Giyur: Sources on Conversion

"Converting for Love..."

Adam Kirsch

https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-life-and-religion/186707/daf-yomi-104

Literary critic Adam Kirsch is reading a page of Talmud a day, along with Jews around the world.

The most common reason why people convert to Judaism today, I would guess, is because they want to marry a Jewish spouse. Such conversions are a sign of the amazing acceptance that Judaism enjoys in America, compared to the stigma it labored under for most of Western history. For a Christian to marry a Jew in medieval Europe meant stigmatization, isolation, perhaps even violence, as it does in many parts of the Muslim world today. For us, it is simply a personal choice, even a laudable demonstration of spousal loyalty. It was surprising to learn in this week’s Daf Yomi reading, then, that according to the Talmud, converting out of love is actually forbidden. “Both a man who converted for the sake of a woman and a woman who converted for the sake of a man,” we read in Yevamot 24b, “they are not converts.” (The Koren Talmud’s notes make clear, however, that this is not how conversions are actually regulated in practice today; as often, the law has evolved significantly since the Talmud was written.)

The Talmud’s logic seems to be that conversion must not be undertaken for the sake of any personal advantage or reward, but strictly out of belief in the truth of Judaism. That is why the rabbis list converting for love alongside other kinds of compromised conversions, such as “one who converted for the sake of the king’s table”—that is, in order to receive financial support or career advancement from a Jewish government.

The same holds true of those who convert to escape punishment. In the Second Book of Kings, for instance, we read that after the conquest of the Kingdom of Israel and the exile of the Ten Tribes, the king of Assyria imported new peoples—known as Samaritans, or in Hebrew Kutim—to populate the land. Because these new arrivals didn’t know the right way to worship God, he sent flocks of lions to attack them. Not until they learned from a priest what God required did the lions leave them alone.

The Talmud insists, however, that the Kutim who embraced Judaism out of fear of lions were not true converts. Neither were the Persians who converted from fear of the vengeful Jews who were turned loose on them at the end of the Book of Esther.

All these people, the rabbis say, “are not converts unless they are converted again at this time.” Here the Gemara makes an obvious objection: Surely those Samaritans and Persians couldn’t be reconverted “at this time,” since they lived centuries earlier. “Rather, say: Like at this time,” the Gemara clarifies: That is, at a time of Diaspora and Jewish weakness, when joining the Jewish people entails risks and no rewards. Only under those circumstances is it clear that a convert is embracing Judaism for the sake of heaven, rather than hope of benefit. For this reason, “they did not accept converts in the days of David or in the days of Solomon,” at a time when the Israelite kingdom was rich and powerful, and becoming Jewish might be considered a desirable change. Nor will converts be accepted “in the days of the Messiah,” when Jewish glory and power are restored.

How does this discussion of converts find a place in Tractate Yevamot, which deals with the laws of levirate marriage? The connection can be found in the mishna on Yevamot 22a, where the rabbis explain the legal status of different types of children. The obligation for a man to marry his dead brother’s widow—his sister-in-law or yevama—only applies if the brother has died without producing children. The levirate marriage is meant to produce offspring that will legally and spiritually be considered the dead man’s heirs. That is why a widow who is an aylonit—incapable of bearing children—is not subject to this obligation. The same holds true, we learned this week, if the dead man was a eunuch, since he would have remained childless even if he had lived.

If the dead man has produced children, it would seem the levirate obligation is canceled. But, the Talmud explains, there are different categories of children. Those produced in legal wedlock are of course legitimate, and they invalidate the levirate obligation. But what about if the dead man had children outside of his marriage, or by rape, or through a legally forbidden relationship such as incest? Do those children also count as offspring for the purposes of the levirate obligation? The answer, the mishna says, is yes: “Anyone who has a child of any kind, that child exempts his father’s wife from levirate marriage.” Even a mamzer, an illegitimate child, “is his child in all respects,” including the fifth-commandment obligation to honor his father: “And that child is liable to receive capital punishment if he strikes his father or curses him.”

