincerity in a bad way. Of course, you need to prove that you’re sincere in wanting to convert. What I’m talking about is when it goes too far, like when you believe that if you’re not suffering, it’s not really good enough.
Like, “it has to be hard, and it has to hurt in order to be real.” That’s not true. It can be happy and joyful. That’s fine. It’s still real.
You also don’t have to obsessively observe. Any time you’re feeling obsessive and, like, high anxiety around not doing things, cut yourself some slack. It’s a learning process, and slow and steady will build a much better foundation than, “I have to master Jewish prayer this week.”
Take it bit by bit, like the old phrase about “how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” And believe me, this is one fricking big elephant. You’re literally dealing with thousands of years of history and practice.
You’re not gonna master everything before 18. You will not stop learning the entire rest of your life.
A Jewish education should never end.
You don’t need to destroy your mental health, your relationships, or your safety in order to prove that you’re sincere.
Judaism values shalom bayit, peace in the home, and honoring your mother and father. As long as your mother and father are not asking you to do things that are illegal or immoral, you should do the best you can to respect their wishes while you live under their roof.
It sucks, I know.
There are better and worse ways to integrate these Jewish practices into your life in ways that don’t blow up your family relationships. The best way is to focus on the things that only affect you. Prayer only affects you, and that’s the biggest one. Learning only affects you. When you start doing things that start affecting the other members of the household, like kosher rules or Shabbat rules, the risk of friction rises.
So I want you to be cautious around those circumstances and try to do it in the most peaceful way you can. So let’s do it like the emotionally mature person that I know you can be. You’re not gonna be perfect at that. Most grown-ups aren’t perfect at being very emotionally mature. Your own emotions are going to be a rollercoaster.
You’re gonna be dealing a lot of feeling alone, foolish, stupid, uncertain, feeling behind, and like no one gets it, and it’s possible that no one actually does get it. But most of the time, when we feel like no one else gets it, we just haven’t found the right people yet. So I encourage you to reach out and try to find people you can connect with, even if they are not remotely interested in Jewish stuff.
Good friends can still be a great sounding board and emotional resource.
And you can return the favor on the topics that are important to them that maybe you don’t care about as much. It can feel incredibly lonely to feel deeply about something that your peers may not understand at all, and that’s only getting worse with the rise of antisemitism in recent years.
But I will assure you, you are not alone in facing those issues.
Now, here’s probably the most important part of this video. Being young and spiritually searching can make you vulnerable to people who enjoy power over other people. This is an area ripe for abuse, and converts are already an easy target for abuse.
I’ll link up here and down below to my red flags video, which that you should absolutely watch. Um, it goes over all the, like, regular general red flags that you s- can see in rabbis or other spiritual leaders in the conversion process. Converts are already so vulnerable to abuse because we have less power in the situation.
Being a minor makes you even less powerful in that situation.
So we have the obvious risks of, like, sexual abuse and sexual harassment, but you can also have people who are looking to take all your money.
Be aware of random online rabbis. First off, you don’t even know if they’re actually a rabbi or not.
Judaism is a decentralized religion. There is no Jewish pope saying, “This is a rabbi.” There are so many groups issuing certificates that you could never prove whether this is a real certificate or not, even if you saw a certificate saying, “This guy’s a rabbi.”
And I will assure you that any good rabbi will be extremely cautious in working with you.
Anyone who’s really excited to work with you, honestly, red flag. It sucks, but that’s a red flag. Um, anyone who is pressuring you to keep secrets or to not tell your parents about what’s going on, if you’re working with a rabbi, they should 1,000% want to speak to your parents and get their permission and make sure everything is kosher and hunky-dory.
You should be cautious of money grabs.
Beware of extremist spaces. Judaism is not immune to extremists. Every religion has its extremists, and these people are actively recruiting. You don’t wanna accidentally fall in with a bad group.
Do not send your personal information casually. Really know who you’re talking to. Verify as much as you’re able to.
And- Please do not uproot your life because of some person on the internet. Do not turn 18 and immediately go move to this place where this rabbi is. Anyone pressuring you to do that? Sketchy.
A legitimate Jewish community and Jewish leader should make your world feel safer and more grounded, not more isolated and dependent.
No one should ask you to give up your critical thinking skills. No one should ask you to ignore the warning lights that go off in your gut.
And anyone who promises you a conversion done solely online, that is a lie. They’re just trying to get your money. I’ll link up here and down below to the video about online conversions.
Some aspects of a conversion can be done online, but every legitimate Jewish conversion requires an in-person community commitment. You need to be living inside of a Jewish community and connecting with people, going to events, attending synagogue, all that good stuff. Anyone who tells you differently is lying because they want your money.
And I do mean that. That is across denominations. Every denomination agrees on this premise.
But any random rabbi can hang their shingle and say, “I’m doing conversions.” That doesn’t mean that anyone’s actually going to recognize it and accept it as valid. That’s your concern.
And if you’re wondering what you shouldn’t do during the conversion process, especially online, socially, or with rabbis and communities, watch this video next, What NOT To Do During Conversion.
