My Story as a Convert to Judaism

it was almost in my mind a confirmation of well if the Orthodox people aren't going to accept me then I don't want to be a part of them anyways my name is Eliana Aviva Duffy I'm from Camp Lejeune North Carolina and it's a military base my father is an officer in the Navy so I was born there and lived there until I was 18 and went to University can you tell us a little bit about what life was like growing up growing up it was very privileged in the sense of I grew up with my feet in the grass going to the beach on weekends during Summers was very Carefree in the sense of a childhood growing up in rural North Carolina at the same time I and my my parents divorced when I was seven and my father was in the military so he moved around a lot when I became 12 or when I got to the age of 12 years old uh my mother started introducing my brother and I to a church growing up we never really had a like a presence of God in our house we knew obviously at Christmas time that it was celebrated for um you know Jesus's rebirth then our birth then and whatnot but and Easter was like Easter baskets and chocolate and candy and uh getting together for lunch with family it wasn't until my my mom got us involved in a church where there started becoming an influx of like Bible talk um religious aspects of Christianity and that sort of thing let's talk about your experience at the church um did you connect to it and what sort of aspects did you like most or which pots did you perhaps not like as much so I connected to the community and the family aspect the church that I was brought into was something called um a denomination of the free Holiness Mission church and it was started by a family the patriarch of the family was the pastor and my mom is a single mom you know very very much struggled to make ends meet and any help or any sort of community that she could give us was very important and vital for her and during the first year being there I remember having very happy memories of joining the um Saturday night suppers or the Sunday night suppers or sometimes they would do Christmas parties um Easter get-togethers so that was the most exciting aspect of the Community there did you take any religious practices homo was your Christianity something cute just participated in through the church it was very much fragmented um once we kept going and my mom felt like we understood what she was trying to achieve or what she was trying to introduce us to um my brother and I I remember coming home and she's like okay we're gonna pray before supper and I was like what and and because at that point it was very much on Sunday You're religious on Sunday you go to church you do Bible study and then you come home and when you come home it's like you kind of forget all of that stuff you know at the church and um that is something that I think was one of the first flags that I had a problem with it didn't make sense to me even as a young child at 12 12 years old didn't make sense to me that I was religious only one day during the week and then the rest of the week it didn't come into every aspect of my life let's talk about your level of exposure to the idea of Judaism and Jews growing up in a small town did you have any knowledge of what a shoot looked like or what Judy's immense none at all uh now obviously with snowbirds moving down to Wilmington uh North Carolina it's a very popular place for older people to come and settle in their retirement age there are there's a heavier Jewish population there uh where I was raised in Jacksonville which is offset of Camp Lejeune they're there were no outwardly Jewish people um my concept of what a Jewish person was was actually what I read in Holocaust books so when I was nine years old my stepmother is very much into World War II and the Holocaust she actually introduced me to Primo Levy's survival in Auschwitz and when I was nine years old I read it for the first time and my concept of the Jewish people were people that were very very great and then unfortunately persecuted but I was too young to understand why and I think many people now are still asking why but as a nine-year-old ten-year-old at that time I felt very much upset because I felt connected to these people but at the same time I was so confused because how am I connected to the Jewish people I'm not a Jew but I felt like I was and I had no one that I could talk to about this there was no Rabbi there were no um uh people that I felt safe with to speak to at my church where I could ask them I feel like I'm connected to the Jewish people and feel like I would be that honored and valued and answered seriously so would you say that your knowledge of the Holocaust was your sort of entry point to learning more about Judaism and Jews I would say it was the starting point because it got me learning about um how the Jewish people are different but through the lens of the final solution and Germany and Holocaust Holocaust so it's a very I don't say negative um intro but it was not a positive intro in the sense of it's people are full of life and they have the Toyota and they have khasidis and they have incredible holidays if your first exposure to Judaism was associated with the Jews being different and singled out for that difference and persecuted because of that difference why then the father interest or why then the connection to such a people why would you want to be Associated or Explore More such a nation so there are two things that come to mind one is I felt an Indescribable magnetic pool within me that uh made me feel like this is where I was ultimately going to end up interestingly enough on Facebook in one of the months it does like the you know this this time 10 years ago right in high school if you count back the years I was 16 at the time and I was having a conversation