Anyone who really, really knows me was not surprised to receive the announcement of my conversion to Judaism. When I very seriously told my two best friends from college about my decision last fall, they started to laugh. "Janine," they said, "you have been...
When I decided to convert I wondered often, "Would I ever really feel Jewish?" I never could have anticipated that the death of my father, who was neither religious nor Jewish, would be the event that would take me there.
I had married a Jewish man several.
I just had the privilege of representing the Reform movement on a panel "Conversion: Who Is the Gate Keeper of the Jewish Nation" at the Israeli President's Conference in Jerusalem, Facing Tomorrow. These are my opening remarks:
The time has come to finally...
Originally published on Chicago Carless
Four months ago my rabbi said to me, "Unless you're the greatestfaker ever-and I don't think you are-how will you know when you'reready?" It was a segue into asking me whether I felt the time was rightto take the next...
On the Shabbat before Purim, many congregations will read Parshat Zachor (Deuteronomy 25:17 - 20). In the three short verses of this parshah, we are commanded not once but twice to recall a dangerous attack on our people: we are told to remember (Zachor) what the Amalekites did to the Israelites after they left Egypt and not to forget (Lo Tishkach).
