Can you convert to Judaism if you’re vegetarian or vegan?
Mostly, yes.
But there is one small corner of the Jewish world where you may be told that eating meat is expected, at least on Shabbat and holidays.
Before you panic, let’s talk about where that idea comes from, how common it actually is, and what vegetarians and vegans should know before beginning the conversion process.
Transcript below.
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Transcript:
 Do you have to eat meat in order to convert to Judaism? Mostly the answer is no, but there are exceptions.
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 one of your biggest questions is, “how long does this conversion process take?” I made a free Jewish Conversion Timeline Cheatsheet. Just join my mailing list down below.
So my vegetarians and my vegans, generally, yes, you can convert to Judaism. This is only a question in certain groups of Orthodoxy, so if you’re converting Reform or Conservative or something else, you’re fully in the clear.
You do not need to eat brisket to become Jewish, although some would argue it helps.
So the problem comes in some Orthodox conversions. If you are converting in an ultra-Orthodox community, you may be told that you have to eat meat at least on Shabbat and holidays. It comes from teachings in the Talmud about how we should be “happy” on those days, and happiness is defined as certain practices, such as drinking wine and eating meat.
And we’ve changed that for people who deal with, for instance, alcoholism or otherwise don’t want to drink alcohol. Grape juice is fine.
But some still hold that “meat” means meat, whereas most Orthodox thinkers interpret that section as “these are examples of some things that make many people happy, but it is a non-exhaustive list,” and that therefore, if eating meat would make you unhappy, you definitely shouldn’t be eating it on Shabbat and holidays.
So this will be a problem for the smallest sliver of people who watch my content, but hopefully it will reach in time the one person who really needs it so they aren’t surprised by it when their beit din, their rabbinical court overseeing the conversion, suddenly tells them they need to be eating meat.
My advice would be, if you are a vegetarian or vegan, I would generally avoid converting in an ultra-Orthodox community for this reason. They also might have more concerns about you socially not fitting in if you don’t eat meat, because social cohesion becomes more important the further to the right you get.
But I don’t want the comments section turning into a bunch of bashing, because really, let’s all admit that everyone to the right of you is a fanatic and everyone to the left of you is a heretic, so we don’t need to be fighting over who’s heretics and who’s fanatics.
Many born Jews are vegetarian or vegan, and it’s getting more popular all the time.
And if you wanna eat kosher, a lot of the vegetarian and vegan brands are certified kosher.
Your biggest struggle for vegans is going to be finding baked goods and pastries that don’t have egg in them. At least, that’s my experience.
Jewish culture is absolutely meat-heavy. It’s not so much a thing now, but 15 years ago when I was converting, if someone was invited to Shabbat dinner and said, “I’m a vegetarian,” it was not unprecedented to hear the response, “Oh, good. I’ll make chicken.”
But to their credit, Jews are not the only group that did that. That also happened to me when I was vegetarian and living in France.
But there can be the concern of feeling left out or like you’re too different. During conversion is usually not the time when you wanna stand out. You already feel so exposed all the time anyway.
Why add one more thing to the list?
But I’ve seen huge movement in the last 15 years since I converted. It’s just not that weird anymore, even in orthodox circles.
Of course, your mileage will vary in your specific community, and it does also get a little bit harder the more to the right you go into, like, the ultra-orthodox space.
And helpfully, if you’ve developed the discipline to be vegetarian or vegan, going kosher will be a little bit easier for you than a lot of people, on average. There are exceptions, I’m sure.
And even better, if you go fully kosher, a vegetarian or vegan kitchen is way simpler to manage.
If you’re a vegan, your life can actually get easier eating kosher.
In fact, if you are not going kosher, I would still recommend using kosher certifications to help you figure out that some products may be vegan without being labeled that. Because in a nutshell, the kosher rules divide foods into three categories: meat, dairy, and pareve, which is kind of like neither. Um, eggs go in the neither pile, so that’s something you have to be concerned about.
If it’s got dairy in it, you’ll see the certification, like an O circling a U, and it’ll have a little D beside it for dairy. That has been really helpful in finding secret dairy inside products that I wouldn’t have expected to have dairy in them. It is a little bit of overkill, though, because sometimes that D is really for dairy equipment, which may or may not be something that would bother you as a vegan.
Jewish tradition contains serious ethical discussions about animals and food. I’m not the best person to speak on this, but there is a lot of Jewish philosophy on ethical eating, and Judaism puts a lot of priority on respecting animals.
There are even some thinkers who believe that when Mashiach, the Messiah, comes in the future and we have peace on Earth, they believe that we would actually all be vegetarian in that instance.
Looking at verses like, “The lion lays down with the lamb,” the lion’s not eating lamb anymore, and humans won’t be eating the lamb either. I’ve found a lot of people know that teaching, but a lot of people don’t, and the ones who don’t get really surprised when they hear it. So that could be a fun party trick to bring out at Shabbat dinner parties if you’re willing.
Probably the most famous Jewish vegetarian thinker was not vegetarian to my knowledge. His name was Rav Kook. He was one of the most influential rabbis of the modern age. He served as the first Ashkenazi chief rabbi of what was then called British Mandate Palestine. He died before the founding of the modern state of Israel.
He wrote A Vision of Vegetarianism and Peace, where he argued that humans are allowed to eat meat, but it was not their spiritual ideal. And he was probably the biggest thinker who believes that during the Messianic era, we will all be vegetarian.
Probably the most famous Jewish vegan right now is Rabbi Shmuley Yanklowitz, and I know that name is hard to spell, so I will put a link to his website down in the description below.
I don’t know a whole lot about his work, but my understanding is that he’s one of the leaders on a program to create a new hechsher, a new kosher certification, that takes into account all the parts of the food industry in order to determine whether something is kosher or not.
Are the animals actually being treated in a respectful way? Are the workers being paid in accordance to the laws of the Torah, and other things that don’t normally go into the kosher certification process. Honestly, I think it’s a great idea.
There have been so many scandals out of kosher slaughterhouses over the last two decades that I’ve been around. But people like cheap meat, so nothing ever changes.
If you’re still figuring out the bigger picture of “what does the conversion process look like,” watch this next. It’s called The Ultimate Guide to Jewish Conversion Step-by-Step.