with um a couple of girlfriends and we were talking about what we wanted to be when we grew up and was like I want to be a dentist you know there's like I want to be um a softball coach another one and then I say I want to be a Jew why I felt compo like compulsed to put that on Facebook I don't know that's another question for a different day when you were exploring your Judaism more through Holocaust stories Etc you mentioned you were nine years old at this point and you had lots of questions but no one to ask them to can you do you remember any of the specific questions you had or what thoughts or feelings it brought up in you um and if you did ask anyone these questions what sort of guidance or answers were you getting if any so the only person I had to ask questions to was my stepmother who has done a lot of reading and educating herself in the Holocaust World War II it's a hobby of hers I guess if you could say she thoroughly enjoys military history and I would ask her why is this happen like why did this happen and she only had technical answers for me in the sense of well Germany felt um as if what happened after World War one was unfair and so that's how Hitler came to power answer such as that nothing that addressed the spiritual questions which left me with an even deeper feeling because now looking back I realized that the questions and the void I was trying to fill was a spiritual void but no one was in my life who could help me fill that spiritual void and I also didn't feel comfortable really exposing a part of myself to anyone because I didn't even know what I felt myself did you ever think to turn to any leaders at church with such questions I did turn to them but only from a Christian standpoint like how do we know that yoshika is the Messiah like Messiah how do we know that this Bible is the true Bible I had questions such as that and the answers that I was given were well because we're told that this is so or because this is what we have so we know it's true and at 12 13 years old I kind of laughed because I was like but how and it was a very uh naive question but unfortunately certain people in the church certain Sunday school teachers and whatnot because they didn't have an answer to give me they wanted to have an answer just a One-Stop fix answer and they didn't have that and so since they didn't have that they weren't uncomfortable they weren't comfortable with saying I don't know and so they came up with an answer that they thought would pacify me and then when I came back with more questions it was like aggravating because they just wanted to squash the whole conversation altogether and that wasn't good enough for me after these sort of interactions where you weren't getting satisfactory answers with your spiritual questions did you keep going back to church we'll keep looking into Christianity for more or was there ever a point where you thought you know I've explored this until the end and there's not much more I can find here I have to say one of the big turning points was we had this person who would come to church and they said that he could speak in tongues and they claim that certain people are prophets and they can speak in tongues which is to this church a very holy language and a sign that someone has um the Holy Spirit upon them and I remember being very scared when this person would ever come into a church it would come randomly no one knew when he was showing up but he would come in randomly and when he did it was a whole crazy spectacle um he would be talking gibberish I called it gibberish at the time everyone was like he's talking so holy but um he was talking gibberish and he was very he was very scary to me because he he seemed out of control it was only later that I realized and found out from other people that he was actually a crack addict going through withdrawals and at that point I was like this is not what I want for my future and he was someone who the church welcomed him in they didn't they never turned anyone away and so it wasn't like they could prevent him from coming you know it would go against their beliefs which that church held true to not every Church does but that church was accepting of anyone who came so he would claim that he could come in and speak tongues and I remember there was one particular day where it was very just um emotionally disturbing and I caused a fight purposefully with my mother saying I'm never coming to this church again this is crazy no and she kept asking me or she kept telling me you are in my household you're coming to church you are in my household you're coming to church there was nothing of like I understand how you're feeling I understand why you feel this way you're you live with me you're coming to church it's good for you I want you to be raised in a religion you're coming and now looking back as a mother myself I see she her only um a way to give me a connection to God was that way and I'm very grateful to her for that I don't want it to come across as negative in any way um but it wasn't a way for me to connect because it didn't feel true for me in order to keep a peaceful home I had to go to church on Sundays but it wasn't I I wasn't required to participate so I would go I would sit in the pews I wouldn't sing I wouldn't do anything I would basically turn off for two hours every Sunday it was my dreaming time and then we would go home we would have lunch and it would be a restful Sunday it wasn't until I went to University at 18 and I moved out of my house that I shunned off religion altogether because the only way that was given to me was a way that I didn't connect and through that process I built up a lot of frustration towards God but also towards uh family members for putting me in a situation I felt like didn't serve me or helped me at all so at this point University