A Jewish Soul – Conversations on Conversion with Amy ter Haar

Amy:  Why should I be a Jew?

Who says you should be? Did I say you should be? Did a Jew tell you that you ‘should’ be a Jew? No way. No good Jew would tell anyone he or she should be a Jew. 

First of all, proseletyzing is not something we do as a people. We barely know how to spell the word in the first place. 

And to be completely frank, Amy, you don’t look Jewish at all. People would stare at you in synagogue. 

Why be a part of a people that has been expelled, exiled, and almost exterminated?  I should add here persecuted, ridiculed and a few other terms. 

According to Jewish law, if your Mom is Jewish, you are too. Automatically. To be a member of the tribe, you just need to be born into it. You don’t really have to believe in Judaism. You can be a card-carrying atheist and still be Jewish. Even if you say you’re not Jewish, pig out on Yom Kippur and change your name to Jones. Even if you eat seafood and bacon. On Friday night. To us, you’re still a Jew. Maybe not a model Jew, but that’s a different can of gefilte fish. 

On the other hand, in order to convert to Judaism, you need to learn all about the Jewish religion. You have to learn more about our religion than most Jews ever know or want to know. You have to embrace the Jeiwsh religion, that’s a fact. Is that what you want? Another religion, as if the one you have now isn’t enough? 

Amy:  What does it “feel” like to be a Jew?

That’s a good question. Being Jewish for me is first of all, being different. I grew up in a largely non-Jewish city in Canada, Ottawa. I knew from an early age that we were different. I remember that in kindergarten we had to pray to Jesus every morning. I knew that I wasn’t supposed to do that. I also knew that I couldn’t eat some of the foods offered to me at friends’ houses. 

I grew up in an anti-semitic environment. Some of my friends hated Jews although they had never met any. One friend of several years was surprised to find that I was Jewish. “How can you be Jewish?” he asked me. “You are so nice.”

Our neighbours were French Canadian and Catholic. I babysat their daughters as young children, and we had excellent relations with the parents. But when one of the daughters was a teenager, she once asked me “How come you are such good neighbours, and yet you killed Jesus?”. I never got over that one. 

So the first answer to your question is “different”. The second answer would be ‘responsible’.  Not for the death of Jesus (it was two thousand years ago, and probably the Romans had a lot to do with it), but for maintaining a tradition of several thousand years, for becoming decent human beings, for never forgetting the millions of Jews murdered for just being Jews. 

Another difference of course is that Jewish males are normally circumcised when they are eight days old. So we have a kind of lifetime ‘membership’. In that specific sense, we don’t know any better. 

Finally, being Jewish for me is like being left-handed. I was always left-handed and always will be. It’s part of my genetics, my upbringing, my character. Not a matter of choice or denial. Rather a matter of being. 

Amy:  Does being Jewish mean that I have to be friends with people I don’t like?

Only if you like being friends with people you don’t like. My Mother, may she rest in peace, who died exactly four years ago today (according to the Hebrew calendar), would have said the same thing. I’m quite certain. 

On the other hand, Jews feel a kinship with other Jews everywhere. It’s natural for people to want and need to stick together, when they have suffered millenia of persecution and disenfranchisement. 

What is the Jewish vocabulary of faith? What words and meanings?

As opposed to religions like Christianity, faith and belief are not criteria for membership. As I explained, you don’t need to believe in anything to be Jewish. Just to be born to a Jewish Mom. 

The most important word would be “Shalom” which has multiple meanings – Hello, goodbye and most importantly, ‘peace’.  

As the prayer goes, “May the Lord bless his people with peace.”  Amen. 

The second would be the “Torah”, the parchment scrolls containing the five books of Moses, painstakingly copied by hand by scribes according to an ancient tradition. 

What does a Jew look like?

In Israel, there are millions of Jews who have millions of faces. Big noses, medium noses and pug noses. Light complexion, dark complexion. With and without dimples. Lots of facial hair (mainly the guys), and not so much facial hair. Handsome, beautiful, and less so. Redheads (we call them ‘gingis’), blondes (many of these dyed), brunettes. A real melange. 

But to be frank, Amy, and no offence taken, you REALLY don’t look Jewish.