My Father Is Jewish. And I'm Converting.
A Patrilineal Jew on conversion and finding a Hebrew name for herself ... and her dad.
This is an essay by Nora Berman, a writer and director living in New York. Read more about her work here. Our piece here is about Nora converting to Judaism, even though her father is Jewish. Traditionally, Jewishness is passed down through mothers.
Typically when a convert receives their Hebrew name, their Hebrew surname is automatically “bat/ben Avraham v’Sarah,” a son or daughter of Abraham and Sarah, the original father and mother of the Jewish people.
Patrilineal Jews — someone with a Jewish father but not a Jewish mother — can fall into a strange gray area.
Growing up, I was Jewish-looking enough to experience the occasional casual antisemitism, yet had no idea of how the faith actually worked.
I knew that Grandma Rose would light a candle any time she wanted to send good luck to someone: a new job possibility, a crucial basketball game for me. Yiddish was peppered heavily throughout both my grandparents’ speech, and they nearly fainted when from a distance it looked like I was wearing earrings in the shape of a cross.
We had a Christmas tree. My parents studied meditation with Buddhist monks and nuns at a local dharma center. And I grew up earnestly saying that I was “half-Jewish.” But my grandparents never once stepped foot in shul, nor celebrated any Jewish holidays, and my father was a proud Hebrew school dropout.
And yet — and also — my great-great grandparents on my father’s side, Malka and Chaim Liebman, had survived pogroms in Bessarabia and emigrated to the United States in the early 20th century with their nine adult children and spouses. It’s hard to think of something more Jewish than that.
I was without a doubt a convert. But I wanted to honor my Jewish family in taking on my own Hebrew name and commitment to Judaism. I wanted to honor my Jewish father. But he had never been given a Hebrew name.
During my conversion process, I procrastinated asking him if he would take a Hebrew name, worried that my newfound observance was somehow a rejection of the way I had been non-Jewishly raised.
To my delight and relief, he said it would be an honor.
And so we had a Zoom naming ceremony for my father, so that I could take his Hebrew name as part of my own.
I helped to compile a list of possible names for him, along with their meanings. Initially my teacher supervising my conversion suggested “Baruch” as it’s similar to my dad’s English name Bobby, but the “ch” sound in Hebrew is not for beginners. Dad pretty instantly was drawn to “Ezra,” liking that it meant “help.”
As I sat watching my father recieve his Hebrew name, I couldn’t help thinking that I was watching a reverse l’dor v’dor — from generation to generation — take place.
***
There are many patrilineal Jews who do not choose to go through a formal conversion process, and I respect and affirm their Jewish identity. For myself, having not been raised in a Jewish home, I was eager to immerse myself in it.
I downloaded apps to know when Shabbat started. I enjoyed the bemusement of our friends as we ‘sold’ them our chametz for Passover, and then purchased it back. I switched to turkey bacon and began eating kosher-style, all with a sense of joy and enthusiasm that mildly terrified my husband. It is a notoriously true stereotype that converts end up becoming, shall we say, more enthusiastic than their born-Jewish partners, and I was proudly in this category.
However, as Nellie noted earlier in her excellent piece on Jewish humor, being a Jew is a lived experience. Only so much of it can be taught.
I’ll never forget hanging out with one of my best friends who is Jewish when she was packing her room to move. I was showing off what I thought was professional Yid-level knowledge (“did you know you have to wait six hours after parmesan cheese to eat meat?”) when at some point I knocked a pile of books, including a copy of the Tanakh, to the floor. Instantly my friend picked up the Tanakh, kissed it, and placed it back on a more stable surface, all while I stood woodenly uncertain of what had happened.
Her actions were automatic, and bespoke a deep groove of repetition and ritual. You know, tradition. She explained to me that you must never let a Torah scroll, siddur, or any holy book touch the ground.
That night I went home and sobbed to my then-fiancé that I would never be a real Jew because I hadn’t grown up with it. How could I learn something that was instinctual lived experience? Would all of these traditions ever feel natural, or was I always going to feel like I was faking it?
As a regular convert (by “regular” I mean a Jew-by-choice without any Jewish lineage), it is expected that you are taking on all of these new rituals for the first time. You have not been handed down Bubbe’s challah recipe perfected over generations, as you don’t have those generations to draw from. As a patrilineal Jew, I sometimes feel horribly in the middle. I have the genes to back up my Jewishness, yet none of the minhagim (customs).
Something my conversion teacher Phil taught me, however, penetrated all of the tsuris (frustration, trouble). “Grace in our faith,” he said blinking over Zoom, “is action.” Judaism doesn’t spend much time thinking about what happens after we die. It matters what we do in this life, right here, right now. I thought of the entire conversion process I was undertaking, all of these choices and actions I was taking with my life to make it a Jewish one.
I will never know exactly why my Jewish family lost touch with Jewish observance and community, although my guesses involve pain.
The steps I am taking to live a Jewish life and fulfill mitzvot are a manifestation of the divine grace our faith teaches.
In proofing this essay, I checked with my husband if the word “dor” in “L’dor v’dor” was from the same root as the word “or” which means light. I thought it was a beautiful idea to express the meaning of “from generation to generation,” but alas Hebrew is confusing and it is not the same root. (I could write a whole essay in defense of learning Hebrew, especially for converts, but I’ll save it for next time).
The family really is the central locus of much of Jewish ritual and life, and as of yet our only children are two cats. Particularly in a pandemic without guests at our Shabbat table, it feels a little silly belting out “Sholem Aleichem” when it’s just the two of us, or reciting the full kiddush when I forgot to buy wine and instead I’m saying the bracha over mezcal we found in the liquor cabinet.
As clumsy or awkward as I have felt at times in the conversion process, I am profoundly happy to take on new rituals.
What is l’dor v’dor for me, that I would want to pass on to the next generation? I grab my head in awe/shock/delight like my dad and grandmother. I will light candles for my loved ones, in hope of good mazel. I can say the blessing for the first blossom that blooms after winter. I light candles each week for Shabbat. As I sat watching my father receive his Hebrew name, and make my own preparations to immerse myself in the mikveh (ritual bath) and complete my conversion, I felt more sure than ever of my soon-to-be Hebrew name: Shoshana Merav bat Ezra.
Shoshana for Rose, my grandmother, and Merav for Malka, my great-great grandmother.
Merav also means “abundance”, for that, I can only pray, will be l’dor v’dor as well.
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I hope you all are having a meaningful passover.
Until next week, Nellie
Quick comment on being a real Jew. So many Jews grew up with a Judaism of rules and restrictions that made no sense to them. For that reason, they discarded it because they saw no way to integrate it into the kind of life they wanted. This was our second year of largely zoom sedarim because our children who came to be with us are not vaccinated yet. We had relatives from across the US including one friend of mine from grad school. This was the first seder she had attended since she was a child. We deconstruct the rituals and do a lot of singing. She said it was the first seder she understood and hence could enjoy. I don't think you are at as much of a disadvantage as you think. Thanks for your wonderful and inspiring essay.