My short answer to why I converted is: “I don’t do human G-d” and if they want the long answer, I’ll Email it to them when it’s not Shabbos. Rather than WRITING your name down… just get business cards-duh! I have a good memory so, I don’t bother. However, people don’t hold by the eruv in Brooklyn so you can’t use business cards there. It’s best to have an easy to remember Email address and just give that out. While in the process, I was “aspiringjewess@yahoo.com” That’s pretty easy, no?

y one big tip when you go out to synagogue on Friday night is to write your name and number down on several pieces of paper before you go and keep them with you, because you are likely to want to contact many of these people again and you have no other viable way if doing so unless you give them your pre-written name and number. No really, believe me on this one, this is something you want to do. Your memory is not that good and neither is theirs. Plus if you are single and meet the love of your life, wouldn’t it stink for them to not have any way for them to contact you again so you could get married, have kids and live a long, Jewish life together?

You are also going to get asked the question by total strangers, for the rest of your life “Why did you convert?”, or commonly “What made you convert?” like someone had a gun to my head and forced me to do it. On some levels this is a deeply personal and therefore rude question which no stranger has the right to go asking you, but I forgive that due to the natural curiosity that born Jews have at finding out you are a convert. It’s one thing to be a baal tshuva(sp?) who is re-embracing Judaism, but it’s even more hard-core to want to go from being whatever you were before to Jewish altogether. The answer to “why?” can also be a long one which you probably don’t have time to elaborate on during a short personal encounter, so have a canned and disarming answer at the ready. My personal one is “Jesus showed up in a vision I had one night and told me to do it, plus now I get to wear this cool little hat.”. In a similar vein, I had a hassid tell a goy female friend of mine, when he declined to shake her hand, “I’m saving myself for marriage.”. Another good answer for those who are capable of conspiracy-related satire (and not everyone is) is that you wanted to find out the secret number that all Jews know which they can punch into an ATM anywhere in the world and withdraw as much money as they want. Not all Jews will get that this is something many conspiracy theorists and some anti-semites claim we have in our possession- I wish! If anyone out there has it that secret number, will you please e mail it to me, because they forgot to tell me what it is.

Another thing you are going to get asked is “What (religion) were you before?”. In my case, I can say that truthfully that I was not attached to any religion before I converted and that my parents left that choice open for me when I was young so I could freely choose a religion, or not to be religiously involved, when I was ready to later in life. But for those who decline to answer this or who don’t want to get into it right when they were asked, you can always say “I was Catholic but the incense at the services, you know, just irritated my eyes after I started wearing contacts, so I switched.” or “I was in a Satan worshiping cult, but all the midnight black masses we had were making it tough to get up for work on time the next day.”.

Jeff

Please check out my post: “The Worst Guest in the World” where I talk about some of the issues with manners that come up when you’re a convert. I write a great deal about what it’s like to be a convert navigating Jewish waters.

I loved your joke about the “seeing-eye people” and agree that it would come in handy. I also have an online conversion group, which I started shortly after completing my conversion. The link to that is available on my blog.

right now. I have 19. Also, there’s a new facebook group that I joined.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Jewish_Conversion_Orthodox/

Nice idea but my family, career and mortgage are all here in Tokyo. Another rabbi will come along and our local community requires someone friendly to potential gerim due to the facts on the ground. Plenty of nice jewish boys meet nice japanese girls here… And then there are the oddball “walk ins” like me and the wife.

Oh BTW I just made it through my first Yom Kippur. We went last night and all day today and did the fast. Going w/o food is alot easier than going w/o coffee & cigarettes.

As for psychological exams, whadda buncha fooey! Like there are no crazy FFBs?