age you said you were turned off by religion um so how then did you move into a space where you were you know more curious about Judaism because it sounded like you had a negative experience with religion and it felt sort of imposed on you um so then what what caused that turn around I was a Bachelors of Arts major I have two degrees one in German languages and literatures the other in political science and I had to take an intro to religions course part of the prerequisites for humanities and Bachelors of Arts so part of that class was going to a place of different worship and writing a paper on it essentially on your experience and in the University Town that I went to there was a reform slash conservative synagogue there was a mosque there was a Buddhist temple and then obviously churches but because I grew up in a church I couldn't go there so I decided to go to the synagogue and how was your first experience at the synagogue so it was interesting because I remember it was Pace it was Passover and it was very uh it's a very small group because most people were away for the holiday or um didn't didn't come and I remember not being able to understand anything they were singing they passed out um like English transliterated uh I don't say brochures but I guess like song books and I remember thinking I feel at home but at the same time I don't know anything that's happening let's just figure it out that's interesting that you fell at home in in such a foreign place um I assume you'd never been to a synagogue before before then what do you think made you feel at home being in a place where I felt connected to a people that I already felt a connection to helped um as I continued to attend and sort of become a part of the community then I felt like I was tapping into that hidden part of me um sounds strange explaining it because it felt so natural uh but at the same time I wasn't Jewish so I was still an outsider and that had to be addressed so I remember going to the rabbi a female Rabbi at the time and I asked her I said I feel like I'm supposed to belong to this people but I'm not and she goes okay so what are you thinking about doing and I was like well I'd like to convert and at that point that was my only exposure to Judaism I saw through like sex in the city for example you know picture uh videos of like Hasidic Jews or like Orthodox Jews Charlotte herself went on a conversion path so that was my like um a multimedia exposure besides Schindler's List and The Pianist you know Holocaust aspect and I I thought that what I was pursuing was based on Torah and based on what Hashem said at Mount Sinai what God Said at Mount Sinai and I remember she pushed me off for a couple of times that summer as is customary and then finally we agreed to meet and she actually showed up and we started having a conversation and what that would look like and that path would essentially be for a year reading a book or two each month meeting with her once a month discussing what I learned how it would impact my life how it would change my life and at the end it would ultimately culminate in going to a coach a kosher Mikvah how has your experience of the conversion was Judaism what you expected did you have a couple surprises I would say what surprised me when we got to a topic of cautious was learning that milk and meat shouldn't be separate learning that shellfish and insects were prohibited but then going home and saying okay I'm keeping kosher but none of my calim none of my vessels or utensils were um immersed in Mikvah I still ate shrimp I enjoyed cheeseburgers but then at a certain point I became a vegetarian so I was like that solves everything I've got it figured out but I would still have shrimp and I realized at the time going through um there's a little bit of a disconnect and when I approached the congregation or my like my friends in the congregation the rabbi it was mostly like this is what you're supposed to do it's up to you if you do it which is a very Jewish answer and I remember thinking okay it's a choice and I remember thinking for right now I'm in a student apartment with people who aren't Jewish even though I'm on my path to becoming Jewish as I as I thought I was um for me it was mostly a thing of well when I get to my own house with my own family I'll start keeping it this way and it didn't click in my mind that already there was a disconnect but I was so thirsty for some sort of religion some sort of connection to God that and I felt like I found it in this conservative reform uh show that I went to that it didn't matter because I knew eventually one day I would have what I was supposed to have and what I was supposed to have would be a beautiful Jewish Family keeping kosher maybe even Shabbat were there any Jewish teachings or values or ideas that Drew you in beyond the practical application that What attracted me to uh to Judaism was being called up to the Torah which I've been caught up to twice interestingly enough um but in the sense of that there is a a book that's read throughout the entire year and then when you get to the end of the year you start again and so through that I already saw that if you learned something one year it might be expounded upon in the next year but then you might learn something completely different in the following year so the the emphasis and value placed on education was something that spoke very highly to me because growing up I didn't grow up in an educated religious environment someone decided that they wanted to start a church so then they bought literature from a place that they felt would be good for their church and then it was taken from there there was no formal education um that was provided to any of the Sunday School teachers or to any of the community leaders it was mostly self-taught and self-led whereas in Judaism we're