Jacqueline Rothschild

Working with convertees

[German]

If we want to explore the feelings of people who are in the process of converting to Judaism and those who have to receive them - the members of the community - we have to divide convertees in different groups, according to their motivation concerning their conversion process.

There are a number of reasons for wanting to convert:

 - Those with Jewish parents, normally the father, but no Jewish upbringing.

 - Those with more distant Jewish family, sometimes only discovered accidentally.

 - Those intending to start a lasting relationship with a Jew,

 - Those who are in a lasting relationship with a Jew, with or without children

 - Those who have a yearning to become Jewish, because of:

 -  - a deep study and understanding of the 'roots' of their Christianity,

 -  - a sense of guilt about the fate of the Jews in history and their own families involvement in that, e.g. children of people who worked in the resistance, etc., there are more reasons and grounds in this group, too may and often individal to mention.

And last but not least

 - Those who are somehow lost in the world and seeking for another and more friendly place.

The reactions of members of the community to new and potential members are equally numerous and wide-ranging:

There can be a sense of real and heart-felt joy, when somebody enters the community,

 - While they fill the gaping whole left by the Shoa.

 - There can be joy about somebody coming in with a bit of knowledge.

 - There can be joy about a mixed marriage/relationship becoming a Jewish relationship, often followed by a Chuppah and possible children entering the schools etc.

There can also be negative feelings, such as feelings of threat, of being swamped and of inadequacy, because many converts and convertees have aquired more knowledge through learning than 'original' Jews. This is caused by the fact that an adult who learns with motivation, will often learn more and better than a child who has been send by its parents to after-school-religious education, often at times that the child really preferred to go and play with friends, an education which was normally not continued into adult life.

 - There are fears about too many 'stangers', people who don't know 'our families and our history', etc.

 - A certain 'racist' fears about too many new people 'diluting our Jewish Blood'

It is often difficult to create harmony between the strong feelings of the two groups involved, that is why a conversion is much, much more then just learning. It is about intergration, mutual understanding and incorporation of ALL the positive and negative feelings from both sides that go with such a complex inner change.

Jacqueline C. Rothschild-Frankenhuis: Born in the Netherlands 1952 and daughter of concentration camp survivors, Jacqueline C. Rothschild-Frankenhuis was a film-cutter for Dutch television until her marriage to Rabbi Walter Rothschild in 1983. She then moved to the North of England where she began to teach men and women who had decided to become Jewish – Giur. She has lived in Berlin since 1998 and has three children.