“Can someone like me become Jewish?” is a question I hear far too often from people who aren’t white.
Sometimes what’s behind it isn’t confusion about conversion requirements. It’s what someone said, an assumption they encountered, or the quiet feeling that they’d always have to explain their presence.
We need to be honest about racism in Jewish communities without treating it as inevitable. Preparing someone for prejudice shouldn’t mean asking them to accept it – or making them responsible for staying out of its way.
If the way to protect someone from prejudice is to keep them out, who is actually being protected?
That rabbi was trying to protect him. Sincerity doesn’t cancel harm. And the person asking “can someone like me convert?” was never the problem. The room is.
So the question isn’t whether non-white people can convert. It’s what we’re going to do about the room.
So here’s some suggestions for how you or a community can start changing the room:
1. Send the invitation, with a date, a time, and an address. “You’re always welcome” isn’t one.
2. Don’t assume anyone’s status based on their appearance. “So what brings you here?” is a lot more open-ended when meeting a new person at synagogue.
3. Retire “you don’t look Jewish.” It isn’t a compliment.
4. Believe a convert the first time they say something hurt.
5. Never hand someone a dirty plate, and never assume they work there.
6. When someone says or does something inappropriate, say “Why did you say/do that?” Say it flatly and wait. Silence often does the work.
7. Put converts on committees, not just in the audience.
8. Don’t ask a convert to speak for everyone who looks like them.
9. Ask converts what could use improvement, then change something because of it.
10. Don’t gossip about a convert’s background or their conversion. It isn’t community business.
If you’re a convert who’s felt this, you’re not crazy, and you’re not alone.
Comment 101 below if you want my free Conversion 101 ebook, where we talk about the realities of converting. Not just the idealized Instagram version where everything is perfect and beautiful all the time.
Transcript below.
Transcript:
A man was told he was “too dark-skinned” for converting to Judaism. And somehow it was framed as concern for his wellbeing.
If you’re converting to Judaism, you need to know something.
Jewish communities are sacred, beautiful… but also complicated and chock-full of humans, who make mistakes and are sometimes jerks.
I’ve heard story after story from converts who’ve dealt with racism during their conversion, and after of course.
Sometimes it’s being mistaken for “the help” during Kiddush, being handed someone’s dirty plate.
Sometimes it’s being told, “You don’t look Jewish.”
Men fetishizing “exotic-looking” women.
And the Shabbat meal invitations that never arrive.
The further to the left you go in the Jewish movements, the denominations, the more likely you are to find a more diverse synagogue. But diversity is not a magic disinfectant.
A rabbi can still be learned, sincere, and still wrong in a way that hurts you. They’re human, remember?
So this story really got me.
A man was told he was “too dark-skinned to convert.” Because his ultra-Orthodox community might be too prejudiced for him to find someone to marry.
The concern was that he would be unhappy and he would leave Judaism. I mean, that’s real.
The number one reason why converts leave Judaism is because their community treated them like trash.
And he understood that this rabbi was trying to protect him.
But think about what that means. Instead of confronting the prejudice, the solution was to keep him out.
I’m a Jewish convert who’s been helping people convert to Judaism for over 16 years. And the most common question I get on social media is whether non-white people can convert.
And if people keep asking, “Can someone like me convert?” the problem isn’t the person asking.
It’s the room that made them feel that way.
Comment 101 down below if you want my free Conversion 101 ebook where we talk about the realities of converting. Not just the idealized Instagram version where everything is perfect and beautiful all the time.