also self-taught and self-led but there are also there's also an emphasis on Higher Learning and a value put to that so that was something that spoke to me and my practical side as well as my emotional side you mentioned Arya you experienced a bit of a disconnect in your initial experience of Judaism how do you go about navigating that and eventually I assume um you know solving that disconnect eventually I went through with my conservative conversion um and I sat through the formal based in process and went to a conservative Mikvah to immerse and was given a certificate which interestingly enough I still have to this day just it's like a Memento of that part of my life and at that point I felt I had achieved what I had set out to do I was Jewish I could keep kosher I could my version of kosher I keep my version of kosher I could light Shabbos candles and I was also very involved in making challah for coblet Shabbat services on Friday night at that point I moved to Germany and lived in a city called cologne Kun for those who speak German or Yiddish and there was an orthodox synagogue that was about 10 minute walk from the apartment that I lived at and I went one Saturday when shabba's day and tried to go in well if you go to any con initial any synagogue in Germany you have to register beforehand for security purposes and you have to present ID and it has to be a pre-approved process before I didn't know this I'm the American that's coming in from you can walk into anywhere you go and you're accepted and it's great to have you here amazing thank you for coming so when I arrived at the synagogue um I was like I'm here for for services and they go okay did you tell us that you were coming before I said no and at this point I was caught off a little bit by the coldness because I've I was very much convicted in my sense of I'm Jewish and I'm a Jewish woman I'm trying to come to synagogue and I was told well and I was explaining to them yeah I just converted and they go oh how they asked questions and at the time looking at the time I thought oh interesting they're very much focused on my journey and kind of why I've ended up here now looking back I realized totally they were screening me and putting me through vetting me through their own security process and they're like where did you convert and I say well in North Carolina what synagogue oh it's the show called congregation Congregation Beth Shalom it's a conservative reform synagogue and they go okay we see we're sorry to tell you but you're not Jewish and unfortunately we can't let you in today at another time we would be able to let you in once we go through a security process and I was very taken aback because already I had a little preconceived notion of what Orthodoxy was in the sense of They didn't accept anyone unless they had an orthodox conversion and that was actually spoken about through my conservative process but it was approached in the way of well if they don't accept you then you don't want to be a part of them anyways and at the time it worked because I didn't really see that I was going to overhaul my life and make it into what it is now um but that was the initial shock and so I said okay I'm not accepted that the Orthodox synagogue I'll see if there's another community that is in the area and there was a liberal in Germany they call their conservative reform traditional synagogues liberal communities so there was one in the area and I said great I'll go there did you'll experience trying to go into an orthodox um synagogue and them turning you away did that not turn you off at all I'll say yes it did turn me off and it was almost in my mind a confirmation of well if the Orthodox people aren't going to accept me then I don't want to be a part of them anyways so that's what caused me to essentially go to the cons to the conservative Jewish community and once I was there I felt like I was finally accepted and so I had that acceptance that I needed that social acceptance and religious acceptance and it didn't cause me to search for anything more at that point I felt accepted and it was almost as if the uh the Orthodoxy part just kind of fell away didn't really matter at that at that point so what did cause you to search for a little more eventually um so I remember I it was that tishray when I started going to the liberal synagogue and when I throughout the couple of months of attending I remember it came to be around Hanukkah time and I felt like this gnawing feeling inside of me I didn't really enjoy going to the services so much um anymore it's I was asking questions of certain community members and they themselves didn't know which was fine but I felt like there was more so I but at the point at that time I was I wasn't going to go back to the orthoc synagogue in Cologne I had and I just wasn't going to do that so I decided that Passover that April I was working for a family in Germany at the time as an au pair and uh they had a break I had a break also um so I decided to go to Antwerp which has a very huge because it is like close to the community and I remember thinking as I booked the ticket I just want to go and be amongst visibly Jewish people and so I got there I arrived at the train station I remember seeing a Hasidic Jew with very long pass rushing past me and I was like okay this is what I was looking for and as I was in the city I connected with an old student or university student colleague who also studied with me during my first year in Europe at University in Germany and he was pursuing a music education at the Antwerp School of musical Conservatory we met caught up and he goes you're Jewish now right and I didn't really know what to answer to him because it was very my answer was going to be very technical and I knew he wouldn't get it so I said yeah and he goes great amazing I know someone