There are only two types of offspring who are not legally considered true children: “a child born from a Canaanite maidservant or from a gentile woman.” The Talmud goes on to explore the reasons for this rule. Why should it be worse for a Jewish man to marry a gentile woman than to marry a Jewish woman who is forbidden to him by the laws of incest? Why is the offspring of the latter relationship, though a mamzer, considered a true child, while the offspring of the former relationship is not considered a child at all? The reason, the Gemara suggests, is that a forbidden woman is forbidden only to one specific man—say, because she is his wife’s sister—but she is permitted to marry any other Jew. A gentile, on the other hand, cannot enter into marriage with any Jew at all.

But in fact, the Gemara goes on to counter, there is a way for a gentile woman to become marriageable: All she has to do is convert to Judaism. Doesn’t this mean that she is legally akin to other forbidden women, who are not forbidden forever and always, but only under certain conditions? But the rabbis deny the parallel. “When she converts, she is a different body,” they say: Conversion creates a new legal person, who did not exist before. It is only this new person who is marriageable, not the old, gentile version of her who has ceased to exist.

Thus when a Jewish man has children with a gentile woman, they are considered not his children at all, but only hers: “Your son from a Jewish woman is called your son, but your son from a gentile woman is not called your son, but her son.” The same does not hold true, however, if the genders are reversed. The Koren Talmud’s notes cite the Shulkhan Arukh, a later, authoritative code of Jewish law, to this effect: The child of a gentile father and a Jewish mother is Jewish. Here we can see that Jewishness is inherited matrilineally, so that it is the religion of the mother that counts.

But this is not the end of the discussion. It would be easy to imagine a case where a Jewish man fell in love with a gentile woman and then she converted in order to marry him; or where a man fell in love with a Canaanite slave and then set her free so they could be together. But in Yevamot 24b, the mishna rules that such marriages are invalid: If a man is once suspected of an illicit sexual relationship with such a woman, he cannot marry her later on, because such a marriage would retroactively confirm the suspicion that he had sinned. Still, the law is not overly harsh, since “if he did marry her, the judges of the court do not remove her from him.” This is one of several places in Yevamot where the rabbis have made a distinction between marriages that are legally allowed and marriages that are tolerated in fact. The rabbis seem to have been too humane, or too pragmatic, to go around breaking up consensual marriages on technical legal grounds.

The same leniency does not apply, however, to cases of adultery. Say a married woman is widely suspected of having an affair with another man and then divorces her husband and marries the putative lover. In this case, the rabbis say, judges must intervene to separate them, since their marriage seems to confirm the rumors that they had previously had an adulterous relationship. In this situation, rumor is taken to have probative value. Indeed, the rabbis even offer a definition for when a rumor is widespread enough to be taken seriously: “At what point is it considered to be a persistent rumor? Abaye said: My mother told me: A rumor in the city lasts a day and a half.” However, a rumor can be dismissed entirely if there is reason to think it was started maliciously, by a person’s enemies. All this sounds strange from the perspective of American law, where hearsay is strictly forbidden as evidence. But then, the rabbis were in the business of regulating not just actions but reputations—particularly women’s reputations.

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Denominational Differences Regarding Conversion

by Lena Romanoff (www.myjewishlearning.com)

https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/cross-denominational-differences-regarding-conversion/

The Conservative Approach

Conservative Judaism, sometimes described as a middle ground between Reform and Orthodox Judaism, accepts the authority of the Written and Oral Law of the Torah and the Talmud and believes that adherence to these laws strengthens the Jewish community both socially and spiritually. But the movement also maintains that modern-day realities necessitate certain modification in the laws, as long as the decisions are made by authorized scholars and rabbis and supported by halakhic (Jewish law) arguments. Among the changes over the years have been granting equal status to women as members of a minyan [a quorum of 10 for prayer] and in the practice of ritual; permitting Jews to drive a car on the Sabbath or holidays in order to attend services; allowing men and women to sit together in synagogue; and altering the text of the prayerbook.

Non-Jews are not accepted as members of Conservative synagogues, nor are the children of non-Jewish mothers considered Jewish. Although Conservative rabbis understand that many converts choose Judaism for the sake of marriage rather than out of deep personal conviction, they maintain that Conservative converts emerge from the conversion process with a basic understanding of Judaism and usually go on to become sincere Jews.

The Conservative movement requires a specific course of study for the prospective convert, usually about 18 weeks, conducted in a private or classroom setting. If a Jewish mate is involved, he or she is expected to attend the course as well. The conversion requires mikveh for men and women, and brit milah for men, or hatafat dam brit [ritually taking a drop of blood] for men already circumcised. The convert-to-be then appears before a beit din (a tribunal of three rabbis–in this case, Conservative rabbis), whose members ask questions to determine the emotional, spiritual, and academic readiness of the potential convert.

Some Conservative rabbis do not accept conversions performed by Reform rabbis if the mikveh or brit milah was not required or if a certain level of Jewish knowledge was not attained. This can also become significant if a couple wants to be married by a Conservative rabbi, but the non-Jewish partner was converted by a Reform rabbi who did not require the traditional rituals. In such cases, the Conservative rabbi may accept the conversion if the convert completes the rituals that were omitted. In some instances, Conservative rabbis have not recognized conversions done under Orthodox auspices because the rabbis believed the convert failed to attain a sufficient level of Jewish knowledge. The fact is that there are few absolutes in determining what is acceptable and what isn’t. Much depends on the rabbi, the convert, and the individual situation.

From "Proselytes", Encyclopedia Judaica

Louis Isaac Rabinowitz and David Max Eichhorn

Encyclopaedia Judaica. Ed. Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik. Vol. 16. 2^nd ed. Detroit, MI: Macmillan Reference USA, 2007. p587-594.

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2007 Keter Publishing House Ltd.

In 17^th-century colonial America Jewish slaveholders, following ancient custom, converted their slaves to Judaism. A number of Black Jewish congregations in the United States are made up, in part, of the descendants of these early proselytes. During the first quarter of the 18^th century a community of German Baptists, in what is now Schaefferstown, Pennsylvania, voluntarily "Judaized." They observed dietary laws and the Sabbath, built a "schul" and a home for their hazzan from rough logs, and in 1732 laid out a cemetery. The community lasted from about 1720 to 1745. The cemetery – now destroyed – was still intact in 1885; the home of the hazzan still stood in 1926 but was destroyed later. Whether or not these "Judaizers" actually became Jewish proselytes is uncertain.

The earliest well-known U.S. proselyte was a Quaker, Warder Cresson, who became U.S. consul in Jerusalem in 1844. There, in 1848, he converted and assumed the name of Michael Cresson Boaz Israel. His American wife divorced him and he then married a Palestinian Jewess. He was a prominent member of the Jerusalem Sephardi community and is buried on the Mount of Olives.

The first incorporated Jewish missionary society in modern times, the United Israel World Union (UIWU), was established in New York City in 1944 by the journalist David Horowitz. Groups of UIWUproselytes have their own congregations in Wilbur, West Virginia, and West Olive, Michigan. Another such missionary society, the Jewish Information Society of America, was founded in Chicago in 1962. U.S. Reform Judaism has maintained that Jews have an obligation to teach their religion to all mankind and to attract like-minded non-Jews into the Jewish community. This theoretical determination was followed by the establishment in 1951 of a Committee on the Unaffiliated, by the Central Conference of American Rabbis, to develop "practical means for extending the influence and acceptance of the Jewish religion." The Conservative rabbinate declined to undertake such efforts, although it accepted prospective converts. The Orthodox remained extremely reluctant to accept converts, making stringent demands of all prospective candidates.

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Reports from 785 U.S. congregational rabbis in 1954 regarding conversions to Judaism in the United States showed that approximately 3,000 persons were then being converted annually to Judaism. The number increased yearly. In 95 percent of the conversions, an impending or existing marriage to a Jew was involved; female proselytes outnumbered males five to one.

[David Max Eichhorn]