who grew up Jewish I don't think they're religious anymore but I'll put you in contact with him maybe he'll introduce you to people and I said amazing let's do it and that's how I met my friend David who grew up in the satmar community and then actually left um the community to study at the Antwerp music University and what did he tell you about Judaism so I met my friend David who grew up satmer which is a small Ultra orthodox Hasidic branch of Judaism very observant very strict in all of their observances and for him that was very constrictive and wasn't something that he wanted to pursue in his adulthood and he was very confused as to why I would want to become Jewish because that was all that he knew and that was something that he was running from and we met in the middle because he wanted what I had which was freedom in his eyes um the ability to do whatever I wanted wear whatever I wanted study whatever I wanted and I wanted what he had which was from how I saw it a an entry point into a very warm and exciting lifestyle and God was also there and we met in the middle he introduced me to a Chabad couple in Antwerp by the name of yasi and homie Weiss and I remember having my first ever Shabbos meal Friday night there I like candles we walked to their house did the traditional shouting up to the window so the child would throw down the key in a oven mitt and then opening up the door I thought this was all fascinating and really cool and when I was there um we were exchanging pleasantries the wises were known for always having very interesting people at their Shabbos tables and they did a lot of reaching out to the people who grew up in the satmer OR Gare or Bells communities but at some point decided that they didn't want to be a part of those communities any longer but still wanted to have some sort of semblance tea it is kite to do to being Jewish and would go to them to have Shabbos meals and the rabbits in um she pulled me aside and I remember very vividly her asking me what am I doing there I said I'm here for a Shabbat meal and she goes nope I don't mean that we're happy to have you here what are you doing in Germany I said well I'm pursuing my dream of always living in Europe and she goes why why do you want to be in Europe you don't belong in Europe and at this point the thoughts going through my head we're like whoa who is this person I'm pursuing a life dream of mine and she's never met me before she doesn't know what I've gone through doesn't know anything and she's telling me that I don't belong here which was true but at the point I was very stubborn in my conviction of I needed to be in Germany and she told me I grew up in Crown Heights in Brooklyn in an incredible Community incredible place I can't wait to go back there but my husband and I are here on a shulhas and we're here on a mission that the Reba gave to us and we're here for a purpose and that's to help others connect to Judaism while you're in Germany doesn't make sense you're there because you want to no your purpose isn't there and at the time I felt very taken aback and when I speak to her friends now they're like whoa that doesn't sound like her at all but she knew what my nishaman like what my soul needed to hear and she was the ultimate trigger point for that and was what caused a Catalyst of events to follow after which put me here in Brooklyn what would you say were the next steps in you and Johnny after meeting this Chabad woman and her triggering this thought process to maybe explore the option of no longer living in Germany and pursuing your live stream so after that trip I went back to Cologne and any single free opportunity I had I found myself going back to Antwerpen it was an hour by high-speed train um and I had friends that I knew there obviously people that I knew there and I remember one of those times coming back in I think May or June can't remember the exact month um I remember seeing an advertisement for a Birthright trip and it just so happened that my summer break from my family of being an au pair also coincided with one of the birthright trips so I went after I I think it was after Tish above that year or coincided directly with Menachem Ave and I went to I went to Israel on Birthright and extended my trip by three days three four days so I was in Israel for a total of two weeks and when my friend David found out that I was going to Israel he said if you're going I'm also going I was like you're a student how are you going to afford it and he's I remember he said my parents find out I want to go to Israel they're going to pay they want me to come back to yadushkite so he met up with me in Israel and took me to my first ever full Shabbat experience which was in tellstone which is a very um close-knit community and very very strong in their observance of Shabbat so they have an arm like a they have a traffic gate that they put up on Shabbos so that no one comes through and drives into the community I felt like we were transported to another uh alternate reality they took in Shabbos early and I remember vividly after they prayed Kabbalah Shabbat it was the sun was setting over the hills of um Jerusalem and I saw all of the men coming back and just being taken away by the beauty of it um of the moment seeing so many men they were singing in the streets welcoming Shabbos and coming home to have their Shabbat meals with her family and I knew at that moment that what I had finally been searching for was found and that I had finally found truth now my question was how to get to that truth so it became very apparent after that trip that I needed to leave Germany I couldn't stay in Germany because the conversion process would have been way too difficult um in a foreign language also at a foreign country with visas and everything so I moved back to North Carolina with my parents and while I was applying for jobs I became I came in contact with the Chabad in Wilmington North Carolina moshiitsak and Honolulu and they allowed me to come on Saturday morning so I would drive down and I would attend Services then I would stay for their lunch and I would end up making a dollar with them and then driving back after Shabbat Saturday night and that was my taste and my experience of Shabbat in North Carolina while I was waiting to figure out what community I was going to eventually I got a job in Brooklyn um with a non-profit a Jewish non-profit and at the same time was pursuing an orthodox conversion with the rabbinical Council of America and would you say once you moved to Brooklyn and you went through your Orthodox conversion that you felt at peace and you had found what you're looking for I knew that what I found was what I was looking for but I want to make very clear that when I first moved to Brooklyn I didn't come to Crown Heights immediately and even when I did end up in Crown Heights I hesitated calling myself Chabad because I knew what calling myself Chabad or affiliating myself with the Chabad movement would mean in the sense of becoming a hussed of the labavator Reba as I would view myself at that point was something very serious and um shouldn't be taken lightly so I wanted to be sure entirely that that decision for the rest of my life would be something that I felt was for me and felt at peace and I remember that shavuas um so after I came after I moved to Brooklyn I went to Israel for two weeks and I found myself looking for holidays oral products and I stopped and I asked myself I said why is this important to me and I realized and I learned how of Israel is a very specific Min hug of Chabad and I found I found myself asking do I feel connected to it is it something that was put upon me because of the apartment I was living in was it something that was put upon me because of the community where was it coming from and I realized that it tied back into my learning and exposure in Crown Heights and that it was something I wanted to keep and ultimately um through that soul searching and then spending even more time in Crown Heights I realized that there was a connection to the Reba and to the Chabad movement and that I was finally where I was supposed to be you mentioned Aliyah that there was some difference of opinion between you and your mother when you started asking more questions about Judaism and going to church how did that change over time yes so with my family it was something that I didn't really include them in like my journey to Judaism I didn't really keep them involved it was just kind of like this is what I'm doing and the reason why was because I didn't know how to bridge that Gap because I myself didn't really know in the beginning what I was presenting to them uh when I did my conservative conversion I didn't learn enough as I felt to be able to to show them the Beauty and the um what really drew me to Judaism I would say everything came to a head when I got engaged and as things happen when they're not really appropriately addressed they sort of bubble up and come to a head so when my husband and I got engaged we were making the wedding invitations and I remember having a conversation with my mom saying the wedding invitations are going to have my Hebrew name on it and she goes you're not going to make any with your English name and I said no this is who I this is who I am and we're sending these to a lot of people in the community and um at that point I had tried multiple times to sort of get her to come to come around and see and and whatnot um but it was something that she had to come to terms with on her own and then once that happened then we could sort of move forward mutually so I remember that being the breaking point in the sense of she realized that this was uh wasn't a fad it was for good and while the English name that she gave me is always going to be a part of me and who a part of who I am who I am now is also a new person and is also connect connected to that little girl that she raised once we had that conversation once my husband and I got married and then Hashem we thank God we welcomed a baby boy that helped really to ISA to smooth over any sort of complications that maybe would have been there because she saw how happy I was she saw how I have a beautiful family she wants to be a part of that and although she doesn't understand it and it's not something that speaks to her she realized very quickly that if she wanted to be a part and be involved then she would have to do you know come to terms with it on her own and she did do you have a message that you'd like to share my key takeaway from my whole journey is that no one has to be perfect so a teaching that I grew up with in the Christianity Faith was that we were sent here and we're not perfect we should be striving for perfection and we're here we don't know why that's how it was presented to me and what I took away from it and something that I learned through going to Seminary listening to classes by rabbis is that we aren't perfect but God wants us anyways and we're here to make this into a place where he wants to be and that is something that really I think everyone is looking for they want to know that no one is perfect and while we have those Tendencies to want to be like the most perfect person and the best and you know 100 on everything we aren't angels and we are here for a mission and part of that mission can be pretty messy sometimes and can be pretty imperfect but that's okay and that's precisely why God wants us to be here [Music] foreign

Channel: Jewish Learning Institute

Views: 75,496

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Id: WxQHDt08y80

Length: 43min 54sec (2634 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 26 2023